We've created a monster.

I've mentioned in the past that we use marble jars as a form of reinforcement for the kids. Good behavior = marbles earned, poor behavior = marbles lost.  Earn a certain number of marbles, they earn the right to buy a toy. The first time, they had to earn 25 marbles, then 30, then 35, and so on.

The boys have lately become obsessed with the Skylanders video game on the Xbox. They like the game well enough, but they also actually like just playing with the characters as little action figures (since the game consist of actual figurines that you place on the "portal" so they can come to life in the video game). They also like reading about the Skylanders and their various powers and histories in their Skylander book.

At any rate, because of this newfound obsession, the boys have been saving their earned marbles up in order to purchase new Skylander characters.

Okay, put the Skylander/marble topic aside for just a moment, and let's talk about Travis's timed math work at school. He's a whiz at math, but has a hard time focusing well enough to buckle down and get the timed work done in time. His teacher has been sending it home for him to finish.

I've been timing him, and pushing him to get 3 rows done in 1 minute. He's come close one time, but keeps getting distracted and hasn't yet met this goal.

Tonight, I told him that if he accomplished this goal of 3 rows in 1 minute, I would award him with a marble.

Mom, what if I got 3 rows done in 30 seconds?


Well, that would be amazing and I would give you 5 marbles.


What if I got.....um....what's one-half of 30? Oh wait, I know. What if I got 3 rows done in 15 seconds?


Well, then you are a super-amazing genius and I would give you...uh...50 marbles!


That would mean I have 82 marbles!!


Yep, that's right. [Needless to say, he currently has 32 marbles.]

So.....[thinking]....what is 12 minus 5? Um....7, right? So that would mean that if I got both Stump Smash and Drobot, I would have 7 marbles left.


At this point, I was lost. I wasn't sure what he was trying to calculate, I didn't know why he asked what 12 minus 5 was, and I had no idea what he meant. I know that Stump Smash and Drobot are both Skylander characters that he wants, but beyond that his statement was meaningless to me.

I asked him to clarify.

He explained.

If he were to somehow earn those 82 marbles, used 35 for Stump Smash, used 40 for Drobot, he would have 7 marbles left.

I actually had to pause, re-do the math in my head, and confirm he was right.

It took me longer to confirm it in my head than it had taken him to make this deduction.

I'm still not entirely sure why he needed to know what 12 minus 5 was, the only thing I can think of is that he first calculated if each toy were worth 35 marbles, thus 35+35=70, and then the difference between 82 and 70 is 12, and then he knew the 2nd toy would be worth 5 marbles more, so 12-5=7.

Ironic for a kid who is struggling with math at school, eh?