MATH!!!!!

I am afraid of two things in regards to home schooling: 1) teaching my little ones to read and 2) incorporating math in a fun, useful and test ready way. The reading I can talk about later, today I want to discuss the math issue.
In my view math is something very critical to daily living, you need to know how to count money and make sure you get the right change back so as not to be cheated, you need to know how to create a budget and calculate it out, you need to be able to be able to figure out sales prices, read and understand recipes, etc, you know the basic living stuff. On another level if you want to be able to build anything you need to have a knowledge of geometry, measurement and the like. I don't use that very often or very complexly anyway but Dennis does every time he builds me a cabinet or something. Finally, I realize for college entry my kids will need to be able to take a math test and do well on it. Not to mention if they decide to go into any field such as science, engineering, medicine etc. they will need a good foundation in mathematics.
My fear is that I am not great at math. I also see that it is not Will's favorite subject and he almost never chooses it for himself to work on. I don't want him to hate it and force it and make his dislike of it worse, but I do want him to keep at least semi-current with it. For now I have decided to do a math mom share once per week. I have found two things I am excited about. One lead to the other. . .
My friend and home schooling mentor Beth suggest the book Mathematicians are People Too which tell stories of real mathematicians in a kid friendly way. I was reading through this today and was delighted to find a mathematician story on a math topic we have been working on. Will is technically a 3rd grader and my mind screams time stables because of it. So, that is the topic we have explored the last few weeks. John Napier is one of the mathematicians from the above mentioned book. Famous for logarithms, he also created a device called Napier Rods or Napier Bones that act as an early multiplication calculator. I looked on-line and found several references for making our own rods/bones. I think it will be fun to read about John Napier and make a set of his "bones". Maybe I don't get out often enough but, seriously I am so excited to find fun and interesting connections to something as drab as memorizing mulitplication tables!!
Other ways I am trying to make sure Will gets good doses of math is to have him use it as he would in real life. He counted prices, and made change when he did his candy store. We have cooked together and discussed fractions when we doubled recipes or halved them. He also has designed and built a step stool with his dad.
Sometimes I feel a little panicked we aren't doing math worksheets every day. But as I reflect on what we are doing I feel a wave of relief and a faith that in the end he will have a well rounded understanding of math concepts, that he will be able to apply what he knows in a variety of ways and that not only that. . .he won't hate it but at some point will actually enjoy and welcome solving problems using mathematics.