Little Fayoumis was thinking and not working at school today. He came home with "too much homework" (his teacher's words). We haven't been doing homework together much for a while, mostly because he hasn't had any on the days when I've had him. So he's gotten out of the habit of doing it happily without making a fuss over it, and the him/Marx interface is not good about reducing dramatics.

But, he's almost done. Just twelve words to put in alphabetical order, and I taught him the process: How many A words? None? What's the next letter? B? How many B words? One? Write it down. Cross it out. What's the next letter? C? How many C words? Two? What's the second letter? Which one comes first? OK, write them down, cross them out, and what's the next letter?

And he thought it was going to be tough. He does fine with things as long as there's a process he can follow. He does his math that way, the subtraction he hasn't memorized: 14 - 5? 14 - 0 = 14, 14 - 1 = 13, 14 - 2 = 12 ... .

I don't think he's getting PS2 time today, because he didn't do his work at school the way he was supposed to.