Counting in the Smoke

Nathan can count to ten. Sometimes he struggles, but he can get to five with no problem. I'm teaching him to count using his fingers, and sometimes he can't get them up in the "right" order. Recently, he was counting and went all the way to ten. I was very impressed, but for some reason I asked him if he could count backwards! He looked at me with a "huh?" stare for a second, then turned his back to me and started counting again! I love it!

Something else Nathan has discovered recently is "smoke". On New Year's Eve, I took him outside to see and hear the fireworks our neighbors were setting off. He had been asking about the "pop-pops", as he called them, and I didn't want him to be afraid of them. After some initial death-gripping of my shirt, he grew comfortable with the pops, and was enjoying the starry explosions overhead in the night sky. At one point, the wind shifted and the smoke from the fireworks drifted our way. Nathan wrinkled his nose, sniffed a few times, and asked, "Daddy, what's that smell?" I told him it was smoke from the fireworks, and he said, "Ewww, stinky smoke!" This in itself would be cute, but the story continues... Now, anytime he ventures near a recently inhabited bathroom, or a poopy little Evan (or Daddy after one of my custom burgers), he wrinkles that little nose and says, "Eeewwww - Stinky Smoke!" Indeed!