Hi. I'm Cara and stay at home with our 22 month old son. I hope it is okay that I am posting here. I don't really know where we fit in.

While I don't think he is extremely gifted, especially compared to some of the kids I read about on here, we feel he is above average in some areas. I don't like posting on my favorite parenting board because others talk about how bad it makes them feel when their children don't do what others the same age can.

I'm a first time mom so I don't know what is normal for his age. But many people have commented on his verbal skills and letter knowledge...other parents, friends who work in early ed, church nursery workers and even total strangers. We adopted so I don't know his family history as far giftedness.

He has a huge vocabulary, puts together 3-4 sentences and has a great memory. He can hear a word once and remember it much later and in different contexts. For example he found a pinecone once during a walk and weeks later pointed out one carved into a coo coo clock.

He is obsessed with letters and has been for a long time. Even as a baby he would touch them if someone was wearing a shirt with writing on it or point to them in books, etc. He knows all the names and most of the sounds. He will ask for the 'alphabet' which means he wants to watch videos or play games about letters. We thought he was saying 'elephant' for a while so we would find elephant stuff and he would get mad so we know he doesn't just want any video. Everywhere we go he identifies letters on signs, packages or whatever. He doesn't always do them in order which makes me think he doesn't realize they go together to make up words.

My question is what, if anything, do we do now? Do we start trying to teach him to read? How would we even do that? I don't want to push him into anything he isn't ready for, but I don't want to hold him back either if he wants more. Or is this all normal development and we don't need to do anything special?

Thank you all for taking the time to read this. Please let me know if another forum would be more appropriate.