My Little Haggler

Having mastered the art of 3, and 2, and counting to 5 (he's mostly mastered counting to 10 as well), Jonathan has become pretty good at haggling. Mostly haggling over how many fruit snacks or stories he gets at bedtime, but pretty much anything that comes in quantities of five or less.

He'll hold up his hand, all five fingers stretched out, and say, "I want five fruit snacks daddy." I'll say, "no, two fruit snacks." He'll look at his hand for a second, fold one finger down (often with his other hand), and say, "four fruit snacks daddy." I'll say, "no, two fruit snacks." He'll look at his hand for a second, fold another finger down, and say, "phree fruit snacks daddy, I want phree fruit snacks." At that point I'll smile and say OK and get him some fruit snacks and he's all happy.

Replace fruit snacks in the above story with pretzels, bedtime stories, french fries, strawberries... and well, you get the idea. I think he gets it from his Mommy, haha.

3

If I were to guess at what Jonathan's favorite number was, I'd say it was 3 (followed closely by 2). Not because he happens to be three years old right now, but because that's how many stories I read to him at bedtime. Jonathan works very well with preset limits, so if I tell him he gets three stories at bedtime, he's OK when I stop after the last story; otherwise it's a constant "one more story daddy, one more story!"

So, about two weeks ago we were late getting Jonathan to bed and I told him I was only going to read one story to him since it was so late. He looked up at me and said very seriously, "no daddy, phree stories" and tried to hold up three fingers. He's still behind with his fine motor skills so his three fingers looked more like five plus a hand cramp, but I was surprised and impressed all the same, first that he requested a specific number of stories (we're working on his numbers and counting) and secondly that he was trying to mimic all the times I held up three fingers while saying I would read him three stories. Needless to say, he got his three stories that night (along with an extra big hug and heaps of praise).

Since that night I've been working with him trying to teach him how to hold up just three fingers. He's almost to the point where he can do it one handed, without using his other hand to fold down his thumb and pinky first. I'm hoping to get a photo of him showing thee fingers, it's pretty darn cute.

Next we'll have to work on two, which is the number of Matchbox cars he has to have to go to bed.