Sometimes I feel so sorry for Shira. I don't know how the poor child puts up with having Ben as her brother. When the kids do their school work, I have had to start putting them in different rooms. The only time they are in the same room is if I am teaching the two of them together.

Ben has just finished doing his math problems. He was adding and subtracting fifteen digit numbers. Apparently he is incapable of writing down the answers without singing them in an ascending scale. I can hear how far he is in a problem by the note he has reached. Then when he checks his answer and realizes he has it correct, we hear a huge cowboy whoop.

He also has to talk his way through the problem. I often wonder if this isn't my fault. At 2 yrs 4 mnths Ben had around 20 words. I was beside myself with worry so a friend lent me a book on how to promote speech in a child. It said that I should narrate everything I do. So off I was, narrating my way through the day. I never shut up. Two months later Ben started talking in sentences and has not shut up since. If his eyes are open, he's talking. He narrates everything, just like I did after reading that book.

I also read a book by Jane Healy that spoke about how the frontal lobe acts as the executive and only starts developing at around age 7. Before that children don't have the ability to have good impulse control. She suggested talking through the steps required to control behavior with the children. So off I went again. For years I have narrated the steps we take and questions we ask that enable us to have good behavior.

Shira has somehow internalized this and has all her dialogues internally, but Ben appears to be unable to have them internally and everything is out in the open.

I must admit, that as tiring as it is having him talk all the time, it is very amusing listening to the inner workings of his brain. He's either a budding genius or well onto his way to a lock up ward.

it's all very trying for Shira. She needs absolute quiet when she works and Ben likes noise, especially noise he makes himself. I often think that it is just as well that he is homeschooled. there is no way a teacher could put up with his noise in a class of 30 kids.