Zeroing In

"Mom, why do we have a zero?" Bud asked this morning after "Sesame Street" featured it as the number of the day (the word was metamorphoses, for those keeping track. I told you we were on a S.S. kick these days. Finally.).

Immediately, I remembered that the Mayans had the concept of zero. I don't know where I learned this or why I remember it, but there it is.

I didn't mention that in my answer. "The number zero lets you count nothing." Oh, goodness. Philosophy and numbers. Not my strong suit.

"But it's not a number."

"Well, it allows us to count what we don't have. What if someone asked you how many dogs we have?"

"We don't have a dog."

"Right. How do you count that? You don't say, 'We don't have one dog.' You say we have no, or zero, dogs."

"Does zero come before one? It's the first number?"

Oh, yeah, because there's no way I'm teaching negatives today . . . .

It All Adds Up

As I've said, Buddy loves numbers. He was very excited at Chinese class yesterday when we got to count--he'll do it on his fingers, in English, and in Chinese.

But we went past five! It took awhile to explain the concept of seven--one hand of five plus one hand of two. But he got it and was fascinated. "What's six? What's eight?" We went through all the numbers up to ten and he spent the rest of the day saying "seven is five and two."

My goodness, the boy can add!