Jack is proving to be a very enigmatic three-year-old.

For the most part, he’s a joy to be around, being polite, funny, creative and inquisitive. But, as with many toddlers of his age, this inquisitiveness means he insists on specific details.

With his birthday just around the corner, Jack’s latest obsession is demanding to know precisely how long he has to wait until it’s his birthday.

In his world, this is assessed in terms of the number of sleeps there are to go. What’s difficult for us parents though, is that he’ll keep getting the numbers wrong.

In Jack’s mind, what was five sleeps on one evening becomes, without doubt, two sleeps the next morning. Like a dog with a frisbee, Jack will cling to his conviction, to the point of tears, stomping away up the stairs as if his parents have – somehow – managed to manipulate time itself and ‘moved’ his birthday further away.

This would be less frustrating if it weren’t so repetitive, but altercations of this kind have happened almost every other day for the last week or so.

Four years old is a great age. I love spending time with Jack because he understands so much more than he did six months ago and is learning so fast.

While he understands enough to appreciate that his birthday is just “a few days away”, he has trouble getting his head round the counting bit. And despite his fast learning, I still can’t grab a calendar and point this fact out to him in a way that will resolve these arguments.

A similar problem occurs with money. While he understands money has value, he doesn’t really understand how much/little value single coins have. Having watched his moneybox fill up over the last few months (mostly with coppers), he’s convinced himself he’ll be able to afford a train ticket to see grandma and nanna, as well as take us all on holiday to France.

I dread to think what his reaction will be when he discovers he can’t.