Actually my DS4 is my "difficult" child (though naturally I do not use such labels anywhere NEAR him!). He's so verbal that I think he's probably at least vanilla GT, but he doesn't show the really obviously GT behaviors that DS7 did at this age (reading at 3, doing simple math by 2, etc.). He is HIGHLY imaginative and UNBELIEVABLY sensitive though, so he may be differently GT, but I'm also staying aware of the potential for his being GT and having some learning disability. Or maybe he's just a bright kid and not really GT at all. I'm just not sure yet.
The hardest thing is that he cries before he tells me what's wrong. It seems like he's always crying about something, though he's also the happiest kid you'd ever want to meet--emotional whiplash for me!!!
For a person like me who does not handle tantrums and emotional outbursts well at all, his emotions are a real challenge for me! A true test of my parenting patience!
He did teach himself to write from pretty much nothing in about 36 hours though, so he may just be one of those really bright kids who doesn't do something at all and then--WHAM!--he's mastered it. My GT radar is so skewed from DS7 that I'm mostly reserving judgement for now. I think of myself as the exception to the rule that mom knows her kids best.
In contrast, DS7 is usually pretty easy for me. He's very logical and rule-oriented. He's still a kid, so we have our bad days--especially when he gets hungry or tired--but he's a pretty sensible kid, and very much like his mom and dad.
Poor DS4 is an emotional extrovert trapped in a family of introverted Spock clones! Ha!
