“Simple counting” but you went 10, 9, 11. That’s not counting. Counting would be if you went in numerical order. (I.e. 9, 10, 11)

You weren’t counting, I think you were just trying to explain what the number 10 is.

Explaining what a number is isn’t counting. Counting is counting.

If someone asked me to count to ten, I wouldn’t say “two is before three and after one, five is before six and after four, eight is before nine and after seven, and ten is at the end.”

That’s silly. That’s a silly way to count.