kitchen table math, the sequel: birthday & a vacation

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

birthday & a vacation

Christopher & Andrew turned 13 today.

And tomorrow is vacation.

Tonight, after C. blew out the one candle that was still lit after our wait for Christian to get Andrew (back) to the table, I said that my birthday present would be having Christopher tell me what 10% off twenty-five dollars was.

Christopher started to say, "Irvington," the perseverative in-joke he and Christian swap back and forth 50 or 60 times a night. (The joke is: Jimmy, asked a question, will often answer, "Irvington." What'd you do this weekend, Jimmy? "Irvington!" What day is it, Jimmy? "Irvington! Irvington!" Hence Christopher, when asked What is 10% off twenty-five bucks also answers "Irvington!" which is just as hilarious the 10,000th time he's said it was the it was the first couple thousand.)

Anyway, he started to say, "Irvington," then stopped mid-word. Which is not easy to do. I know this because Georgia Mason's Stereotypic Animal Behaviour: Fundamentals and Applications to Animal Welfare 2nd Edition says so.

Then he said, "It's $2.50, and the price is..... $22.50."

Back on the 25th!


hyperspecificity in autism
hyperspecificity in autism and animals
hyperspecificty in the rest of my life
hyperspecificity redux: Robert Slavin on transfer of knowledge

Inflexible Knowledge: The First Step to Expertise
Devlin on Lave
rightwingprof on what college students don't know
percent troubles
what is 10 percent?
birthday and a vacation

2 comments:

Tracy W said...

Yayyy!!! Congratulations!!!!

Of course you've given the poor boy years of material for therapy too :)

Anonymous said...

USA girl team won 1 gold, 1 silver, and 3 bronze medal in the 7th China Girls Mathematical Olympiad.

http://www.msri.org/specials/gmo