Your Time

Chapter 15

{March 2021}

Carrie sat at the kitchen table helping Adam and Emma with their homework. Although she was no longer a teacher, Carrie still loved to help the kids with their homework.

Harrison sat in the living room, playing with Billie and Ben. Carrie laughed when she looked across the room and saw her husband braiding a dolls hair. "Hey Harrison, you should do that for me sometime."

He glared at her, making her laugh even harder. That drew him attention from Adam and Emma. They both started laughing as well. The three of them kept laughing until Harrison turned his back to them.

"We love you Harrison."

He ignored her, and Carrie chuckled to herself before checking on Adam and Emma's progress. They were both working on adding and subtracting, except Adam's problems were a bit tougher.

"Mom how do you do this one?"

She checked over the paper. "You have to carry over. Remember? Because you can't do 2 minus nine. So you have to carry over the 1 and make it 12."

"Oh I remember."

After that, Adam crushed the rest of the paper. "You ready to work on some language arts?"

He sighed. "No."

Language arts was not Adam's favorite subject at all. He loved math and science just like his mom and dad. "Mom I'm not good at verbs."

"You're about to be."

For his standardized tests that begun this year, he would be required to take a language arts and math test. "And mom I don't want to take those tests."

Carrie couldn't blame him. She hated those tests when she was in school. But everyone had to take them. "Your dad and I had to take those when we were in school too."

"But I don't want to take them."

"I know Adam. But I'm going to help you and you're going to pass these with no problem."

"Okay mom."

From the yellow folder that sat next to her, Carrie pulled out another paper of verb tenses. "I know you don't like it, but we're going to work on past, present, and future tenses. I'll give you an example and you tell me if it's past, present, or future."

He nodded. "I will run a mile tomorrow."

"Future."

"Good. Dad is playing with Billie and Ben."

"Present."

"I know you will pass these tests."

Adam took a second to think. "Present?"

"Yes good job. I had Ben last year."

"Past!" He told her excitedly.

"Good job Adam! See I told you it'd be easy."

"It is really easy mom."

"Now do you want to try the paper?"

He nodded, sliding the paper over to himself. Carrie watched from beside him as he carefully read over each question and selected the verb tense. When he was done, Adam gave it to his mom to check. He got them all right.

"Good job kid!" She exclaimed, giving him a high five. "You're going to crush those tests buddy."

"Thanks mom! I feel a lot better about it."

As Adam got up from the table, Carrie made her way to the other side and sat next to Emma. "Mommy these ones are hard."

Emma moved from addition and subtraction into multiplication. "Okay Emma, what's 3 plus 3?"

"6."

"Now what's 6 plus 3?"

"9 mommy."

Carrie pointed to the paper. "When it asks you what 3 times 3 is, think about it like this; 3 times 3 is a quicker way to add 3, 3 times. Do you get what I'm saying?"

She shook her head. "Okay, you know how we added 3 plus 3 plus 3 to get 9? Multiplying 3 times 3 also equals 9."

Carrie smiled when it clicked. "So 4 times 4 is just adding 4, 4 times?"

"You got it."

"Mommy that makes a lot more sense."

Emma finished her paper quite easily after that, only asking her mom for help a few times when she got to the larger numbers. "Do you want to try division."

"I don't know mommy. Do you think I can do it?"

"What do you think?" She asked with a smile.

That got a smile from Emma. "I can do it."

Carrie pulled out another sheet and let Emma try dividing. But she got stuck a lot. "Mommy I don't think I can do it. These are really hard."

"They're not going to be hard for much longer."

"Are you sure?"

"Hey," she whispered, "there hasn't been anything you weren't able to do. You know you can do it, and I certainly know you can do it."

Emma nodded. "Okay."

"Remember a few minutes ago when I told you that 3 times 3 is the same thing as adding 3, 3 times?"

"I remember mommy."

"Division is the opposite. What's 9 minus 3?"

"6."

"And what's 6 minus 3?"

"3."

"See how we subtracted 3 from 9, 3 times?"

"Yeah mommy."

"So 9 divided by 3 is also 3. Do you know why?"

"Is it because 3 goes into 9, 3 times?"

"You got it Emma."

"Mommy, so 12 divided by 4 is 3 because 4 only goes into 12, 3 times?"

Carrie nodded. "See, I knew you could do it."

"It's easy mommy."

She watched as her daughter finished working on the division problems. Carrie was so proud of her when she got them all right. "Good job Emma!"

"Thanks mommy."

From in the living room, Harrison listened to Carrie helping the kids while holding a mini teacup and pretending to drink from it. Billie marched around the living room, delivered teacups to her stuffed animals and her little brother Ben.

Harrison leaned against the couch with Ben. All of Billie's stuffed animals sat in a circle in front of the guys. She ran back over to her mini kitchen, grabbing a few pieces of fake bread and handing them out to the stuffed animals, Harrison and Ben.

He was about to take a sip of imaginary tea when Billie stopped his hand. "Stop daddy!"

Harrison listened. Billie dig through the entire box of fake food until she found another piece of bread for the last stuffed animal. On her way back, she also grabbed a teacup for herself.

Ben had started to crawl around. While watching him and Billie at the same time, he took a sip of his imaginary tea once Billie gave him the okay.

"Having fun?"

Harrison felt her hands on his shoulders. "Yes sweetheart. You care to join?"

"I'd love to join," Carrie answered, sitting beside him and taking a teacup from Billie as she began to pass out more food.