attack of the dumb

my son has been suddenly rendered stupid, and i dont know why.

i dont know if he's just Being Four, if he's tired, or if theres something wrong with him that makes him incapable of thinking after about 4:30pm.

he's a smart boy. he knows left from right, can whistle in tune, he can read his alphabet, knows the associated sounds with most of the letters (although hes been doing weird things there lately too), and can read any number under 100. he's constantly telling me how much things cost when we're at the shops. and yet, today, its all flying out the window.

for a start he's insisting on reading everything from right to left, and upon being told to read from the left, he asked which way that was. i stared at him until he stopped being silly. then he insisted that the number 4-0 is one he doesnt know. he knows every other number except that one. it took 5 minutes to get him to call it 'forty-oh' and upon being told theres no such number, silly person, he looked at me as if ive grown another head. we then had a conversation like this:

me: forty-oh isnt a number. listen to the other numbers. if 2-0 is twenty, and 3-0 is thirty, and 5-0 is fifty, what is 4-0?
critter: um.... forty-oh.
me: no. you arent listening. if 3-0 is thirty, and 5-0 is fifty, what is 4-0?
critter: forty-oh?
me: no. go to your bedroom and sit down and think about it, and then come and tell me what number 4-0 is. (because at this point, after a day of him refusing to be more than 2 feet away from me at any given moment, including getting up and running after me and trying to open the door when i was ON THE TOILET to find out what i was doing; and telling me every 2.8 seconds to LOOK AT ME when im already watching him; and mummy? mummy. mummy. muuuuuuuummy. mummy? MUMMY!!!!! muuuuuuuummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, im ready to scream, and quite frankly 5 minutes of him being elsewhere will stop all sorts of things from happening)
critter: I DONT WANT TO!! (as he's running to his room)

this continued for another ten minutes or so, with him intermittently coming out and telling me that he doesnt know any numbers, and me telling him to go back to his room and think.

eventually it got to the point where i couldnt take it any more.

me: what number is 3-0?
critter: thirty
me: SO WHAT NUMBER IS 4-0!!!
critter: forty (looking at me as if he's been telling me that the whole time)


he is so lucky. i was on the verge of shutting all the doors and going to bed, leaving him to fend for himself till daddy gets home at about midnight.