Math Is Calming

Many of you know that I have a little 14 month old daughter, Charlize (we call her Charlie, and she has a website).  Some of you are aware that 14 months is around an age that is not an uncommon age for first steps.  A few of you may also know that our house is largely covered with wood flooring.

See where this is going?

Charlie has been walking here and there for almost two months, but is just now starting to really take off.  She’s finally at the point where she walks more than she crawls.

Tonight was no exception, and she was taking a few laps around the living room.  The center of the living room is carpeted (roughly 15′ square) and there is a 3′ perimeter that is wood.  Also, with the "open concept", the wood extends into the surrounding entry way, dining room and kitchen area.

You can always tell how tired she is by one or more of three indicators:

• She rubs her eyes,
• She pulls her knees up under her and lays her head on the floor for a minute (really cute by the way), or
• She gets a little clumsy

Tonight she took a tumble in the entry hall and clocked her head on the wood flooring.  Basically, it went like this:

• Smile, happy, walking around.
• THUD!
• Calm before the storm.  This part seems like an eternity, but scientists have proven that, in reality, it is only 1-3 seconds.  Somehow babies instinctively know how to mess with the space-time continuum.
• Crying that makes you wish that pulling your fingernails out with pliers and then pounding them into your tear ducts with a hammer would make her feel better.

Nothing would calm her down.  I picked her up and held her for a minute and tried to soothe her.  I have no idea why I thought that would work, by the way.  Kelly took her and gave it a shot.  She tried the pacifier, which normally helps if she’s more tired than anything else.  She tried talking to her.  She tried singing.  None of the normal things were working.

Then my brilliant wife started saying, "1 + 1 is 2.  1 + 2 is 3," and Charlie started to calm instantly.  Even though she was completely calm by the "mid 2s", Kelly went all the way up to the "10s", and Charlie just watched her the whole time.

Is it possible?  Could it be?  Have the stars aligned?  Is this cutest little girl in the whole world really a geek at heart?  Let me tell you, it made this geek dad smile.  [:)]

By the way, if you have a little girl, or if you want to be really mean to your young son, Kelly is starting up a little side business making accessories for girls.  Buy something so we can send this genius kid of ours to Harvard or MIT in a couple years.