inside the brain of Benjamin

Ben's math curriculum is teaching CALENDARS right now. If you knew my Ben, you would realize this is a subject we do NOT need to cover. He has been a calendar FREAK from the time he could talk. His brain collects dates and stores them forever. He is not a brilliant child by any means, but when it comes to remembering dates, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, seasons and so forth, he has a memory like Rain Man.

So- today we skipped the one hour lesson and went straight to the busy work. If he wasn't "attending" an online school I would skip the worksheets too... (this is one of the downsides from having someone tell you WHAT to teach.) Anyway, I gave him the homework without any explanation. I failed to point out that he needed to use the calendar from the text book (we didn't open the text because we didn't do the lesson....) I left him alone to feed the baby and mop the kitchen floor. When I came back to check on him- about 30 minutes later- he was really stressing out, trying hard to fight back his tears. I picked up his half-finished worksheet and asked him what was wrong.

Ben (ashamed of himself, but trying not to show it) quietly said, "It's just that I can't remember when Mother's Day was in 2002. I'm sure it must have been a Sunday in May..." I burst out laughing and quickly showed him the 2002 calendar in his text book. He took a HUGE sigh of relief. I patted him on the back and said, "You should have come to me sooner. The worksheet didn't want you to answer the questions from MEMORY." Ben said, "Yeah. I thought it was weird that I should remember a holiday when I wasn't even one year old!"

Another great moment for the homeschooling archives. I returned to mopping the kitchen floor with a huge smile on my face. I am so blessed to know (and to teach) this child.

it's hard to find a recent picture of Ben without Simon. These two are always together...
Simon is not necessarily happy about this.