Teaching TH...and learning from him

My favorite eight-year-old and I are currently working on multiplying two-digit numbers by two-digit numbers. This is a process, and when it comes to TH, processes have more steps than you might realize. For example, while he can multiply in his head without trouble, showing his work, aligning numbers in columns, writing numbers legibly--these are a struggle. I consider it my duty to focus on things that are a struggle to him, so I've been insisting that he align his numbers in columns as he shows his work.

"Trust me," I offered, "when these things get more complicated, you'll need these numbers lined up like this."

"But I can tell where they are anyway," he demurred.

All I had again was "Trust me," and "What we're doing here isn't only working on math. We're trying to address other things that you need to work on most."

At which point he volunteered, cheerfully, honestly, and completely out of nowhere, "I also need help on hygiene."

He came across the hygiene concept watching the Temple Grandin movie. There's a scene when a magazine editor parks a can of spray deodorant in front of Grandin and tells her to use it. She unquestioningly agrees. This scene required some explanation, and TH seemed to recognize that an awareness of, well, certain things was probably also not naturally in his repertoire. I guess I should consider introducing health class into homeschool.

I also should consider some of the wisdom this child has to offer me. We had a minor catastrophe yesterday. The phone rang. I answered. It was some poor desk worker from the office where we'd booked a summer home for several weeks this summer. She stumbled around for a few minutes before getting to the point, which was: The place we'd booked, signed a contract for, and made a deposit on, was not available. (I have not ended that many phrases with a preposition in I don't know when). Someone had fubarred, she said, not exactly using that term, and the existing occupants weren't going anywhere until October.

Man, was I pissed. My first mental response was, If I have to stay in a tent, I'm still going. My second mental response was, Damn, you people are incompetent, and you may well have ruined the complex summer plans we've made, which involved much contorting and declining of other summer plans and various permutations too esoteric to get into here. My third and final thought was, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to find another place.

Before I got to thought #3, however, I'd indulged in some expressions of, shall we say, unhappiness about the situation. On the phone, what I mostly said was things like "Holy cow" and "Are you serious?" After all, she was just some poor lackey who got the job of dealing with me. Off the phone, I vented a bit more, mostly on the phone to the Viking. Kinda loudly. Remember, I also homeschool. And as I often point out to my highly repetitive children, ears are always turned to "on."

Today, after we'd walked our hike-and-bike trail together and were in the car on the way home, TH asked me about the situation. He's against the summer plans for reasons that make sense only to him, but he was nice enough yesterday in the midst of my upset to say, "I'm sorry about that, Mama," which I thought was kind of a breakthrough for him.

In the car today, he first asked me if they were going to send back our deposit check, and I responded in the affirmative. Then, he asked me, "Will you not be able to find another place to stay?" And I said, "Well, yes, we probably will." And he thought a minute and then observed, "Well, if you're getting your check back and you're going to find another place to stay, I don't see why you got so mad about it anyway."

He has a point, does he not? Leave it to an eight-year-old Aspie to make grownup irritation seem completely irrational.