Infinity

My children are still interested in counting.   Counting as it relates to adding or subtracting numbers, comparing numbers, counting by two’s or other increments or just plain counting in and of itself.   My daughter likes to write the numbers one through one hundred, if possible, before her van gets to the house in the morning before school using sidewalk chalk we leave at the front door.   She also likes to see how quickly she can count to one hundred as well, rattling off the numbers in a blur of syllables.

One of the popular questions my children like to ask is what number is biggest.   For a while my son’s answer to this question was, “a google trillion”.   Then they learned about infinity.   They ask the question every child asks, which is, “what’s larger than infinity?”  Infinity plus one isn’t bigger, we tell them, or infinity plus infinity.   It’s confounding to a child to not have an answer they can comprehend but unfortunately the truth sometimes isn’t easy to understand.

There aren’t a lot of very young memories we retain from our very young childhood as adults but I remember learning counting and being very pleased with myself when I could count fairly high.   My mother was supportive of my reciting number after number to her, hoping for her praise (which she always gave) and then going again, this time for an even higher count than the time before.

I remember the novelty wearing off one day when I realized I’d mastered the whole concept of adding one to the prior number because I knew with certainty what the next number would be.  The mystery was gone, I could do it, I could count to one thousand (I think I did), one million (I definitely didn’t) and even to infinity (which I most certainly didn’t).  The mystery was gone and I’d conquered numbers, or at least I had until I got into multiplication and division in a few years time.

My daughter is on the cusp of getting that very concept right now.   She’s still interested in counting but I can see it getting easier and easier for her each time.   Soon enough she’ll be asking for my help with differential equations and I’ll have to explain how I don’t remember and isn’t it great that she’s so much smarter than I ever was.

The Big Boy Update:  I decided tonight that my son is unequivocally going to be a gamer.   He was in the car and we were on the way home from Myrtle beach.   He was doing some game or another on his iPad when he commented out loud, “wow, so much lag”.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  At dinner tonight on the way home from Myrtle Beach we were eating dinner when my daughter called out to me saying, “Nana”.   I said I was mom and not Nana.   She talked to herself in such a quiet voice that only my husband heard but she said, “I’m sorry, I mean Mommy; I’ve been with Nana all day.”  Then she tried again, this time saying out loud, “Mommy?”