I don't know quite how I percieve other kids. I find I can often draw them out quite a bit, in just a few minutes, and they stop being blobs. But then, when I start to do something with DS that I've been doing for years, other people laugh at me, and tell me I'm over explaining. I know DS would melt down if I didn't, but they don't... I guess.
DS tends to just be quiet around others. Partly its because his articulation is not up to communicating his vocabulary to stran...well, ok, it's best if DH and I and one other familliar person are all listening together
He has a particular look for when people start explaining things he already knows to him. It seems to include mostly contempt, and a bit of embarrasment. But others read it as "not getting it," and tend to move on quick. I remember a woman trying to "teach" him to put a ball in the ball run at the science center when he was about 18 mos and had <10 english words. He gave her the look, gigged when she did the big "oh, wow" thing, waited for her to leave, and then... moved over to where she'd been standing so he could reach the other four balls he'd been trying to put through all at once so they would trip the second pathway. I remember really, really, clearly because I felt AUFUL that that woman had thought my wonderful child was a lump-baby who wasn't getting enough attention because I was over sitting on a chair (gulping down a coffee so I could keep up with him). I WANTED people to see him the way I did.
I think I've kinda gotten over that now, it happens just SOOO often. I'm kinda thankful now, becasue we get a lot less of the "wow, he's smart" than we used to. I wish he'd try harder to talk to more people, and I worry about it to the point of nightmares at that time of the month, but I worry less than I worried about the complex he was getting from the comments.
Anyway, I wonder how many of the lump-babies/kids I see are really just not trusting me to listen to *them.* And I wonder how many of them are just years down the under-stimulation path. Meh. I do think DS is smarter than your average bear, but I really have no clue about what is average. I'm not sure one ever gets to really SEE another person's kid.
-Mich.
