Yes, on Friday afternoon, Ethan counted, for the first time and entirely without prompting, to three. Now, since I have admittedly neglected important elements of my maternal duties, such as party planning and the like, since falling into an obsessive state about this cross-country adventure Husband is taking us on, I have to further admit, I'm also not entirely sure if spontaneously counting to the number three, in the correct order and all, is something that a 23m old "should" be able to do or not.
My web-surfing for "toddler milestones" has been replaced with searches for "moms group in LA" & endless hits on Craig's list's housing pages. Therefore, I am not sure if I should be obnoxiously proud of my numerically advanced super genius and signing him up for math camp this summer, OR if I should be putting in a call to Early Intervention to catch him up with his peers before pre-school to spare him the embarrassment of not being able to count to 100 by age 3 and therefore dashing any chance he might ever have at being admitted to MIT.
Anyway, while counting to three for the first time is, whether developmentally advanced, behind or just right, is in and of itself blog-worthy, my reason for blogging about it goes a bit further. He wasn't just counting abstractly into thin air or anything like that. He wasn't just thinking about numbers for the fun of it (if he were, I might have to have testing done to ensure that he was in fact my child because, I assure you, I have never in almost 37 years, thought of numbers for the fun of it). No, he was counting objects. Tangible, concrete objects. What were those objects?
My boobs.
Yes, boobs. And as I'm a pretty average human, you can rest assured that I have only two of them. But as Ethan sat on my lap making faces and singing songs, he stopped momentarily, pointed to my left breast and then counted his way across to the right, "one. two. three", pointing very clearly at "each" breast. Apparently there's a hidden one in the middle that only toddlers can see? Maybe something like the "third eye" in a forehead? Maybe some sort of chakra he's tune into that I can find?
No. Turns out what most women refer to as the sports-bra induced "uniboob" translates into three boobs in the mind of an almost two year old.
This brings me to two conclusions and again, like a neglectful mother, neither of them speak to whether or not Ethan's developmentally on track with this new skill. One is, he must have no conscious memory of nursing because if he did, he would remember that there were only two taps available at that party. And the second? If he does have the impression that women have three breasts, he is going to be sorely disappointed later in life.
4 comments:
HA! That is hilarious! I once knew a guy with a third nipple right there in the middle of his chest, he was always a hit at parties, noone would believe him. But a third breast... thats pretty impressive! :)
How awesome would it be to have three while you were breastfeeding? You could give one a break at each feeding. Charlie shows us his own tummy when we ask him where the baby is. I think it might be time for an anatomy lesson at our house too.
It's a good thing you are going to the Plastic Surgery Capital of the World because you could just get that third breast removed. haha.
I think he's a smart one. Counting to three unprompted at that age is pretty good!
Are you sure it's not just a nubbin, a la Chandler Bing?? That's hilarious and stinking cute!
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