Somthing Happened There

I’m just not sure what.

We were driving up to the Y for the lass’s dance class and the boy was merrily trucking along with his counting. He got to around 240 or so and then he stopped. The lass had distracted him. He went to start counting again, but he forgot where he was at.

Then he started to cry.

Not big crocodile tears, but more of a distressed and whiney “I can’t remember where I was.” I checked in the rear view mirror and he was visibly distraught.

Yes, over numbers.

Now, my first instinct is to point out the ridiculousness of his reaction. It’s numbers… and counting. But some part of my brain checked my mouth and instead I just calmly counciled him to calm down. That getting so upset wasn’t going to help. The part of my brain that had checked my initial reaction further engaged and basically turned my mouth off. Instead, I just sat and observed.

For about another minute or so, he continued with his agony of trying to remember what number. Somewhere along the way, I started thinking “Just pick a number and count from there,” but I continued to stay silent.

Then, he did. In a tearful voice he said “Two-hundred-fifty” and he continued counting from there. By the time he reached 260, his agony was gone and he was back to counting as if nothing had happened. He stopped at 299 because he hadn’t figured out the pattern yet.

I filled in the blank: “300.”

He picked up from there and continued. As we neared the Y’s parking lot, he hit 399. He paused, and then said “Four-hundred” and continued counting until I pulled into a parking spot. As I turned off the car he exclaimed “Dad, I know what comes next. When I get to 419, then it will be 500.”

I chose not to quibble about the details, as I’m sure his excitement had addled his speech somewhat. Like I said, I’m convinced that he had some sort learning moment for himself; but beyond the events, I couldn’t really describe what it might have been. For that matter, I may have stumbled across some sort of wisdom related to child rearing. It’ll be interesting to see if I recognize the circumstances again sometime.