I want to thank everyone for the kind welcomes and advice. It feels much better knowing I can come on here anytime I need to and vent my frustrations (I have a lot of those!) or share some of the neat things DD2.5 does. For instance, she started teaching herself to sign the alphabet by playing on starfall.com. She started 3 days ago and knows about half the alphabet now. That is unusual for a 2.5yo, right?? Sometimes I still don't know for sure what's normal and what's GT, this being my oldest child. My general guideline is if I'm amazed she can learn it, it's probably GT. That's not real scientific, but oh well.
A couple of you talked about me being ahead of the game since I recognized GT abilities or signs in my daughter so soon, but really the congrats should go to my friend. When my DD was about 20mo, my friend saw her coloring. Every time she picked up a new color, my daughter would proudly say it. "Yellow! Orange! Blue!" I didn't think anything of it since I had gone over colors with her frequently and I had no other child to base her on. My friend looked at me with astonishment and started asking questions about my DD. Then she told me that DD was definitely not "normal" but in a good way.
My DH and I thought she was just kind of smart, no big deal. But then my daughter seemed to develop in fast forward. She went from seeming normal at 17-18 months, speaking 25 words or so (nothing out of the ordinary) to speaking in two-word sentences a month later. Then 5-word sentences a very short time after that while she quickly learned her letters, numbers, etc.
Now at 2.5, we're extremely curious to know what level of GT she is but from what I've read, it seems to be best to wait until they're 4 or 5 to test. Does that sound accurate to you guys out there??
I didn't even know "play schools" versus preschools existed until I read some of your posts. I do think that a play school would be much better than a preschool since she pretty much knows the curriculum already, and the main reason I want to send her to school is to get some socialization. When she hangs out with kids her age, she seems to dumb herself down, speaking more simply. I don't want her to do that in a preschool, too. I'll have to look around my area to see if one exists here. Are they few and far between?
One of my biggest challenges with my family is dealing with my brother. He has a daughter the same age who is not GT (at least not from what I've seen), and I sometimes cringe when my DD does something crazy in front of him and his wife, like spell her name, write "hi" or operate a computer. I don't want to my DD to sense that I'm uncomfortable and that she shouldn't be herself around others, though. My DH and I just act like it's no big deal; I don't want anyone to think we're trying to show off or anything. She just does those things on her own, you know.
At any rate, I'm glad to be here. Thanks again.
