ABC and 123

School just recently started for my eldest grandboy.  I can't believe he's in fourth grade!  How did that happen?  It might actually be possible that as fast as your own kids grew up, grandboys do so that much faster!  Someone put a brick on his head, please!

So on the first weekend of the school year, Bryce and I played a round of mini golf.  Tyler came along with us - against Bryce's better judgment.  And true to elder brother's prediction, Tyler did not exactly understand or enjoy the process.  He did, however, burn off some energy, which always bodes well for later in the day.  While Tyler earned a predetermined 7 on each hole, we had to revise the score card on hole number 15, where he got a hole in one - almost 100% legitimate, too!

As we golfed, Bryce told me about his teacher, Mrs. Teach (apparently that's not how it's spelled, but it is how it sounds).  He knows some of the kids in his class and likes them.  His favorite subject is math, because he's in the Academically Talented (AT) program.  (If you could see me now, I'm polishing my fingernails on my puffed out chest - as if his academic prowess were my accomplishment.  I know it's not, but I still can't help myself...)  He and four other classmates get pulled out for their own special math and science lessons.  Somewhere during his explanation of a project involving gummy bears and rocket ships, I got distracted keeping other golfers safe from Tyler's putter which was doubling as a sword.  I didn't quite get the whole bear to rocket trajectory - sorry.

Bryce, however, is getting to be quite the golfer, which will make his Grampa very proud!  He got a hole in one - 87% legit!  He also mastered the mulligan, and certainly employed it to his benefit.  There were times when the ball stopped against a rock and he used "relief" to move the ball out from the obstruction so he could hit it without damage to the putter.  He moved it a good 3-4 feet - inevitably closer to his prize, of course.  The putter was no more scarred at the end than it started.  He also has an ingenious use for his foot-wedge, which is to step on the ball as it rolls by the hole heading in the wrong direction.  All of that I could overlook.  It is, after all, mini golf, and not the pro tour.

But the thing that had me scratching my head was his counting:  1, 2, 2, foot wedge, mulligan, 3.  "That was a 3 for me, Granma."  Just as I was about to question his AT math placement, he started counting my strokes.  He didn't falter even once.  Interesting.

Perhaps once those gummy bears achieve orbit, Bryce should go back and review the number line.  Just a suggestion...