knitting question

[sassenach.livejournal.com]

so me and my little man (who's 7) are learning how to knit, from a class at the library :)
our class got cancelled today since its snowing like a, well....a LOT. but i have a couple questions and thought someone here could answer them.

{we're doing just a flat piece, with what is probably a very basic stitch. it's going to end up as a bag, eventually (lol)}

~how do you count the numbers of rows you have?

~somehow, it looks like it's getting wider...is this possible? and how could it be doing this and how do i fix it? or is it supposed to do this?

thanks!