The Mamalode Starter Series is an exciting opportunity for us to introduce you to some of the amazing people we get to meet. Starting something takes enormous amounts of work, faith, help and community. Every week we'll share another story of starting. So, community of Mamalode, read up, get inspired and check out these wonder-folk.

Tell us a little bit about your business and how you started it.

Bedtime Math started in the most unpremeditated way. When my daughter was 2, we started throwing in a math problem with her bedtime story – we all know to read to kids at night, so why not do math? My husband John and I both love numbers, so we just started making up math problems off the cuff, about ninjas, roller coasters or whatever else we’d discussed over dinner. As our daughter grew we rolled in addition, then subtraction, then another child…then another child… The wake-up call was when our third child at age 2 ran in one night yelling that he wanted his own math problem. That’s when we saw that math can be as beloved as dessert. I started sharing the math problem with friends as an email, and it exploded from there.

What do your kids think about your job?

My kids can tell, even at their young age, that my job is as fun as a job could be. I’m always trying out material on them (often reaping a “No, Mom, that math problem’s not funny”) and on their friends. Bedtime Math started an equally playful after-school math club, Crazy 8s, and part of my job is to round up 20-30 of my kids’ friends to try out activities like Toilet Paper Olympics and Glow-in-the-Dark Geometry. Who could ask for a better career than that?

Tell us about a total mom + biz fail?

We’ve been lucky not to have any real tragedies, just the cost of chaos from me not being able to pay 100% attention to any piece of our life. Like last summer, when after dinner I got sucked into writing the next day’s blog post, and with the sun still up I lost track of time…I looked out the window and there were my kids, in the backyard in their pajamas, and they’d hooked up the garden hose to the slide on our swingset to make a very speedy water slide, which they were sliding down in their pajamas into the newly formed crater of mud at the bottom. It’s moments like that when I realize I have too much on my plate!

Share with us a total win (brag away!)

My biggest win is that John and I have never had to help our kids with their math homework. Not once has any of them ever asked us a question. Because they see math as fun, they’re totally unafraid of it, so if they get stuck on a problem,  presumably they just find another way to solve it. They do sometimes ask for help on other subjects, but in math they are completely independent and I’m so proud of them for that.

What's your relationship with Mamalode?

Best described as “huge fan.” I love what you all are doing because a) parenting is the world’s most important job: everything we do for those little people has enormous impact, and b) we all land in this mega-important job with basically no training whatsoever. Mamalode’s focus on the *truth* is a refreshing, welcome addition to the parenting landscape.

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