Notes and Numbers

E-Man has been amazing me with his "math mind" for years now. Once, when he was only three years old, he was jumping off the side of a pool into my arms and it was almost time to leave. "Just two more jumps," I called to him. He promptly replied, "I already jumped three times, so two more times is five."

A few months ago at dinner, he turned to me out of the blue and said, "There are 100 ones in 100 . . . and ten tens." Less than a month after his 5th birthday, he counted to 750 while we were in the car on a long drive. I could tell he could have kept going forever, but we had to make him stop. While it was remarkable, that can also be annoying.

It's like he just can't turn the numbers off. They are always whizzing around in his mind, rearranging into different orders, and revealing themselves to him in new ways. Neither Photoguy or I can take credit for this. We are more creatively inclined. It's rapidly becoming apparent that E-Man will be passing us up in his math skills (and no doubt other areas of intellect) in a few short years.

He understands the names and values of the coins in his piggy bank and loves to count his money. I'll also find him looking over my shoulder at sale ads and saying things like, "That says 10 for $10 so they are $1 each."

I've always heard it said that music and math are related, and now I know it must be true because this little math-minded son of mine is already learning to read music and play the piano.

Rewind to last year, when Soph was in Kindergarten and I signed her up for piano lessons. Her teacher is popular so she usually has a waiting list. One day, I mentioned that I wanted to get E-Man started in piano when he started Kindergarten too. She responded that she does not enroll boys until the second grade because it is too hard for them to concentrate and get their fingers to respond appropriately as they look at the music.

I thought this seemed a bit strange to glob "all boys" and "all girls" together. It would seem that while this may be the general rule, that "some girls" might not be ready for piano until the second grade and "some boys" might be ready for piano by Kindergarten or even before. After arguing that my son was not the typical rough and tumble kind of boy, that he was more serious minded and able to concentrate, I finally conceded to her superior knowledge as a piano teacher and accepted what she said.

Then, a few months ago, Soph finished her first piano books. Moving on to her second set of books, she took it upon herself to become E-Man's piano teacher. She set him up with her first books and began teaching him the difference between the white keys and black keys, followed by the names of all the white keys and so on and so forth. In no time, he was reading the music and plunking out tunes. I have never once asked him to practice. He just loves to sit down and play things over and over and look ahead in the book to learn more. By the time he was halfway through the book, I was feeling, pleased as punch about his talent (not to mention all that money saved on lessons he wouldn't have to take). At the same time, I'm a bit nervous that he may be learning bad habits that he will have to later unlearn. Photoguy and I are not piano players ourselves. So here we have our barely five-year-old being self-taught and encouraged by his six-year-old sister. It seems that I may want an actual teacher to intervene before he enters the second grade 2 1/2 years from now.

A few weeks ago, I approached Soph's teacher and I was disappointed by her response. After her initial "he can't" attitude, she now responded to what I was telling her with, "Well, he will surely burn right out if he has to start piano lessons so young." I'm feeling pretty unhappy about this and wondering if it is time to shop around for a new teacher even though my daughter loves her.

I find myself sometimes wondering if the E-Man is just picking out familiar tunes, but, every now and then I will sit down and show him a song he's never seen before and he will play it perfectly. I can see his math mind at work as he diligently claps out the counts of the notes over and over. Yesterday, he played a warm-up song over and over. It got into my head and I started to hum after he had stopped.

"Mom, that isn't what I was playing," he said. "I was playing C,D,E,F,G,G,G-G,F,E,D,C not C,D,E,F,G,G,G-G,F,E,D,C,C,C." He was right.