So, Math's Your Thing...?

Over the holiday weekend my family visited our local cemetery a couple of times. There's a lot of things you can learn taking a stroll in a cemetery, especially when you're with your kids. Of course, there's a lot of things you can learn from your kids--in a cemetery or not.

I learned my youngest son has some mad math skills.

Now, I'm not saying he's Rainman. And we haven't had him tested or anything like that, but as we walked around my son noticed almost immediately just how long people had lived.

"Wow!" he'd say. "He lived for 85 years!"

I'm not noticing those dates, at least at first. I'm looking at the differences in the headstones, the choices people made like some have carvings of birds, some have representations of their hobbies be it trucking, hunting, what have you. And in my town's cemetery, there are lots of representations of LDS temples.

I would eventually look at the dates that they had lived. Apparently, that's what my son saw first. He seemed drawn to those dates and was very interested in calculating the lifespans of those laid to rest. Like I said, I'm sure he's not the greatest mathematician, but it's something he seems comfortable doing, and doing in his head. I wonder where it will take him...