Word Problems

If you ask Dylan what he likes better – letters or numbers – he’ll say numbers. In honor of Dylan’s blossoming love of math, here are some Runaway Mama word problems.

If Dylan has two race tracks and then receives three new race tracks for his birthday and one new race track for Christmas, and then Mommy hides three of the race tracks in a closet (and fantasizes about setting the closet full of race tracks on fire), how many racetracks does Dylan have to play with?

(Three.  Until Mommy hides another one while Dylan is sleeping.)

If Mommy buys five containers of Play-Doh and Riley opens all of them and refuses to let Mommy put them away and then Mommy realizes the next morning that the Play-Doh was left out all night, how many containers of dry, useless Play-Doh does Mommy have?

(Five. Mommy hates Play-Doh.)

If Mommy buys one box of Dora & Diego paper cups that contains 40 cups and Riley uses 10 paper cups every time he attempts to brush his teeth, how many times will Riley brush his teeth before he runs out of paper cups and Mommy realizes that buying Dora & Diego paper cups for tooth-brushing was a bad idea?

(Four. No paper cups for Riley until he’s five.)

If Mommy sings three songs to Riley at bedtime and then Riley cries and Mommy sings one more song and then Riley cries and Daddy sings one more song and then Dylan asks why no one is singing a song to him and then Riley cries and Mommy sings one more song to each kid, how many total songs do Mommy and Daddy sing while their Chinese food take-out gets cold.

(Seven. Bedtime is a bitch.)

At 6:30am, Dylan decides to build a Lego truck that has 449 pieces and promises to follow the 37 step directions all by himself.   Riley “helps” by putting three rubber tires in his mouth and throwing four teeny, tiny Lego pieces on the floor where they roll under the oven.  Then Riley stinks up the kitchen with a poop while Mommy is on her hands and knees with a flashlight looking at a lot of crumbs but no teeny, tiny Lego pieces under the oven.  Mommy stops looking for the missing Legos to change Riley’s diaper (and to escape Dylan’s whining about the lost Legos), and when she returns to the kitchen, she discovers that Dylan has skipped steps 3-9 in the directions and can’t figure out why the first 18 pieces of the truck don’t fit properly.  At 6:47am, he asks Mommy to take the truck apart so he can start all over again (all by himself) and she chips a nail in the process (Lego nails).  How many cups of coffee does Mommy need to drink to keep her head from exploding?

(At least three.  And if Dylan wants to build Legos after school, with “help” from his brother, coffee will be replaced by Pino Grigio at 5pm).

Math sure can be fun.