Baby Steps

Last week was one of those times when I felt like throwing in the towel with educating Drew.  We worked on math facts, he would need to use blocks for every single problem and still not get it right every time.  After our geography lesson, I asked him some questions and he stared at me blankly like I just asked what the volume of the moon was not in which direction the sun rises.  One evening I confessed to Jathan that I really didn't know what point it was to teach him.  Yes, I know that sounds horrible, even typing that I cringe.  But that is how I felt.  And it wasn't just last week.  There are days that I feel like I am banging my head on a brick wall.  Of course I know causing brain damage in my head is not going to help his.  Information goes in his head, but then I don't know what happens to it after that.  Sometimes it seems to bounce right out.  Other times it sticks, but you never know if he will be able to use it all the time or not. 

You see it is hard to tell what he has learned.  He can know something one day, and every day for a week, but one day it is gone, then it comes back again.  Not just school things either.  A few weeks ago, MacKenzie and I were working on dinner and he asked what we were going to have that night.  I rattled off the list with the last item being kiwi.  He asked with a confused look on his face "What is kiwi?"  MacKenzie held one up and said, these are kiwi.  He still looked a little confused and said "oh".  Now to some that may not sound like an unreasonable question.  But understand that it is the middle of kiwi season here in California, we love kiwi, he loves kiwi, so every week I buy some at the farmers market.  We eat it all the time.  So there is the frustration.  But I can't get frustrated with him.  He can't help it.  In fact, he doesn't like that he doesn't remember/understand things any more than I do.

So we rejoice in the good days, when he does remember or does understand.  And we encourage in the bad.  Yesterday he did a math worksheet.  There were ten problems.  He did them all in his head except one.  (For whatever reason 3+2 gets him everytime.)  I cheered and told him how proud I was of him.  Today, we worked on math again.  We worked on circling the big number and then starting with that number and counting the rest on his fingers.  He was getting it.  I loved watching him work his problems.  He got to 3+2 and said "three is in my head" then he counted (using his fingers) 4, 5 until he had the two fingers help up.  (keep in mind keeping track of his fingers can be difficult too) Triumphantly, he announced the answer was 5.

They are baby steps.  And tomorrow he might have trouble with every problem.  But today we got to see the baby steps forward and rejoice.