That's My Boy!

This past Friday Jeter was playing some computer games (we like some on http://www.pbskids.org/ and Veggietales. Anyway, on one of the games you have the option to type in your name. Sometimes he does and sometimes he makes up names. On this particular day he asked me "mom, what is my name in numbers?"

Oh yes he did.

Has my pseudo-talent with numbers been passed on to the next generation? Judge for yourself.

So I told him "10...." and explained how in this "game" the number corresponds to the order of the letter in the alphabet. That was it. Nothing else was said.

Here is the kicker. Two days later while I am getting ready for church I hear Jeter say to Simms, "Dad, do you want to know what my name is in numbers? It is 10..." And he proceeded to rattle off the whole thing - except the last number. He forgot that one. But he remembered all of the others and in the correct order!!!

You should have seen the look on Simms' face! It was saying "This is your child - not mine. This is your doing - not mine. See what you've done?" I just smiled with pride and giggled with glee.

This scenario is probably a true depiction of the memory Jeter has rather than a beginning love of numbers. Either way, it is fun for me. I enjoy hearing him add, subtract - and even multiply without realizing that is what he is doing (if you add 10 together 3 times then you get 30). I consider myself a life-long learning and it gives me joy to see him enjoy learning as well.

Speaking of which...he enjoys his homework so much from school that he has started to make up his own in his sketchpad! Yes, that is right - he is purposefully creating homework assignments for himself! At school they get HW once a week (it is only Kindergarten) and currently the focus is on one letter. They are to practice writing the capital and lowercase of the assigned letter and then find four pictures or stickers or draw pictures that start with that letter. I had to document this so that when he is older and complains about homework I can prove that at one point he actually enjoyed it!