Its all in how you look at it

Since its about halfway though October, I thought I would just gently remind Iggy that in order to get his October pizza for the Book It Readathon, he still had six books left to read to reach his goal of ten books(that he set, mind you). And he says "Six? That's not that many!" and gets all excited, almost like he'd completely forgotten about the entire read-a-thoneven existed. He gets to work, searching through the pile of Iggy-level-appropriate books in his book crate. I then make the mistake (unbeknowest to me at the time) of saying "Yep, six books left to read. If you read that one right there, then you'll only have five books left to read. Then four books, then three..." and I'm illustrating on my hands the countdown. Iggy looks at me like I have ten heads and then starts to get all weepy (factor in here for his being sick with a nasty cough) and says "But I wanted to read ten books!" Me, reassuring him, says "You are reading ten books. That was your goal." He says "But you said after I read this book I would only have five books left to read, and I wanted to read ten books all together." We go back and forth, him getting more and more pouty, and me getting more and more confused about what we're even discussing until I realize something. (Aha moment.) Instead of taking my fingers and counting down from ten to zero, I count from zero up to ten. ("Look at, you started with one book and read all the way up to ten books!" as opposed to "You have ten books to read, now you have nine books to read...now you have no books to read!") Apparently, it made all the difference. Smiling happy kid wiped the snot from his nose and sat down to read his book about hot rods.

See, it really is all in how you look at it.