Numbers

I spent a wonderful day in Dayton yesterday. It was warm, and my grandsons were lively and happy, and we spent a good part of the day in the back yard.

My grandsons are into numbers. They read off the temperature from the thermostat, even the two-year-old. I don't know if that is normal for a two-year-old. The older one, who is three, but coming up on a birthday in a couple of months, seems most taken by numbers. He calls the microwave the numbers machine, and will run into the kitchen to see what numbers are showing. He reads books with numbers. He counts up to thirty or so, just on his own. He plays with a measuring take, going over the numbers as high as they go. I don't know if he has got to one hundred yet, but he seems able.

At dinner, he had a pizza. We got one pizza for me and my wife, which was a large veggie pizza, and I'm sad to say we ate the whole thing. My daughter, who doesn't eat dairy, had a cheese-free pizza with olives, mushrooms, and some other veggies. She is a vegetarian, but eats eggs, so not really a vegan. Her husband had a cheese-free pizza with some veggies and sausage, and maybe pepperoni, but I'm not sure about the meat. Each little boy got a personal pizza. One was a cheese pizza, the other with sausage.

The older of my grandsons first counted how many slices there were in his pizza. Then he removed a slice, and counted how many were left. He did that each time he took a slice, proudly reporting that 1 with 1 taken away is zero slices.

The younger, who is a bigger eater, at his whole pizza, too, and also asked for some pieces of olive from his mother's pizza. She shared a few, then got out a bowl of olives, which he also ate. My daughter announce that next time, he will get a pizza with sausage and olives for himself.

Earlier in the day, my wife and I were walking around in the back yard, watching the boys as they moved from the toy car to the playhouse, to the tree in the back, and other places around the yard. No activity held their attention for long, but there was plenty to do. The my wife got an idea. She went inside, and got a piece of chalk. She started writing numbers on the pavers of the patio. There were 22, each with a number, in the first row. The grandsons were fascinated. The older kept walking back and forth, counting up, then counting down. He also counted by twos, with a little help. Then threes. I helped him count by fours. He would jump, with some assistance, and I would make sure he landed on the next number, which he would shout out. I think he spent more than an hour playing on those numbers.

The younger grandson also read off the numbers, though he didn't make any attempt I noticed at counting down. Sometimes, he doesn't seem to be clear on counting in order. He can count to three pretty well, but above that, the numbers seem to lose their order. But he is just two. Still, he can carry on a conversation, better than his older brother ever did at that age. My daughter commented on that at one point in the day.

Yes, I am bragging about my grandsons because they are amazing. And they love numbers, which I also love. My best, most favorite Christmas present ever was a calculator. I used it to calculate my weight on ever planet in our solar system, plus the moon. I used our encyclopedia to look up the mass and diameter of the planet, and used the universal gravitational constant, and my own weight. Of course, I was not three. I think I was twelve. I can hardly wait to tell my grandsons that story, and then we can make up some new numbers games.