Why Bear is still a baby

Bear will be three in a couple of weeks now. He has been speaking in full sentences since he was a year old. He is HUGE compared to the other kids his age we know and yet I still call him a baby. Not a toddler, not a preschooler, but a baby.

People keep asking me why I call him a baby and I explain I did the same thing with Wolf. Until my kids tell me that they aren't babies anymore and that I shouldn't call them that they remain babies. When Wolf told me he wasn't a baby I stopped using that term for him.

The reasoning behind this is that our society pushes kids to grow up faster than is really healthy for them, in my opinion. Every aspect of many children's lives is scheduled. Even playing with other kids is written into the day planner as a "playdate." The problem becomes magnified when your kids are functioning several grades above their age. Kids get to be babies for such a small portion of their lives that I simply refuse to take that away from them before they let it go on their own. I know it probably isn't a conscious decision for them, but it is still their decision made on their own.

Davidson and Bunny

We just sent in Wolf's application to the Davidson Young Scholar Program. It is a program aimed at serving extremely gifted young people between the ages of five and eighteen. We're hoping that he will be able to meet more kids like himself and get help finding special programs. I'm am SO bad at waiting though. I am pretty sure he will qualify, but you never know. By the time the process is over, possibly as long as six weeks from now, I will undoubtedly be a nervous wreck.

So we go from how advanced Wolf is to how he is still only five years old. This evening I found our younger rat, Bunny, a blue dumbo hairless rat, dead in her cage. Brendan has lost pets before, but this was the first one he had really attached to. All the others have been fish or reptiles, not nearly as cuddly. He is so sad and so hurt and so, well just plain confused by all of it. He has all of these emotions and hasn't had the experience to understand what he is feeling. It hurts to watch him hurt and it doesn't help that I'm hurting too. She was an adorable and wonderful pet.

Tomorrow we are going to bury her in the back yard in our little cemetery. She'll have a blanket and some food and we will get to say goodbye. I've explained that the part of her that made her Bunny still exists, that it is just her body that died and now her body will be able to become part of the earth and the trees that grow nearby. I've told him she is alive in our hearts and memories and the part that made her Bunny will never die. It's a hard enough concept for adults to comprehend.

How many parents have had this conversation?

I had a conversation today with Wolf (almost 5 1/2 years old now) that I think will go down in the annals of history as the only time this particular conversation has and will EVER take place.

Wolf has been dragging his feet about schoolwork recently. We had FINALLY found a level of difficulty that wasn't too hard or too easy for him (or so I thought) and had cut down on things that he wasn't as interested in, so I was really at a loss.

Anyway today he was taking FOREVER to do a page of math that should take him only about 5-10 minutes because it was a new version of something he knew how to do. I asked him what was up and he burst into tears crying, "I wanna do 4th grade work. I wanna do 4th grade work. I wanna do 4th grade work." I cuddled and rocked him and asked, "But why?" He sniffled and replied, "Because I want more challenge."

I teared up and tried not to laugh at the same time. I mean, what do you say at a moment like that? I ended up telling him that I love him and that 4th grade work would be too frustrating for him until he learned to multiply and divide easily (I couldn't come up with anything else). It seemed to satisfy him though and he went back to his work and actually concentrated and got it done quickly.

I'm not sure I will ever get used to how unique our "normal" is

I'm not sure if it is a kind of denial or a necessary layer of protection for my sanity but I always have anxiety hit when someone takes my happy "normal" life and reminds me how far from average my "normal" is.

Today Wolf's teacher and I met with the school district psychologist who has YEARS of experience with GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) and even worked in a state that had GIEP's (Gifted Individual Education Plans, CA only has them for students with delays). She also raised a couple of gifted kids of her own so I figured she would have lots of experience with kids like Wolf. Wolf's teacher asked her about raising her gifted kids and she said they were nothing like Wolf or not in the same league or something else that made me feel very uncomfortably aware of how non-average he is. The psychologist is really hoping they can talk the district into allowing her to test him as soon as he turns six. I'm not complaining, a tester with years of experience testing bright kids is something I have heard is hard to come by. The thing that really got me was that she would so it tomorrow if she could!

They came up with several ideas to research to help Wolf with enrichment and socialization which was what I was hoping for. I got a lot out of the meeting and it was great to meet and talk to her, but it really brought home how out there we really are... When the gifted teachers/psychs are impressed it sort of tells you something. Sigh...

On another "normal" note, Bear can now turn on the computer, open up his profile, launch our browser and go to the site he wants in the bookmarks menu. He can also shut down the computer. All on his own. His third birthday is coming up next month a robot and Buzz Lightyear theme it seems...

I also tricked him into reading for me. We knew he could read having caught him doing so every now and then, but unlike his brother, he won't display his abilities when asked. In fact he says "I can't" to which we answer, "Yes, you can. We SAW you!" Anyway I was reading a book he had never seen before to him and was running my finger under the words. After the first few words I stopped reading and he started. He read the book to me twice when all was said and done. It was a one sentence per page type book, but I'm pretty impressed. Then he did some basic math for me in the car, 1+1, 2-1, 3+1. I hadn't known he could do math until then.

So these boys are my "normal" and it's all I can do to keep up with them. I don't force feed them calculus in their sleep or strap them to chairs and make them write term papers. Heck all I do is try to provide them with what they want and need. They just soak it all in like little sponges. It constantly amazes me how they can pick something up after only seeing it once or twice. They LOVE learning. They are so vibrant and full of interest and drive, it's just beautiful to experience it with them.

Well we made the right decision

I have been reading about the social and emotional health of "gifted" kids and one of the things that I took note of was that elementary school kids were bothered by the fact that no one ever explained the term to them. They knew they were different and were in different classes, but never really understood why.

One day I asked Wolf if he knew why he was in Independent Study in first grade and not in a regular Kindergarten classroom. He replied that he did not. I asked him if he wanted to know and he said yes.

I explained that if he was in a classroom with children his age he would be learning the alphabet, how to count to twenty, how to sound out and read basic words like cat, and that he wouldn't be learning Spanish or Logic or root words. I told he we had put a lot of thought into which option to choose and had decided that putting him in an environment where he could work at his level and be challenged would be the best idea. I asked him if he would rather be in a regular classroom and his response was, "NO! It would be way too boring."

I take that as proof we made the right choice...

What do you do when...

... Your two year and ten month old son gets bored waiting for you to load up the website he wants and simply opens the bookmarks menu, scrolls up and down looking for the site he wants, finds it and opens it?

It really is a little unsettling...

Bear was recently put through a battery of developmental tests by a professional in our home. We'll be getting the results back in a while.

The thing that really floored me was that the tester had to come back for another visit to finish the cognitive testing section because, to quote, "he surpassed all of the tests she had with her." I was there for the whole testing process and there wasn't one test she gave that he couldn't have done if he had wanted to cooperate (instead of grinning and intentionally giving the wrong answer...). She told me that the tests she was giving him near the end were normally used with 4 and 5 year olds. He is two years and ten months... I mean we knew he was smart, but this? Really?

Wolf got his Little Dragons Yellow Belt!

He has been wanting this since he first started martial arts in October. The testing was so much fun to watch. I don't think any of the Little Dragons are older than maybe seven? Watching all of them following instructions and doing their form was so cute. Wolf even got to break a board and got it on the second try, a huge improvement from his first attempt at breaking a board where the instructors had him do everything they could think of for him to manage to break it. The lessons are helping Wolf so much with his concentration and respect. Compared to the other white belts testing he was definitely the most focused and that was really nice to see.

For those who are wondering the Little Dragons program is martial arts for little kids. All belt levels work on the same form and the same skills, it's all just an issue of learning focus and the basic moves. They are expected to come to class twice a week and not expected to practice at home or to memorize the form or self-defense combos. They level in the same way that the older kids do, but their belts have a white stripe in the middle. What happens when they are ready to move up to the big kids classes is that whatever belt they are at their next test gets them a white belt with a yellow stripe (instead of starting with a white belt) then they level up with full colored belts from then on starting with yellow. Basically they are a yellow belt twice, once in the Dragons and once when they get to the older kids classes.

Winner NaNoWriMo 2009

I made the deadline with a little over 50,000 words. Not only that, but I actually finished the story. I'm quite pleased with myself. I would have felt pretty silly if Wolf had finished his and I didn't finish mine!

The simple things that make me happy

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went with family to some land that they own. It is basically on the left hand side of no where, which is nothing but a very positive comment actually. The drive there was gorgeous, through narrow canyons, past abandoned mine sites and right next to cows. Literally right next to, no fences, just cows hanging out at the side of the narrow winding road.

We stopped at the last restroom before we got there. It was a little general store/restaurant in an old school house. It was getting very cold out and the place was not very well heated.... well at least the bathroom wasn't.

We got back into the cars and drove the last stretch to our destination. Our little prius was the tail end of a train of four SUV's going at break neck speed on tiny very curvy roads. Did I mention someone made the mistake of giving me access to a walkie talkie? As we were driving it started to rain and then then rain started to slush and then it started to snow!!! For those of you who don't know I LOVE the snow, rarely get to see it and Bear had never seen it. The first thing I do is start hoping and wishing that enough falls for it to stick so that I can make snowballs.

(As a side note, I am the person who said it would never rain in July of course causing it to and who went camping in the winter and begged the universe for snow after which it snowed enough to cave the tent in on Dragon twice before he retreated to the van.)

Needless to say it REALLY started snowing. It was beautiful. Oak trees, fallen trees, golden grass, rolling hills, all of it slowly getting coated by silent whiteness. The flakes were like chunks of cotton candy. You could actually look at them and see all the intricate ice crystals, but they looked so soft.

Wolf was out and hesitantly playing in it and eventually Bear woke up and was convinced to come out and join all of us. It did snow enough to make snowballs, admittedly sort of sad ones, but snowballs none the less as long as you avoided the cow pies. The boys got into that for a little while.

One of the cousins picked some mistletoe and another came back with the lower jaw of a cow which was a big hit. In fact it prompted Bear to tell one of the relatives that hadn't gone all about finding a dead seal and a dead bird on one of our field trips when asked what he saw on this trip!