I wanted to thank you all for your replies. Now I feel crazy because I'm all teary eyed after reading through everything. I'm really not alone! I hope this comes across in the way I intend, emotions are so difficult to convey on a message board. I'm scared that my son will be more like my husband than me. I know he is still very young and I shouldn't worry so much but 1) I'm Mom so it's my job to worry and, 2) I know how hard it is for my husband. I have much empathy for those of you raising PG children. There are times my husband forgets to reign himself in and he lets all his intellect hang out and I'm standing there slack jawed.
The man decided to take up French last year and was fluent and reading academic articles within 6 months. My brain can't even comprehend how he does it. We are teaching our son both French and sign language so I'm all ears to any resources for French learning. I have been using the Little Pim French series because my son holds up the Kindle and demands to see the Panda.
I find myself going to play dates because we moved to a new state and started new non-academic jobs a few weeks before my son was born. Why? My husband did not pass his tenure review. Why? Because he has perfectionism paralysis! The man can write for a month and only produce two sentences that he deems worthy to see the light of day. I'm sure you all know exactly what I'm talking about.
I now live in the middle of a corn field with little access to people typical of our previous social circle. I also work from home now which severely limits my ability to meet people in general. My husband is as social as Grumpy Cat and has not made much progress in the way of making friends for us.
So much of what you all said makes me feel my son is "normal." Sometimes I read books with him for 4+ hours a day! There are piles upon piles of book in every room. I went to the local library book sale and bought two wagons worth about 6 months ago. I was embarrassed to admit how much my son and I read together though I don't know why. It sounds like most of you have dealt with this same issue. My son will sit down and we will read 30-40 books at one time. I've never seen anything like it. He prefers to point out and name all the pictures rather than listen to a story so that's what we do. Who am I to say how to read a book? Ha!
Water is also a big entertainment activity. I take him to a local children's museum with a big water table. Sometimes he plays at the water table for an hour or more. Kids come and kids go and my little guy remains focused on the task at hand. The employees often comment on his remarkable attention span.
Our best play dates (because if I stop having play dates that will mean I never interact with another grown up other than my husband!) are with a woman who has a 4 yo girl and 1 yo girl. The 4 yo is reading chapter books so she doesn't give me weird looks. I will pursue this further. My son loves the older girl and she likes to baby him and they play chase. The other ladies in the play group were not really my friends anyway. I met them because we live in the same neighborhood and our children were all born within two weeks of each other. I didn't know what my son would be like back then but he was definitely different from the other babies from the beginning. I figured he would be smart but I never really thought about what that looked like in reality. My sitter has been telling me his entire life that she has never had another baby like him but I thought she was joking or trying to make me feel good as a new parent.
I know even as his peers catch up in verbal ability my son's vocabulary will be so far beyond their comprehension, at least for a while. I honestly have no idea how many words he can say because he adds so many new ones every day. This morning he identified a thermometer. What the heck? How did he know that?
I will try to get some more puppets and see how that goes. My son already knows that the puppet isn't real if that makes sense. He knows it's me or my husband putting our hand in there making it talk and move. I know he likes magnets too. I hadn't considered it before but he already knows all his body parts so I should get some body books. I mean, why would it occur to me to get body books for a 16 month old? Ha! He also loves owls. He knows every book that has an owl in it and every page on which he can find an owl. I had not considered a trip to the bird sanctuary but it sounds like I need to do that.
I will take this one day at a time. It may be that my son is ahead right now and his peers will catch up with him and that's ok. I will be perfectly fine with that as long as he is happy. For now I will have to think a bit outside the box and do some things I was not expecting to do.
Part of me wants to word vomit all the stuff that freaks me out about my son just to make sure someone else has been through it and come out on the other side. I never thought he would be doing these things so young.
