November 16, 2017 by Amy
The best of both of us
Tonight was one of those nights where I am reminded once again that my darling child consists of a combination of genes from both me and her father. It’s freaky when that happens.
M and I have a good, solid, strong marriage based on the fact that our differences are very compatible. We complement each other’s weaknesses. We are polar opposites in so many ways, and it works beautifully for us. He can eyeball a cart full of groceries and estimate the final cost, within a nickel, including tax. I can’t tell you what I paid for a gallon of milk last weekend. I can, however, turn those groceries into a variety of delicious meals for our family, whereas his idea of “seasoning” any dish includes throwing in a couple of finely-chopped jalapeno peppers and hoping no one notices. (He actually did that once. In the peas. They were disgusting.)
It’s fun to watch both of our halves manifest themselves into the little girl who lives with us. Her leisure time activity tonight is a perfect example. After completing her homework and practicing for her piano recital, before doing her chores for the night, she sat next to me on the couch with her laptop and created, from scratch, just for fun, a math rap.
At the beginning of the school year, her math teacher had the class work on brief math raps about whatever concept they were learning at the time. Zoe had a blast with it, and was one of the few students who agreed to stand up in front of the class and belt it out. Her teacher was delighted, and Zoe was hooked. She’s created at least one more before tonight that I know of, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a whole file of them on her OneDrive.
Tonight’s math rap – which is exactly what it sounds like: a rap song about mathematics – covered fractions. Specifically, the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of fractions. She must have worked on this thing for an hour, and after M returned home from his business dinner, she performed it for us. The beat was jamming, and she not only rapped how to do these math functions, she rapped example problems. She was a veritable fractionista.
M and I just look at each other in amazement. The math crap is all him. I mean all of it. She didn’t get one single DNA math strand from her mother. This is a good thing. I take credit for the linguistics part, because you bet your ass her rap was not only catchy, but it rhymed. I’ll also take credit for the rap appreciation part; M does not so much care for rap music while I adore Nelly and his brethren. (I wanted to put spinners on Zoe’s stroller. M said no.)
Zoe told me recently that some people tell her she looks exactly like her mother, and other people tell her she looks exactly like her father. I tell her she looks exactly like Zoe, and that she is uniquely perfect in her own way, flaws and all. But I do love when she shows flashes of her parents.
Editor’s Note: today’s image has to do with a love all three of us share: trains. We’re mad about them…the big ones and the small ones.
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