Count Cutie

I am not a mathematical mom. My brain contains absolutely no aptitude for arithmetic of any kind. In fact, growing up I had an actual fear of the Sesame Street character called "the Count"...of course that probably had more to do with the fact that he was dressed as Dracula than with any correlation to counting. Still I like to think Sesame Street could potentially be made responsible for my aversion to addition and subtraction.

Needless to say, the mathematical gene that my daughter has apparently inherited did NOT come from her mother.

This past weekend we realized that the Little Lady can count! I'm sure it's not that abnormal for a 26 month old to know her numbers but since I was much older before I mastered mine I see this as somewhat of a miracle.

I've known for some time that she sort of knew numbers or at least recognized there names and had a general sense of the "how many" concept but I didn't realize she could actually count without any help.

We were at the airport and Prince Charming said to her "I don't see an airplane yet. No airplane." Meaning he didn't see our airplane yet. Little Lady quickly retorted, "Yes. There is an airplane." Prince Charming asked, "Where?"

She pointed out the window to two other airplanes waiting in that area and said "See. Two airplanes. One. Two."

Prince Charming was also surprised to see her count but agreed that she was right.

A moment later another airplane appeared on the runway and immediately she pointed to it and said, "Three airplanes." Then a little while later she glanced out the window to see a fourth airplane just appearing and without even having to take a lot of time to think she quickly said, "Now four airplanes."

Thank goodness she inherited her daddy's IQ because if I was told to count the planes we'd still be sitting in the airport. (Okay, I'm not really THAT bad :o)) Anyway, it's probably not that unusual or unlikely but it was definitely impressive for one as un-mathematical as me.