On Saturday, Ricki asked me to play the game “Trans America” with her. This is basically a strategy game, which sometimes I play with her older brothers. But I agreed, and sat down to play. But as we played, I noticed that often she was putting her train tracks in very odd places. Her moves were guaranteeing her a loss. So I begged her to let me help her a few times, to explain, etc. She sort of agreed. I could latterly see the battle crossing her face, between her desire for independence and her desire to win. At first th quest for independence won out. Then, suddenly, I noted that she was looking at the map cards carefully… she was trying to lay the tracks as the rivers she saw drawn on the map!
Eventually, she let me give her a few hints (I was carefully saying “notice this and this...”, “What is better if you want to do so and so?”), and she won the last round to her (and my) great pleasure.

My sixteen year old son recently bought himself a new suit. Then he got a haircut. I don’t know why this made such a difference, but suddenly he looked much older, and more mature. He suddenly appeared a bit like his older brothers. He doesn’t look like Rickis slightly older brother, but like a young man! Gee, He’s growing!

I have a new phrase to add to Webster's dictionary:

teen math /tēn math/ n A branch of mathematics pertaining to household chores, where the whole is inexplicably less than the sum total of its components.
Example: When a mother washes all the dishes before leaving home, and on her return discovers the sink half-full of dishes. Yet, unexplainably, all various and sundry teens claim that they washed all of their own dishes. Thus the sum total , which should be all of the dishes, is inexplicably more than the whole (amount of dishes washed).

But they (the teens) made supper, and one drove me to the doctor's appointment with Ricki, so the pluses far outweighed the minuses. As a result, in spite of "teen math", the teens got a passing grade…….