The New Math

A day late, I went to the local bookstore to pick up the last in the Harry Potter series. I'm kinda of the camp that wants to see Harry cooked. Not that I don't like Potter or hope that in his imaginary world, he lives to see a ripe old age, but his doing in would be a true finality to the series. Come on, don't we all wish on some level that Rocky ate it after Rocky (the first movie)?

So anyway, my 6 year old daughter accompanied me on this mission. She wanted to get a princess coloring book but got completely sidetracked by a Klutz activity book on how to draw a cat and a My Little Pony sticker book. Tough decisions I know. Well, the cat book was about $10 and the pony book was $7 dollars. (I rounded up.) Anyway, she was using some birthday money and the frugal girl that she is, she wanted to know which one she should buy and still have the most money left over.

"The cat book is ten dollars and the pony book is seven dollars. Which one costs more?" I had seized on the learning moment.

"Well, I'll get the cat book because it costs less."

"Wait a sec, which is more, ten or seven?"

"Seven is more than ten, Mommy."

Not wanting to give her the answer, we went through counting all the way up to 10 and I asked again, "which one is less, honey, ten or seven?"

"Ten is less than seven." She was solid in her thinking by now.

"Let's think about it this way, if I were to give you just seven dollars or ten dollars, which would make you happier?"

She chewed on that one for a little while and then answered quite astutely, "I'd be happier if you gave me eleven dollars."

Turned out that she was getting confused because seven and eleven sound alike, but I thought that her answer was pretty good anyway. It was accurate to say the least.

She ended up getting the sticker book and has been pleased as punch. I have a feeling that I'll still have to look for a Barbie princess coloring book.