Wampum

At the swings I charge Jonah for pushes -- a spell out scores of words and pause after each until he gives me the word. Like Yertle the Turtle I spell out what I see (not being very original, and concentrating on not being hit by the swing, and so on). Periodically I walk out from behind him and stand in front of him to ask him numbers "two plus two is?" And we've gotten up to the high teens on symmetric increments to the operands. The asymmetric questions "three plus four is?" are harder. After several cues I hold up one hand with the first operand, then the second with the second, working through all the variations of five or less plus five or less. Choreographing our way towards the dozens. I probably look as ridiculous as the yellow shirts sending Tom Cruise off the deck of a carrier, minus the ocean, the aircraft, and the carrier transmorgified to the bark or shredded tire safety deck, spring ride creatures, climbing structure, and of course, the swings. The less heroic vision is I've slightly invisible pompoms and I'm leading a crowd of one in a series of low digital cheers. Bring It On was the better movie.

I've brought this home from the economy of pushes for "swinging in the air", and started doing hand-over-hand three-plus-three with Jonah, working his hands, first one then the other, into three-fingers, which he then quickly counts to get six. This morning, to get a donut, as usual Jonah couldn't "answer" the "three plus three is?", repeating back "three plus three is", but when prompted "use your fingers" Jonah carefully formed the three fingers, first one hand, then the other, and then counted to six.

I got a donut too.

Update: While driving to Gilroy today to pick up parts, from his seat behind me, Jonah gave me "four plus four" and "five plus five", again, with several prompts and finally "use your fingers, count both hands", in exchange for two beloved CDs worth of music (Disney CARS and PIRATES).