My Little Math Nerds, Part I

Ree is my daughter.  She may be a bit inept socially, but she's great at math.

A few weeks ago, she came to me and asked why a square and rectangle both have four sides but look different.  What a fabulous observation!  I know I was not that smart at that age.  (I'm not that smart now.)  And so I told her all about quadrilaterals. She will not be caught off guard in middle school (or first grade or wherever they teach that term now.)

Yesterday, while she was eating lunch and I was cleaning the kitchen, we had the following conversation.

Ree: Mom, what do you call a shape with 7 sides?  Dad doesn't know.
Me: It's a septagon.  (Hoping that was right.) 
Ree: Daaaad!  It's a SEPTAGON! (duh)

Jeff was a bit perplexed since they had not been having this conversation recently.

So I then added that a nonagon has 9 sides and a decagon has 10.  I didn't even bother mentioning pentagons, hexagons, and octagons, since that's, like, baby stuff.

Ree immediately jumps in and says, "A star has 10 sides."

It was my turn to be perplexed, so she repeated herself.

After I thought about it, all I could say was, "Yup.  A star has 10 sides.  It's a decagon."

She was satisfied and resumed eating her macaroni and cheese.