But can he count backwards?

My family was at a park recently where a cute little 4ish/5ish year old boy was counting backwards.  He was standing ontop small slide and his mother and him were counting backwards from 10.  Several times the mom count down by herself.  Several times it was just the little boy.  My husband looked over at me and asked an eternal question:

"Can Ethan count backwards?"  It was a look of concern.  My son can't do that and he CAN!

Which I felt like I had to explain to him the reason.  That little boy is all about rocketships.  His hands were rocketships.  Everything had a "ShhhhhHHHHHHhhhhhhh!" sound to it.  He jumped to the word "Blastoff!"  He was in full astronaut mode.

Our son?  Not so much.  They're cool and all, but they don't do it for him.  Helicopters.  Now that is a different story.  Ethan can tell you about flying inverted.  He points out horizontal and vertical lines.  He understands the difference between and main and tail rotor.  This kid told me on June 30, 2010 "Mom, when I grow up I want to be a United States of America Rescue Helicopter and rescue people."  Well amen little brother.

It's not about where each child falls on the line, it's about nourishing what is amazing and awesome in their little world.  This is how we are homeschool, for now at least.  It is how I'm choosing to educate Ethan.  For about 8 months it was dinosaurs.  Ohhh I'm sick of dinosaurs and all the dinosaur books and dinosaur museums.  But he loved it.  He ate it up.  My son was paleintologist at age 2.  And now he's onto the next thing.  So do we go to the airport when there's an open house?  Oh yes indeedy.  Do we youtube helicopters like none other?  Yes.  An exasperated I'm-so-over-this yes.

Here is Ethan's favorite youtube video.  At the end, there is a helicopter that becomes inverted.  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f1cwycSWq0&videos=wPPENIutnsg