Grady's Numbers

Grady wants to be involved in everything lately.  He is sure he can pour his own milk, get his own breakfast, do most of the cooking, etc.  It doesn't mean he can actually do all these things, but he really wants to.

Today when I was getting myself some food, I said he could type in the numbers on the microwave for me.  For some reason, it's always a huge enjoyment to use the microwave.  I told him to type in fifteen. Somehow he couldn't figure it out.  I asked him what numbers he needed to type and he kept saying "I don't know".

I went through the whole sequence with him: "What is 1 and 1?" (eleven) "What is 1 and 2?" (twelve) "What is 1 and 3?" (thirteen) "What is 1 and 4?" (fourteen) "What is 1 and 5?" (fifteen).  "Ok, so what numbers do you need to type in?"  And he still says "I don't know".

He sits looking at the microwave numbers and goes through the whole sequence himself, up through nineteen, but he skips over 1 and 5 like three times.  At that point, I start rolling my eyes because who knows what's going on.  He seemingly knows the answer and refuses to type it in.  And this is my food that I'm not eating yet because I'm trying to give him the opportunity to type in the numbers.

Eventually, I got frustrated enough that I just typed them in myself.  He stood there screaming "No, I'm going to type them in!".  Even after I was sitting at the table eating my food, he's still standing there screaming about it.

So, who knows if he knew the numbers or not.  He was obviously upset about not typing the numbers in, but I had been standing there for 3+ minutes waiting for him to do it - even handing him the answer inside the sequence we went through.

After I finished eating, I got a paper and had him trace the numbers 11 through 20 on a paper.  Then he decided he wanted to paint the numbers too.  And he really got into it.  I haven't seen him sit down and use paints to do anything but scribble around and then get bored.  But this one, he sat there and painted every one of those numbers.  From 1 to 32.

This is the sort of activity that I wish a preschool did.  But I don't think there's anywhere near us that does this sort of thing.  Because this is everyday life.  He was having trouble, so we sat down and talked about it.  I suggested tracing the numbers, so he did it.  And then he wanted something more, so we put that together too.  I don't think there's a preschool anywhere that can be that flexible and actually help each child at the time they need help with something specific like that.