Advanced Maths, Two Year Old Style

For the past few months, Gabe has been showing some interest in his numbers. Being "educated" folks, we have FAR more numbers and letters floating around than could possibly be necessary, in the hopes that, just by seeing them everywhere he goes, he will eventually gain their knowledge and powers. Thus far, that hasn't really worked out.

Rather out of the blue, he started counting up to nine (with the noticeable omission of 3 and 7), and we thought for sure that he was a genius (because that's what all parents who pay attention to their children's development are convinced--just like all of them are convinced that their kid is going to be an engineer the first time they successfully stack four blocks on top of one another). In the past few months, he's increased his counting to fourteen (I assume because we count the stairs as we walk up them--though there are sixteen of those and he's shown no interest in 15 or 16 yet). Of these 14 numbers, he still detests 3 and 7, but he's also taken a disliking to 10. Again, not sure why.

And, yes, I've noticed that 3+7=10. That's why I'm still pretty sure that Gabe's a genius and he's just CHOOSING to omit those numbers because they have, in some way, offended him, not because he doesn't remember they exist. Everyone else's kids, though, they're still dumbies. Sorry.

Anyway, today, in his continuing quest for genius, Gabe ventured into advanced maths. He was at the table, doing some coloring, when he started counting.

"One. Two. Four. Cars. Bugs. Pop Tart."

See? Genius! He's taken the concept of Algebra, where numbers are randomly replaced by letters that supposedly mean the same as numbers but are a secret (and where imaginary numbers can exist, in a perfectly sensible way, I was assured against all of my protests in high school and college), and advanced upon the concept by replacing numbers with objects! Brilliant!

I'm really looking forward to getting his genius grant money (which I'll be applying for shortly). We still have some portions of floor that aren't completely obscured from view with letters and numbers, and those things can be expensive!