You might want to sit down for this one, folks

Do you know what you learn in the first month and a half of kindergarten? Besides walking in lines and taking turns and writing your name with one capital letter at the beginning all lowercase after? You learn to count to 100. Now, okay. I know what all of you mothers with older, much more intelligent children are thinking with every due right- Sarah. Counting to 100 is really not that big of a deal. It happens, like, ALL the time. Everyday in fact. Kids even, like, add and subtract numbers to EQUAL 100. And then, they multiply and divide by 100 and find the square root of 100 and use it in complicated algorithims like it's no big deal. Well, true. But when your kid learned to walk he wasn't the first either to do that either. Heh.

So, I did not know this. But then again, I don't remember much about kindergarten except that #1) my teacher was really old (in fact, she's the same age now as she was back then- isn't that amazing?) and #2) I once proudly brought my barbie dressed in a pink sweatsuit that my mom made to school. That was fun. And... and then... wait... Nope, that's it- that's all I remember.

Anyways, last night I was reading the letter that came home in Lydia's Friday folder and as I'm reading I see something along the lines of... kids will be getting assessed on letter recognition and counting to 100... Halloween costumes should be in bag with the kids name on it for next Friday.... HOLD ON, back up while I choke on my coffee. Counting to 100? Last I checked the kid could count all the way to 11. Okay, so she wasn't real advanced for her age or lining up for a spot on the quiz bowl team just yet, but hey- 11 wasn't a bad start to her school career. But, 100? Ha. Let's not get overzealous, now okay? Her recitations went more like 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 13, 19, 23... um... 12?

100. Pshaw. Must have been a typo. Now, 10? Yeah, that she could master. Like a pro!

Then again, maybe it wasn't. Maybe I should have been more on top of this. This could prove to be a bit of a problem when "assessment" time came around. You know, next week? So... as we were eating breakfast this morning I casually brought it up. Didn't want to make her feel all inadequate and come right out and ask if she could count to that astronomically high number or anything so I just vaguely asked her to start counting.

And somewhere between 25 and 30 I asked, How high can you count anyways? To which she smugly replied, "A hundred!"

Huh. Who would've thought. So, she proceeded to rattle off the numbers- yep, all the way to 'a hundred'.

"And you know what," she continued, "That's like the highest number ever!"

Well, imagine that: my kid can count to the highest number ever. What can they possibly teach her next? (I mean. Besides counting higher than 100 or wrting actual words instead of random phrases such as "WPBTRDE!")

Amazing.