Just This ...

I can't add much because this describes my younger son so well. And, number 7 ... woo hoo hoo boy, does that lead to some exhausting times and very long lessons that end up taking days because of the ideas he comes up with to add to and make a school lesson we had better, deeper, more fun.

Teacher-y Confessions - 9 Things I Wish People Knew About Highly Gifted Children

Stomping Poppies

I think poppies are a beautiful flower. Maybe it's because I am partial to red. Maybe it's too much time spent watching The Wizard of Oz. 

No matter the reason, I think poppies are lovely. Even poets felt their beauty was enough to be cherished forever in print.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

by John McCrae (1872-1918)

But, did you know there is a context in which poppies are not treated with such respect? I recently learned this term and it makes so much sense to me being the Mom of a child with gifts that others don't have. 

Tall Poppy Syndrome

The tall poppy syndrome is a pejorative term primarily used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and other Anglosphere nations to describe a social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticised because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers. This is similar to begrudgery, the resentment or envy of the success of a peer.

A similar saying occurs in Chinese and Japanese culture that translates to "The nail that stands out gets hammered down". - Wikipedia

I am sure many of you have seen this. We often feel like putting people in their place who we feel are better at us than something, and I am not sure why. So what? They have a talent or are gifted in an area we aren't. It doesn't make us less, inferior, or unworthy. It makes us different. If we all carried the same gifts and talents the world would be boring and no one could find their passion.

But, when you see it happen to a child, it's just sad. We have someone in our lives that does this any chance she gets. She is trying so hard to best us, even when she starts the conversation about our children and asks questions about them. I am thinking she believes we see a Mom who has kids that are far more awesome than our kids. But, what we really see is a woman who is insecure, sad, and full of fear. Instead of thinking her kids are better than mine (by the way, they are in high school and college, hard to compare the accomplishments of a 20 year old to an elementary aged student) I feel sorry for her. I wonder why she needs to cut the heads off the tall poppies in her life. What is she missing that makes her want to do this? Needless to say, we won't be sharing the news of our son being gifted with her. I just can't deal with more poppy stomping. And I won't put my son in her line of fire.

So, we smile, nod, and walk away. There's no reason to engage her. Her desire is to drag our kids and us down, so we don't allow this to happen. The next time you meet up with a Poppy stomper, take a harder look at them. You will see the insecurities and sadness we see in our acquaintance. Once you do, I hope your feelings turn to pity and sadness for their lives rather than anger or frustration at what they are doing. Let your poppies thrive and keep those clipper happy gardeners out because, what they ultimately need, is God. He can fill whatever void they have in their lives that make them desire to hurt others.

Crazy Kind of Week

We visited my Aunt and Uncle last weekend. It was wonderful. My cousin brought her family over a few times. My kids love to play with their little cousins. It's a great time for all. Exhausting, but great.

On our way home this happened ...

Wondering what that is? That's looking out our front SUV window at the sheets of rain falling. No fog, no foggy windows, that's rain. You can scarcely see another dark vehicle and white 18-wheeler in front of us. Good times.

We started to read this book ...

I have a great review of some supplemental items for this book coming up soon. Be on the look out for it. My kids are enjoying the book a lot. They haven't seen the movie, so they have no expectations of what it should be, which I love.

I started this book last weekend ...

It's such a good book. It's like someone followed us around the last few years and then wrote about our younger son's life. I highly recommend it. I have a few others I am going to start soon.

We have accomplished very little since getting back from our little trip. We were wiped Tuesday since we got home that day so late. Our younger son woke up complaining of a "spicy neck" which is usually a sign of his reflux acting up. I tried helping him and got him settled back into bed. He woke up the next morning with a "little bit of owie in my throat". I treated that hoping for it to just be a little allergy going on with him. Last night it was big owies and nothing was helping. I looked in his throat and found a suspicious spot. So, off to the doctor we went this morning. He feels like he's been hit with a Mac truck (nasty nose, sore throat, no appetite, tired). He gave us an antibiotic and I actually agreed with him on this one. I am not one to jump on a pill every single time my kids are sick, but he's feeling really nasty and I think he needed it.

That means the fun times came of trying to find meds that he could take. Just take a look at prescription meds the next time you are in the store. They are so pretty with their pink, yellow, purple, and rainbow assortment of colors. Yeah, those colors are dyes, even in the pill form. Most don't come dye free. Add in gluten, soy, and dairy (this is a place that his apple issue doesn't pop up most of the time), and it's a gamble on finding a medication for him. We found one that was safe except for the dyes. We discovered that they had a capsule form of that med that could be opened. Yes, it had dyes, but only in the capsule part, not the actual medication. So, we now open them up, put them in a bite of cashew milk ice cream (tangent - try cashew milk ice cream, especially snickerdoodle flavor - YUM), and he's good to go.

It also means we have to amp up his probiotics. Gotta keep that tummy healthy.

And that's been our week. Fun but crazy.

When It Isn't What You Think

Parenting is hard. Parenting when you have a child with special needs is very hard. Parenting when you have a child that you think you have figured out and suddenly your parentmobile comes to a screeching halt because you realize you were headed in the wrong direction with one of your kids is ARGH!!!!

Such is the case in our home lately. Our younger son is, what's the word, complicated. He has been for nearly his entire life. We started to figure him out, or so we thought, when our ideas came falling to the ground like sleet in the cold winter months. I am sure many of you have heard of the poem Welcome to Holland. For those who haven't, the premise is you start parenthood like you might start on a trip to Italy. You buy the tickets, plan, get on the plane, and all is good. But, you end up in Holland. And, while Holland is perfectly lovely in it's own right, you were supposed to be going to Italy so your entire paradigm has to shift in a massive way. The problem is, what happens when you never had a ticket to Italy in the first place?

We had our tickets and were headed to Italy with our son. I mean, we could smell the food. Problem is, his issues were completely different. We had a son with very defined special needs. He had SPD, food issues, and the list goes on. SCREEECH!

It hit us, our son has something else.

That something else is, we believe, giftedness.

Now, before you throw things at me and say in your most sarcastic tone, "oh, wah wah, baby girl has a smart kid". That's not what this is about. Yes, he's smart. He's very smart. He's the kind of smart that makes me know he will suprass me young and I am no intellectual slouch. But, giftedness is more than a smart kid who gets A's.

Imagine living with a child who is smart but has development that's not the same across the board (asynchronous development). Imagine a kid who can look at a new math concept that's already a few years beyond where his age is and just know how to do it who feels emotions with a massive intensity. Imagine sensory issues in a little body whose brain understands concepts far beyond his years. The list goes on. Add in a child with a talent like our son has and it can be downright hard most days. Add in that my child is one whom things come easy for so if he meets with something that takes some serious effort he freaks a bit, and it's a roller coaster right for sure.

People have always commented that he was smart. I watched him do things that I didn't think other kids his age did, but figured parents I knew just weren't sharing those activities. Slowly, however, it started to dawn on us that maybe this wasn't typical kid situations. I finally cornered someone I knew who had gifted children and worked with gifted kids to ask her about it. That's when the door opened to our actual destination. The more we read the more we felt like we were finally saying to our son "oh, there you are". The character traits, talent style, intelligence level, and pitfalls that come with it all, were like reading a biography on our child. It hit us, all those times we thought "does a 2 year old really know how to do that", "wow, I didn't teach him how to divide into numbers up to 100, how can he do that so fast and in his head" and so on were us seeing his giftedness.

The problem is, I packed for Italy. I guess I just didn't read the ticket. I knew biomedical. I knew PT and OT. I knew how to live in that world from our older son's needs. I don't know how to be the Mom of a gifted child. Thankfully my friend also shared a HUGE number of resources. I have been devouring them. It's like feeding a starving man. I feel like I have been malnourished from helping my child and never realized it until this door was opened.

We have a lot more work to do. We have to change the way to educate him because, honestly, he's bored and so far beyond where we have him (he's technically 2nd grade in age but is working right now at a 4th grade level and we need to up that). We need to figure out how to help him with his harder issues that come hand-in-hand with giftedness. We will be getting him tested to verify we are on the right track.

Holland is pretty this time of year. (ha ha)

I am going to share a few of the resources my friend shared with me. She gave me many more, far too many to list here, and I will share those over time. I hope you find the help you need if you are blessed with the wild ride of a gifted child.

• Gifted Homeschoolers Forum
• Davidson Institute
• KQED
• Hoagie's Gifted Education Page
• SENG - Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted