Saturday, October 04, 2008

My teacher said I forgot 13? Who needs 13?

That's Sam's view on counting. The title is a reference to "Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day" by Judith Viorst where Alexander says "At counting time she said I left out 16. Who needs 16?"

Sam apparently has no need for 13. Every time he counts it's 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-19-11-12-14-15 etc. We stop him at 12 to remind him and he plows right over us to 14. Momentum over continuity.

Perhaps he believes that 13 is bad luck and has noticed that buildings sometimes pretend there is no 13th floor by just not naming it 13. Perhaps he's thinking ahead that he can skip from age 12 to age 14 by merely denying the existence of 13 and thereby rushing toward the magic age of driving?

Or maybe, just maybe, 13 really doesn't exist and we're all simply wrong....

1 comment:

Kimberly said...

My nephew (who is about 8 months younger than Sam) has been having the same issue. I believe his non-number is 12, though. I suppose the 'teens' are difficult for kids--they don't play by the counting rules that all the others follow. It should be: ten-one, ten-two, ten-three...