1) Someone screwed him up with shapes. He's been (for months now --- in fact maybe I already blogged about this?) pointing a circles and saying "oval." I have to gently correct him. And he doesn't take it well.
I'm blaming someone at Bumblebee Daycare, because when he was at Sunflower he was between 6 months and 10 months, and that just seems too young.
Regardless of who is responsible, it's been an intensive, brutal, punishing corrective process. But slowly those monsters' grip is loosening, the toxins are leaching, and our lovely child is returning to us. I've missed him so!
2) He skips 5. We've been doing a lot of counting, and somewhere along the line Elliot decided to go straight from 4 (as in 1...2...3...4) to 9.
It's not that he doesn't know 5 comes after 4. If you stop him and say "No, what's after 4?" he will think about it and say 5.
What's happening, I think is that he has learned that ten is the goal. And what better way to get to ten than skipping to 9?
When he actually does this skipping thing, it makes perfect sense to me. We're reading a counting book, and we start counting pears or something. He starts slowly (1...2...) but quickly accelerates (3, 4) and somewhere around the number 3 I can hear the excitement enter his voice. By four he's fired up, brimming with anticipation, and the next number out of his mouth? Nine.
If I were a better writer I could find some way that all of us adults do something exactly like this in our adulty lives. But the analogy, if it exists, refuses to come to me right now.
If you think of one, leave it in the comments.
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