This is Ethan's idea of fun ...

So we were in the basement today; I was sewing and Ethan was playing. Somehow we got talking about subtracting larger numbers, and I started demonstrating on the whiteboard we have downstairs. Ethan knows and understands about the tens place and the ones place, so I was showing him how to subtract each column to get the total.

He was enthralled with the concept. He promptly asked me to give him some practice problems. When he finished them, I showed him how to check the answers by adding the answer with the smaller number; if they were the same as the larger number his answer was correct. So then he wanted addition problems as well. Next he wanted some of each.





About that time Alex woke up from his nap. As soon as I said I was going to go up and get him, Ethan ran to pull the baby swing over so that Alex could "watch his big brother." Because, you know, most seven-month-old babies are fascinated with mathematical computations. Well, in this case, Alex is at least fascinated with Ethan.



And they happily entertained each other for quite some time.





Of course eventually it turned into an elaborate game that involved us being secret agents, getting messages from bad secret agents, something about the number of boxes of dynamite needed to blow up specific buildings, and Ethan proclaiming things like, "Haha! We'll foil their plans!" I didn't quite understand the whole thing. I'll leave you to form your own opinion about whether that was because he wasn't making a whole lot of sense, or because he's brilliant and my poor frail mind can't keep up with his.