Math and I have never been close. English literature and I? Bosom buddies. But Math – not so much.
In my third year of law school I took a class called “Trusts & Estates.” Yes, it was just as thrilling as it sounds. We had to work out what percentage of an estate would go to each relative if a person died intestate (i.e. without a will). Like I said – riveting stuff!
Well, I was doing just fine until I had to convert a fraction to a decimal. Yes, you heard me right – even with a calculator – for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to do it! And as a result, I got an A- instead of an A. I was not happy. I was extremely put out. I felt down right robbed! And I was just stupid enough to express these fine sentiments to our professor. I actually told the man that since instruction on how to convert fractions to decimals hadn’t been covered in his class I didn’t think it fair to dock my grade for something I hadn’t actually be taught how to do.
(This is the part of the story where my husband always hangs his head in shame). The professor looked at me with raised eyebrows and said in slow and measured tones dripping sarcasm, “Lisa-Jo, we just assume that anyone who has been accepted into law school has passed the fourth grade.” Yea, not my finest hour. Stupid math.
Over the years my legacy of mathematical faux pas has continued to grow. Last week was my crowning glory.
So there I am at my first pregnancy check-up expecting to see my eight week old bean with a precious little heart beat bouncing around on the sonogram screen. Instead, what do I see? People, I see a massive, full on baby with easily identifiable arms, legs, face, and it’s all kicking and whirling and swirling around.
My mouth drops open.
The doctor says, “Whoa – looks like more than 8 weeks to me.”
You think?!
Fourteen weeks, people! I am fourteen weeks along already.
ThankYouVeryMuchHorribleTerribleNoGoodVeryBadMathSkills
I am now officially handing over any addition, subtraction or multiplication necessary to baby producing, growing, or birthing to Peter. Let us never speak of this again.
The end.
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Math-challenged liberal-arts majors unite! God must know what he’s doing–His hand is all over this timing. So happy for you. : )
And that life and light are further along, and bigger and brighter and my heart explodes with yours as you rejoice!
Leave the math to Peter, your gifting is words!
Ha!! I will be sure and tell him you said so
oh. my. word. You crack me up. How exciting to get to skip six weeks of pregnancy and jump right into the second trimester!!
The same thing happened to my sister. She thought she was 6 weeks along and expected to see the little lima bean baby – turned out she was 12 weeks along!
I was going to come back and tell you CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! But this post was hilarious. Love it. Glad I’m not the only writer with bad math…
Anyway…so very, very excited for you. Your little one is quite the world traveler already!
laughing out loud at this — and SO HAPPY for your news! you KNOW that i’m wishin’ a girl for you, so that we can map out this boy-mama-turned-right-confused-mama terrain together!
does this mean you’ll be finding out the gender in 6 weeks or less? or are you of the “let it be a surprise” variety?
No way – I am horribly impatient and always find out as soon as I can!!
I like to blame things on math, too.
But. WOW. Lisa Jo. This is classic and it just made my day
14 weeks!
Wow! What a surprise. But, the upside is you skipped right into the second trimester and maybe you get a by on the icky sickness and stuff that comes along with the first trimester!
Congrats!
Oh…that is just too much fun.
Congratulations ~ and on the bright side, now it will seem like a MUCH shorter pregnancy than you expected, right? You just shaved almost 2 months off your ‘wait time’. 
that’s great….we’re almost at the same point….I’m just over 15 weeks! How blessed you are to not have even expected you were this far along…I’ve been so sick. And I’m huge already! When’s your due date? I’m March 19..
Lisa Jo, you might find it amusing to know that the reason I decided I couldn’t go through with design school was because the instructor announced to us that it wasn’t all about pretty fabrics and accessories. There would be math. Lots of math. My heart sunk and I walked out of design school that day. Thank the Lord the internet doesn’t require me to do math in order to talk about design. I’m with ya, girl! Stupid math.
Thank you thank you for making my day
Great news! (Well, not the math part, but you know… Also, A- in T&E is still pretty rockin’, my friend.)
I’m hoping for a girl for you, too — because I already have quilting ideas for her, so that would be most convenient for *me.*
You made the math nerd in me giggle! Here to a happy and healthy (math free) 26 weeks!
Brilliant. Just great.
Happy pregnancy, Lisa-Jo!
And one wonders why this was a “surprise” pregnancy in the first place!
Oh my, that is funny.
And congratulations!
Hahaha! That’s too funny. And congratulations!! I agree with what someone else said, though you’re not gifted with math, you MOST CERTAINLY ARE gifted with words!!!
And, I was thinking, isn’t that just beautiful (if I understood your first post correctly) the timing of WHEN you found out?! Rather than knowing for a couple of weeks, God revealed this to you – the beginning of the new life – on the anniversary of your mom’s death? He knew it was far more important for you to learn of this little bean on the day you were thinking of your mom, and your own birth day, than to learn of it’s existence when it was first conceived
(That didn’t come out as neatly and tidily as I thought it, but I hope you understood what I meant…)
I know *exactly* what you meant! And thank you
my friend asked me once if I was relieved I didn’t marry and have children before I knew I would get this sick… that it must be a relief not to have passed on the gene for this illness.
I said I was more relieved I didn’t pass on my lack of math skills to another human being.
I so sympathize
Math is my nemesis. Grrrrr
Oh my word! Too funny.
I’m so excited for you. Lots of excitement for you this year!
I love it! In college I actually took a class named “Ideas of Mathematics” which pretty much says it all! Congratulations on the earlier than expected arrival of your baby. You have such a wonderful gift with words.
Amy
Math is my nemesis. Hated it through all of high school and college. I majored in English Lit.
The only math I do is to figure out how much something costs when it’s on sale! LMAO
Congrats on being 14 weeks along!!
This was very funny. Kind of reminded me of when I was expecting my daughter. It was obvious I had a small round ‘something’…since I started out at less than 95 pounds. Then I was extremely nauseated. And felt movement too but the pregnancy tests they did 31 years ago were not so accurate and every few weeks they would tell me ‘no you are not pregnant’. Um… why was I wearing maternity tops and pants? Finally at 4 and half months the test was positive. Believe me I knew it was positive unless there was a really bad flu going around. Congratulations. Looking forward to MORE hysterical blogs from you.
Oh my WORD!! Crazy days.
Three are three kinds of lawyers. Those who are good at math, and those who aren’t.
Happy Second Trimester!
hee hee – LOVE IT!
Oops. That was supposed to read “There.” There are three types of lawyers. *sigh* Some of us can’t type, either.
I can SO identify with this post! First of all, my loathing for math is part of why I wound up in law school. Reading? Writing? Any day. Math? Never. Also, I have to confess I have no recollection whatsoever of what grade I got in trusts and estates, though I feel fairly confident it wasn’t an A. (Of course, the only person who cares that I went to law school any more is my nemesis Sallie Mae, who will continue to collect on that decision for a long time to come.)
And, if it makes you feel any better, when I got pregnant with this baby, I’d taken a home test fairly early on and gotten a negative result. By the time I figured out that my feeling lousy was not some virus (you know, 6 weeks later), I couldn’t remember a date to give the doctor for my LMP. I was like 13 weeks and I couldn’t even come up with a date. I passed it off on my still nursing John David, but it was totally because I stink at anything involving numbers!
I hate Sallie Mae even more than I hate math. Sallie Mae is like the place where math goes to gang up on the world!
And hee hee about baby 4 – glad to know I am not alone in my total ability to keep track of how many days there are in a month!
I’m usually a little stoic. I tend to hold things in pretty close. In other words – takes a bit to get me to laugh. Having said that, once I start – pretty hard to get me to stop. So, reading your post (I agree with one of the ladies above – your gifting is in words!), I started laughing. And my boys were all looking at me like I was of my rocker. Suffice to say – gorgeous post. And Congratulations. How cool….
Ha! Thanks. I am glad my total failure at all things math related can cause others’ amusement. When I told one of my girlfriends she just busted out laughing and all I could hear through the chuckles was her repeating over and over, “You and Math…bwahahaha…math…”
Oh I hope I didn’t cause offense. I haven’t read enough of your blog to ‘know’ you yet. I did love your post. It’s funny how maths can be such a nemesis for us. My mum is a maths lecturer at university, and I think I have managed to disappoint her so many times with my frustrating ability to ‘not’ be able to figure out my numbers. She tries to explain, and the more she does, the more confused and ‘blank’ I look. I have a math genius for a sister, and a husband – and now – a son! Go figure eh. At least someone in our house can add up the right quantities for stuff.
What a great gift! Already past the first trimester & didn’t even know it! Tho I share your math-head-deficiency… Hardest thing for me now is home schooling lessons for my two oldest in 9th grade. Algebra anyone? Pythagorean theorem? Wha…? How ’bout let’s move on to early American literature! It’s enough to cause a meltdown. Which unfortunately happens all to frequently.
http://freeagentmommy.typepad.com/blog/2010/09/the-core.html
Hooked up with your blog via my friend Laura Parker (http://www.lauraleighparker.com) – thanks for writing; am loving your honesty & encouragement!!
Laura Parker always has me chuckling about life lived overseas. Love how she keeps life as a missionary real. More misunderstandings than street conversions. She’s my kinda girl! Thanks for stopping by and commiserating with my math-head-definciencies!
Snort! Perfect.
You’ll be glad to have lost those six weeks at the end. Haha! This cracked me up.
My dad told me to think of it as a “pregnancy discount”
So exciting! God’s timing is so perfect. Kelly
I can’t convert a fraction to a decimal either. Unless it’s a quater, a half or 3/4. That’s easy. Anything else..nope. My lack of math skills frightens my husband, and asks me on many pccasions to please not attempt it.
My husband is always telling me to stop sharing that Trusts & Estates story. Now, however, the baby one tops it by far!!
Too funny! At least you are 6 weeks ahead not behind! My warmest congratulations.
My biggest problem with math at the moment is remembering that I have 3 kids not 2. More than once I have started to leave and (thankfully) realized that one of the car seats was still empty….
Thanks for the heads up.. with my math skills being similar to yours I´ll know not to do any math if I ever get pregnant (not planning to any time soon!) Congratulations! And how wonderful that you get to meet your new baby 6 weeks earlier!
Sometimes being bad at math is the reason one ends up pregnant in the first place…just saying
LOVE IT!!
And math is not my friend, either. When my boys need help with math homework I often refer them to their Dad, and they’re only in 5th grade!
As an animal and dairy science major, one one THINK that I could remember whether or not it’s before or after you have your period that you’re most fertile, right? Not me! lol. About 2 weeks before I knew for sure that I was pregnant this time, I made a comment to my working moms group that I could never remember if it was before or after. They all laughed and said, “And that’s why you have two boys barely 18 months apart!” You can’t imagine the comments I got two weeks later when I told them about this little surprise! And them my fellow animal science majors….yeah Carrie, you need to go back to our reproduction class because obviously you were sleeping.
It’s ok. Even with math (or basic reproduction knowledge), we’re ok! We can do this. Right?!?
We can, we can! (I think we can!)
I can’t tell you how hard I laughed at this.
I majored in journalism, and at some point during my stint as a TV producer, I had to put together a full screen of election totals for our morning broadcast. Our show director looked over my script and shouted, “Kelly! These don’t add up to 100!” And which point I sighed and said, “Murray, I’m not a math person. I’m a journalist.” He responded by laughing uproariously and mocking me endlessly and calling me The Journalist for the next three years.
I think writers should get a pass on math. We’re only going to mess it up and open cause a rift in the time-space continuum.
I can’t tell you how life affirming all these comments have been!
As I admit defeat in that I can no longer help my daughter with her math – this post brought a big ol’ grin to my face. Thank you!
My Aunt and 2 cousins (9 and 13) are living with my husband and I . The 9 year old couldn’t figure out his math homework and went to his mom. She couldn’t figure it out and sent him to my husband, who also couldn’t figure it out and sent him to me. I looked at it and burst out laughing. The question was like name three numbers between 1,448,000 and 1,449,000. They were all like there are none because they are only one number apart! Um…..no! Try 1,000 numbers apart, silly! Yeah, I’m still laughing! Congrats on your pregnancy! Always great news.
LOL!!!! I LOVE IT! Seeeeee. When I asked if you were prego I was soooo on. I’m just going to gloat right now and say I told you so. I should probably find that tweet to prove it.
. Just kidding.
Congrats again!!! This is so exciting. And I am an epic failure at math. I feel so sorry for my children when they get to school. They are in big trouble. bleh.
Haha – don’t worry I have the same problem – in fact I thought I was about 6 weeks and then at the scan I was 13 weeks… so I feel ya! Now I’m 29 weeks
Oh my. I had to stop “helping” the boy with math when he was in 4th grade. The hubs wonders why I can’t balance my checkbook but can figure out in a split second how much 75% off of $20 is. It’s all about the priorities.
I’m so excited for a new, little one! I think babies are the greatest thing God has ever done. Specially when they belong to someone else
)
I think you’re the envy of all pregnant women in that you’ve “flash forwarded” in your pregnancy.
I’m horrible at math. I still use my fingers to count. Usually I’m not ashamed. My husband congratulates me every time I figure out the addition of a tip and pre-tip at a restaurant.
I am somehow just now reading this… Ha! Thank you for letting us laugh at your expense. I love math!
Congrats on being 6 weeks farther along! That’s fun!
I don’t even have words to do this justice. Besides, I can’t stop laughing. out loud. repeatedly! Thank you so much for bringing this little beauty to my attention… I hadn’t “met” ya way back in September. As someone who has also suffered from The Math over these many years, I appreciate your suffering.
But this is still ridiculous-funny.
Thanks for the (multiple) giggles tonight