I am a Law and Order junkie. I love all branches of the show and my favorite was L&O: Criminal Intent. I love Bobby Goren’s character. I think he is a television classic.  Lucky for me that there seems to be an episode of some branch of L&O running 24/7.  Several months ago I re-watched the L&O: SVU episode about the young lady who has an intellectual disability and was gang raped by three boys. She gave consent. We’ll save the legal ramifications of this for another day. The episode prompted me to have another discussion with Rachel about people trying to trick her or touch her private parts. The discussion moved along and I told her if anyone at school ever took her into a bathroom and tried to do something to her she should scream as loud as she could.  Very matter of factly she said, “Mommy, there is no yelling at school.” I tried to reason with her that it would be okay in such a case. She looked at me with great disgust and even a bit of disappointment and said, “Mommy, screaming at school is against the rules.”  Life is very black and white to Rachel.

Today, we had “Mommy Math.”  Remember math is not her favorite thing.  We are working on money and how you can figure out how much money you get back. She has little interest in grasping the adding up what it costs and then deducting it from the amount on your debit card or the cash she has. This is partly our fault. Even though she has to do chores and gets a small amount of money for these chores, she really probably believes there is a money tree and that’s where the money comes from. Finally amidst my exasperation I said, “Rachel if you go to the movies with your friends, you need to be able to pay for it and figure out how much money you should get back.”  She did her little shoulder shrug and gave me a “you are so silly mommy” look and then she said, “My friends will help me figure it out mommy.”  Rachel believes almost everyone is her friend. She would help them so of course they would help her. No worries – silly mommy.

I decided this deemed a new approach. I want her to use her calculator more. She has a huge one on her iPad. She’ll be getting a phone in the near future and it will have a nice calculator on it. I was demonstrating to her how just today I pulled out my phone and figured out the best price on tortilla chips. Another look that I really can’t describe and she says, “It is cheating to use your calculator, mommy.”  “Why is it cheating?” She launched into a dissertation about how she did math really well at school, and then I heard the names Baby Sally and Marisol.  I was done. I gave up for the day.

More “Mommy Math” to come.