From another mom of a soul-sucking knowledge dementor, you aren't alone. I do love that description and it fits my DS to a T. I have often said that DS doesn't just ask questions, he interrogates you for information. The toddler why phase wasn't just why it was why, how, where, when, but what if, so that means, etc on repeat what seems like 24/7 starting from his first words and ending, well I'm not sure when it ends. The questions just keep coming and coming and usually eventually lead to "I don't know... we'll have to look that up" (and I used to think that I had a reasonably large knowledge base to go off of, being stumped by a preschooler several times a day is a humbling experience that really shows you how much you just don't know). He's now 9 and it is slowing down but that is mostly because he skips over me/DH and go straight to google or the library.
We've had several hilarious playdate experiences over the years. For the most part we've been rather lucky that most have been harmless curiosity and not malicious competition but I have seen glimmers of it. Not much I can do, I usually just smile and shrug my shoulders. I like to think that we're all just fumbling along and trying to do our best and give people as much benefit of the doubt as possible. Most kids I know seem to have thrown the baby books out and have their own unique path and we all seem to have our own challenges parenting them. It is probably a bit odd that almost every family I've known since before kids now has one kid ID'ed with something - dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalcula, DCD, LD, ADHD, ASD, gifted, etc.
As for the denial, I have to say that we've experienced this in waves. There are times when it seems completely overwhelming and then there are times when we think - oh, he's not so out there. This is usually followed by something that makes us realize that he is way more out there than we ever thought possible. Then we get used to that and fall back into thinking, oh he's pretty smart but so is ____, then something big happens that makes us realize once again that he's on his own path, then I come here and read about the kids that far surpass whatever he is doing and I feel average or even behind and then... well you get the idea.
Our denial was so strong that it wasn't until we were told to test for ADHD by the school that we actually figured we would have to do something to disprove their theory. I remember calling the psychologist and explaining that the school thought that he was ADHD but that we thought that he *might* be gifted but that there was something else going on as well (it turns out he's gifted/LD). I then remember sitting on the other side of the room for some of the testing watching DS hide under the desk, completely avoid questions and generally be a giant turkey and thought - we're going to be lucky if he tests average given this mess. We were a bit stunned at the results. We then had to retest to confirm the LD stuff and went through an even bigger shock at his much higher results.
Oh, and I haven't even mentioned DD who through all of the above chaos flies completely under the radar and seems so completely normal by comparison. But then she is the one that we get comments about even more than DS. A few more months and then we'll test her. Some days we think she must be way above him and others we think the complete opposite so either way we're wrong
Another wave in the storm of denial.
