Boy Rhymes With Joy...Girl Rhymes with......

In case you are new to my posts…

Frank and I have two children, the older one, Scott, 13, is a dream child.

Scott was such a blessing that we couldn’t wait to have more children, we prayed and prayed (among other things…) and when praying and other things didn’t work, we went through IVF.Twice.

And got Hannah. Hannah is now almost six years old.

The fact that I prayed so much (among other things…) begged, pleaded and would’ve sold my soul to Satan (or my mother...or my trainer...or my 7th grade Science teacher...)for this child, then, at the end, empty my bank account all while getting around 300 painful shots, well…

That should’ve told me something about this child who was coming.

Ten and a half pounds of huge, demanding baby girl graced my life in March of 2004.

I have been a slave ever since.

Frank has been a slave ever since.

Scott has been a slave ever since.

Hell, the dog has been a slave ever since…

When Scott was little, I'd say “Boy rhymes with Joy!” every single morning when he woke up. This is in sharp contrast to what I say to his sister, which is something along the lines of “How may I serve you today?” I’m pretty sure that girl rhymes with…… Frank.

Blogging Hannah and Frank is a form of therapy for me. It’s blogging or heavy drinking…so here I am. I’m not sure which one is more demanding. I’ve devoted many posts to Frank, this one I dedicate to his spawn…I mean, ahem…..daughter. Our daughter:

I picked her up from school yesterday. She’s always so happy to see me in the pickup line, then once the van door slides closed it’s:

“Where’s my snack?”

“I didn’t bring it today because we’re going straight home.” A four minute drive. This makes her very, very unhappy. “How was your day?”

“AWFUL! YOU HAVEN’T TAUGHT ME ABOUT PENNIES!”

“What?”

“THE PENNIES, YOU HAVEN’T TAUGHT ME ABOUT THE PENNIES OR THE NICKLES OR THE DIMES, EITHER!”

“Okay…” Sometimes we have good Hannah days, sometimes bad, our path today is clear.

“MOM, EVERYBODY ELSE KNOWS ABOUT THE PENNIES BUT ME. AND YOU HAVEN’T EVEN TAUGHT ME TO TIE MY SHOES, EITHER!” No pennies, no shoe tying, my kid is being denied. I hope no one from Child Protective Services reads this, I might get arrested.

“Okay, Hannah, when we get home we’ll learn about pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.” I dread it as soon as it leaves my mouth, as I know this lesson will not go well.

For me.

So we get home, get the snack, she changes clothes (twice) and we head for the living room for a lesson in money.

I grabbed a handful of change and dropped it on the floor. She immediately begins to sort it and here’s how: By beauty. She likes dimes best because she thinks they have a flower bouquet on the back, so she takes those out first then arranges them from most shiny to least shiny. Nickels are next, followed by pennies and quarters are last because they’re “just big and ugly compared to the other ones.”

I write the following on the dry erase board:



Pennies = 1 cent = 1 Penny
Nickels = 5 cents = 5 Pennies
Dimes = 10 cents = 10 Pennies
Quarters = 25 cents = 25 Pennies

I ask her to identify by name one of each coin. She does. I explain the chart to her, she sort of listens. Just sort of… Then I ask her:

“How many of these (pennies) does it take to equal one of these (nickels)?”

“One.”

I point to my handy chart on the dry erase board. “Try again.” I say.

“What?”

“How many pennies does it take to equal one nickel?”

“Two.”

At first I am thinking that this is so mind-numbingly boring that she just doesn’t care at all and therefore she must be more like me than I thought. To say that I have no concept of money as equaling money and not just plastic in my wallet would be an understatement. But (and this hurts my head…it’s really, really hard for me to think about this…) what would Frank say?

“Hey, Frank, how many pennies does it take to equal a nickel?”

“Two.”

This is hypothetical, of course….but let’s apply this example to a real-life scenario that Frank might find himself in. Frank likes to buy things from The Advertiser:

“Um, yeah, I’m calling about your lawn tractor for sale in The Advertiser.”

“Yes?”

“You still got it?” (Of course he’s still got it, Frank knows the store locations in Tallahassee that get The Advertiser first. He’s usually waiting on it and has it hours before everyone else.)

“Yes.”

“I see here that you’re asking $500 for it, but would you take $200?”

“No.”

“Well, what about $300, would you take $300 for it if I come out right now with cash?”

And at this point, the seller may or may not be willing to be told that his nickel is equal to either two or three of Frank’s pennies. It’s Flynn-math. Of course Flynn-math only works one direction. There will be an ad on Craig’s List within one hour for the same tractor, only it will be in there for $600. And if you want to buy it, you better bring at least $500. So, one way or another, three pennies is equal to a nickel using Flynn-math.

So where does this leave me?

She’s beautiful, she’s tall, she gets what she wants, she’s good with both numbers and money as completely separate entities.

And she’s actually a very sweet kid, but only when she wants to be.

I’m raising a future CEO, who could moonlight as a model.

And if she doesn’t put me in the nuthouse now, maybe she’ll put me in a penthouse later.