Counting

Counting has now become one of the Squirmle's chief amusements. At least two months ago he was saying "wu'" with enthusiasm on seeing a figure "one", but as he also occasionally said "wu'" for several other numbers we took little notice. However, the continual low-key counting of things, whether on children's TV, in numerous books, or just when out and about, has obviously sunk in, and in the last few weeks he has started recognizing and naming most of the numerals. We now usually count the (14) stairs as we go down them, and he can often be heard chanting wu', two, 'ree, bor, bye, si', eigh', noyn, ten, tweol'. (There seems no particular logic to the persistent absence of 7 and 11.) He does understand the notion of enumeration as well as mere sequence: I offered him one hand to help him down the stairs today, and he held out the other hand and said "two".

The letter O has also been joined by B, K, M, T, et al., and walkign along the street now has to be interrupted so that we can spot the letters on the manhole covers.