What comes next? Geometry lessons at the pool table?

I had been waiting for the day that my son's basic counting lessons extended into the realm of double digits. I guess it's the secret math-head in me.

I never would have guessed the day would have arrived courtesy of NASCAR.

If you don't already know, my husband is a fan, Daytona born and bred and though he's not an intense fan, and as a well-educated, vegetarian liberal he doesn't fit the fan mold, he follows the races every Sunday.

One day, he bought our son a toy racing car for driver Carl Edwards. A day later, my husband pointed out Edward's car in the weekend race. My son was hooked.

Now, Edwards' racing number is 99. It was the first double digit he learned to instantly recognize (though he was already able to comfortably count into the teens).

Then my boy tried to count, using the 99. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,15,99!

No, darling, I explained to him. There are a lot of numbers in between.

Pushing him on a swing some time later in the day, he started counting. Then I took took over when his number knowledge stopped and he repeated after me. So we went through the whole number sequence, reaching that final prize of shouting out 99!

Another funny part of this, given his interest in race cars, I've been pointing out all the different numbers on the random cars in his collection. And it seems he remembers those numbers easier than other ones.