I started referring to Indigo as my evil genius a year or so ago.  Indigo is way too smart for her own good – and uses her power for evil, not good.  She can talk anyone out of anything.  In trouble, Indigo can talk her way out of it.  There are days I feel she may have a hidden lair somewhere in the house where she is plotting to take over the family if not the world.

What I have learned over the past week is just how smart she has become.  Some of it isn’t too shocking.  The fact she is reading so well is due entirely to her preschool teacher and her goal to have all of her kids know phonics before they left her class.  She definitely succeeded there.  Indigo can read well – and spell.  Yes, spell.  It’s kind of scary really.

But the one thing that is all her is her math skills.  I have to publicly admit that in addition to being a computer geek, I was also a math nerd.  I love math.  You have process, logic, rules to transform the numbers to get the answers, and little tricks all over the place.  What’s not to love!

Do I use the math I learned now?  Yes, actually, I do.  Mainly in contracts, but I do.  Vendors don’t like giving you all of the numbers, for example.  If they give you enough – you get to solve a multivariable equation.  (Yes, I am speaking English — it means there is an X and a Y and maybe a Z too.)  Throw together a couple formulas, solve for X, Y and Z, if necessary.  And you know how the vendors are trying to screw you.  I have baffled vendors by going back to them quoting real numbers that are correct.  

Anyway, Indigo has a head for numbers as well – but we never taught it to her.  We discovered this quite by accident a while back. She had three crayons and her sister had four, and she announced that if the put them together there would be seven crayons.  Wanting to see if this was a fluke, I tested the theory and gave her other scenarios.  Each time, she got the answer right without a delay.  I was floored.

While driving to and from school this week, I learned that this has definitely been taken to the next level.  Sure her teacher had told us how advanced she was in reading and math, but I didn’t realize it until I experienced it.  Indigo read me her homework which was entertaining – then proceeded to do her math homework out loud.  And, she did it fast – both addition and subtraction.  I threw in a few other problems in the same vein as her homework and she got those too.  I wished she had a pencil because she would have been done with all of her homework for the week by the time we got home.

After she got done, she started testing me by making me spell words for her.  Then she would spell words back to me and ask what she was spelling.  After she was done with that, she moved onto math.  The girls find this entertaining because I can do a lot of math in my head – thanks to the old school math teacher I had in 7th grade (he had my dad as a student to give you an idea of how long he had been around – and he wasn’t young when he taught my dad.)  You didn’t bring a calculator into that class – that’s what your brain was for – according to him.

Finally after being drilled with math, spelling and reading for 30 minutes, I asked if we could stop playing this game.  I mean, I had only been in the car driving for well over an hour now, I was tired.  Indigo’s response:

“Mommy, I am trying to make sure your brain is still working good.”

I assured her that my brain is working fine, thank you very much.

“But you have to practice to make sure it stays that way.”

I finally thanked her for making sure my brain was still working good and found a song she liked on the radio which distracted her from her mission.

I had better make sure my brain continues to work better than hers, or else she may see an opening and cease control.  I think it is best for everyone that I don’t let that happen. I can only imagine what her evil plans would be.