Some math facts

How many nines are 63?
What's 200 seven times?
What's 999 plus 999?

This is what's thrown at me every time we get in the car. Sam starts asking math question after math question in rapid fire succession and expects me to shoot an answer back just as quickly. Sam is fascinated with numbers and numerical stuff. This is not a new love. He always has been drawn to them and the magic they can do. Before he was two he was aware of numbers and that there were different ones and they could be combined in different ways. I remember when I was pregnant with Teresa and was told by my doctors to carry my 33 lb one year old as little as possible. It took us years, years! to walk across a parking lot. Not because of his slow toddler amble but because we had to stop at every single licence plate and "read" it. I knew he could differentiate between numbers because if I "read" one wrong his chubby little finger would go back to the number so I could read it correctly. He would jab at it until I got it right. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days when all that was required was for me to correctly identify which number he was pointing to.

Nowadays it's much more complicated. He has since learned all about addition, subtraction and multiplication. He is beginning to delve into division (which I've always sucked at). I'm proud of how quickly he can manipulate numbers in his head but the problem is he thinks I'm capable of this as well. Oh, and that I enjoy it as much as he does to boot. Sam is not happy with the math facts sent home from school. 12 plus 15, 18 take away 7...he's way beyond that. He like to work with three digit numbers. And I'm sucked into this game. Car rides have become torture since the constant quizzes from the back seat began. "Mumma, whats 983 +215?" Sometimes he'll throw me an easy one and use a clean 400 or a simple two digit addition problem. Other times he gets me breaking out in a sweat when I have to multiply or divide. I often dodge the bullet by claiming I can't do math because I need to concentrate on the road. I'm such a wimp. Maybe I can attach a calculator to the dash?