Ethan's learning base 10

The adding, subtracting -- I can handle it. I get that crossing out the number and "borrowing" from the previous column isn't exactly "conceptualizing." So I learned it -- I can subtract better than I could at the beginning of the school year (yes, this is Corey, not Ethan writing this post). But see, now we're doing double digit multiplication in new math, and I was lost. I can do double digit multiplication just fine -- you know, vertically line up the two digits, multiply the right number with the top column, add an x below and multiply the left number with the top column, add the two products and viola! answer. Got it -- and am right about 97% of the time. But then Ethan comes home needing to UNDERSTAND why you multiply those numbers, and a friend has a "base 10" starter kit that is just so much fun to use!!! It took 45 minutes of Cort's whispered tutoring me in our room (so that the kids wouldn't suspect that I have no conceptual understanding of math). After that I was giddy about my new found knowledge, but Cort even more so. "Math is beautiful" he kept saying, how wonderful it is to understand the concepts behind the math problems because then we can understand any base number!! He then spent 1 hour trying to teach us how to understand base 8 or base 2 (I am not kidding). Then I had a memory from my childhood, and it was listening to this record -- thank you, youtube.