Bradford Invents and Fixes and Learns and Other Surprising Things

Oh! how I love my weird son. Today was shot from the beginning as far as academics go. I was still trying to recover from devoting all of yesterday to entering the contest for Kroger, and my brain was mush. Fortunately I have a remedy for mushy brain, so by tomorrow we should be good to go.

Where was I? Bradford. Give the kid enough rope, and he hangs not himself, thankfully, but a swing. I purchase 50 feet of thinnish rope from Walmart, he finds it unattended, grabs a piece of and the next thing I know they've got a swing.

Ben said swinging on it was the most thrilling thing he's ever done. That's good to know, because $3.27 for rope sure beats $1000+ for a trip to Disney.

This afternoon Bradford decided the doorbell needed to be fixed. He got his electrical tape and wired it back. We actually need a new doorbell on the inside, but it buzzed just a little, and the three of them were practicing Morse code with it.

He is also learning the Shorter Catechism. We just started taking the boys to choir and Catechism class on Wednesday nights, and I think it will be great. No gimmicks, no games, just quoting Catechism and verses. I'm loving the simplicity of it. I said no gimmicks, but that is not entirely true. They do earn points for saying their sections, and for every 50 points they earn, they choose a small prize. Bradford must learn the harder version, but the younger boys, rather than learning the First Catechism (Who made you? etc), are learning a shortened version of the Shorter Catechism. Then the Shorter Catechism won't seem so tough, because they'll basically know it. I'm projecting that Ben will be finished in about 6 weeks.

Nate is also doing really well. The book that we are using breaks the Old Testament books into two sections, and says that the child must read them with his leader. I helped Nate learn to read the first section of them, and the kid goes and quotes them to his leader! Of all our boys, he is the only one who received a prize this week. Ben should have, but there was a misunderstanding as to which book he was working in because he looks so big, and he's capable of harder work.

Now, off to bed I go. I talked my husband to sleep nearly two hours ago, and I need to join him.