It Seems Appropriate

We live in close quarters, so the twins get on each other's nerves. But today we landed upon a solution for math that worked like a charm--seriously! They listen to the DIVE CD for Saxon Algebra II together, and complete the practice problems on their own dry erase boards (that was last year's solution that only helped for awhile). Then they do the homework assignment. There's a bit of a race going as to who can finish first (despite bathroom and drink breaks) and who can get the better score. Which leads to accusations of peeking/cheating. Which leads to yelling and wrestling. I don't worry too much about the wrestling. I have three sons. And I saw this with my three brothers. But when the fighting takes away too much time from school and leads to bad character habits, then I get irritated. So today I assigned Polar Bear the odd-numbed problems, and Winger had to do the even-numbered problems. This way they couldn't cheat. They could ask me questions without giving away the solution to their dumber twin brother. And I could congratulate them when they answered something difficult correctly (like factoring negative exponents). There were high 5s, whoops, and cele's. Winger was especially pumped to get #30 correct--the final problem looms larger than life, I guess.
   Tonight we also went to hear Mike Fisher talk about his Christian faith. He is Asst. Captain for the Nashville Predators, and has a book about living as a Christian in the NHL. But more interesting to the twins is how he met, courted, and married Carrie Underwood. The twins were disappointed she didn't come for the autograph signing portion of the evening!
   This week they also threw hay for the family we are staying with: 600 bales! And more to come this afternoon, I'm told.  It's good for them to work off their energy in the hot sun rather than in my tiny classroom with one rickety card table.
   My favorite part of the week is reading Shakespeare. We take turns being the various characters and Polar Bear ended up being Romeo, while Winger was Friar Laurence.