Unlike many of the kids posted about here, Hanni has always seemed to fit in fine at preschool. She seems on the same wavelength with the other kids in terms of pretend play, social-emotional development, and general four-year-old running and shrieking and being crazy. It also helps that she's at a preschool that's full of professor-spawn.
Then yesterday I was chatting with one of her teachers, and she said, a couple of times, with this kind of quiet emphasis, "Hanni is really intelligent." Kind of like, You know this, right? If you don't know this, you need to know it. And she said a few things about how Hanni is more interested in adult things than the other kids. I'm not sure, but it was almost like it was teacher code for "she's not fitting it."
So, complicated feelings here. On the one hand, I'm feeling this rush of validation. I just want to hug this teacher and say "You 'get' my kid! You really 'get' her!" I'm a single mom, so I'm usually lacking reality checks about what I think I'm seeing. (Doting grandparents don't count.) And it's nice to feel like you're not crazy after all. Why do I think my kid is so different? Am I just making it up? Is this just some twisted thing about my own ego? Etc. So, yay for validation.
On the other hand, this is the first sign I've seen that Hanni is really splitting off from her peers, even within a MG-HG group. I guess I've felt fortunate, and maybe somewhat complacent, that she gets her intellectual ya-yas at home with me, and uses preschool to have gooey messy shrieky fun. But maybe not? How long till she starts to realize that she's different? How long till she starts trying to hide who she is? I think this may be the beginning of some of the issues that y'all talk about a lot here.
Anyway, just wanted to share with some folks who might be able to understand my complicated feelings about this.
