Fun with math

Have you ever tried to contend with a stubborn ginger?

Mark likes to get an accusing tone and tell me what his math teacher said and point out how it implicates me as a bad teacher.

Things like, "Mr. Francom said that he wasn't going to teach us how to do the distributive property because we learned it in 6th grade."

"You learned it in 6th grade too," I told him.

"Nope."

"Remember?" I said, "It's like dealing cards?  You distribute the number to everyone?"

"Hmmm." I could tell it sounded familiar but he's not one to concede anything.

Ever.

So we sat down and I showed him again.  Then we had a full fledged battle.

I told him how to do a problem and he refused to accept the answer.  Refused. 
He said, "Mr. Francom said you do it a different way."

I said, "I promise this is the right way to do it."

And we sized each other up like duelers in a Western.

It was early on a Saturday morning and Emma and Adam were still sleeping.  (My sons and me--we don't have sleeping in skills.)  I said, "You can ask Dad or Emma when they get up."

"OK," he said, sliding the graphite back into his mechanical pencil.  He was done with me and my shoddy math skills.  "I'll wait for them."

Which is his way of saying that he knew they were smarter than me.  (They are both smarter than me but they occasionally need my help with Word Bubbles, so there's that.)

When Adam came downstairs, I happily handed over the math homework question to him.

He sat down with Mark and said, "Your mom is right.  This is how it is."

Mark started to argue but then Adam restated his position in that convincing Dad Way that no one in the history of ever has been able to refute.

"OK?" Adam said.

"OK," Mark said morosely.  And he completed his assignment.

I need a Dad Voice.  I'm waiting for one to show up on Zulily and I will buy it immediately.