Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Suddenly hit by how different my Wolf is...

This reminded me of a few things with DS when he was younger. I figured all 4 yr olds knew their address and phone number, date of birth etc until I started picking up one of his friends from pre-school. DS asked if his pal could come to our place to play on the way home and I thought sure I can call his mum and let her know then wouldn't need to detour past her place but I didn't have her number in my phone (I'm not good at that sort of thing unlike DS)so asked the boy for his phone number and only realised what I'd said when he looked at me like I had 2 heads. He also used to look quite lost when DS was going through his counting routine of seeing how high he could count by the time we had done the 15 minute trip. Generally way over 100, drove me mad until that phase stopped but it took me a while to realise why his mate didn't join in!

DS has a birthday coming up in November, I say coming up because the count down has started! He can tell you how many days, hours and minutes to the day and has declared the date in October when he will be sending out invites. I guess we realised about the whole calendar thing when being interviewed by a psychiatrist and psychologist he asked them why their calendar (not their office but heh) hadn't been marked off? Then went on to explain that you circle the day in the morning to show where you are then cross it out at the end of the day to show its finished. Simple eh. Never a dull moment with these kids...

Lorel, I think the worst part of this is the inability to admit when you're wrong. I think part of being really willing to learn, is being willing to admit you learned something that isn't true and to take on better information (or you just got mixed up!). (I LOVE TO BE RIGHT, but statistically, it's just not always reasonable to expect it!

As to the difference between my kids and others, we are fortunate to run with a mostly gt crowd, cousins, neighbors, the people we gravitate towards are a pretty clever lot, so stuff doesn't stand out too much, but I had this come up yesterday: I was at the dr's office with ds9, and dd3 was waiting with me in the play area. A very nice girl came in, got excited about the play stethoscope and blood pressure cuff and said she had both of those things at her house. I said, "oh cool, what are those things?" "Doctor things!". (dd has known/been able to say 'stethoscope' since age 2)
They played nicely together, with dd offering her things and asking if she wanted to play with such and such, and vice versa.

Granted different kids are interested in different things, but I later found out this girl was about to turn 5, and it really did make me wonder about how dd seems a lot like a 5 year old (but possibly with a bigger vocabulary?). That is sort of scary.

Chris, your blood-pressure cuff story reminded me of one of Harpo's pet jokes: "What's the name of the sixth Marx brother? Sphygmo!" Exit, in gales of laughter....

peace
minnie

LOl!

LOL, when we went on an adventure yesterday with a friend of ours, my DS5 went into detail about an email that he sent out on December 30th of 2008 (when he was 4 1/2). He explained that it was the last email of the year that he sent out. He mentioned who he sent it to and what it was about. Thankfully she laughed about it and joked about why he didn't send one out on New years eve. But it sure is interesting. I am tempted to check his outbox to see how accurate he is. He has always been good with dates, numbers, etc. He remembers the dates of our vacation from the year before, other peoples phone numbers, even some license plate numbers. Very different from some of my friends who are frantically trying to teach their children their phone numbers because they aren't supposed to start schools without knowing them.

Spook, it sounds like you have one like mine! DS who will be 7 on Sunday, when he was 2 and 3 years old, knew everybody's license plate number, phone numbers, and ran around counting everything and nothing in particular constantly.

I remember one time when he was 2 1/2, I had told him when his birthday was, and then a couple weeks later he told me in the morning that he wanted ice cream. I said "you don't get ice cream for breakfast, silly boy, the only time you might get ice cream for breakfast is on your birthday!" And he looked at me, and I could see the wheels turning, and he said "Ice cream...birthday...September 6th!" Funny thing is, I remember thinking at the time "finally--he knows it now!" because it seemed to me that it took him a long time to learn that, for a kid who knew every number in the neighborhood.

So did he remember the ice-cream promise? I would regret coming out with that one because I would be woken up with the ice-cream scoop in my face!

I hope the birthday plans are well ahead and you guys all have a great day.

I'm in a bit of a dilemma right now as DS came home on Friday with the news that he wants all the boys in his class (all 16) and half the girls (about 8) to come to his party! The numbers in itself, although a bit on the high side, are not so much the problem as we have the space and it will be summer here, the real problem is most of those kids have now turned 8 and will nearly all be by the time he is 7, (late birthday as well as being skipped). Last year we got away with taking his two best mates to the country fair for a picnic lunch and some goes on the fairground rides. I have no idea how to get round this one and what to do with a group of older kids. DS still has an endearing childishness to him and gets heaps of joy from real party stuff like magicians and bouncy castles but the last party he went to with a classmate they were all playing playstation games. Any ideas?

I wouldn't worry about a bounce house or magician being too boring/immature for 8 year olds, if that is your plan. Ds attended a party last year for a boy turning 9 and both those things were a big hit! One thing we've done successfully for a smaller group (8-12 kids) is bowling. Keeps the kids pretty busy, they supplied almost everything except the cake; it was not as expensive as I'd imagined.

Thats a lot of people, but probably worth doing once. Great that your son likes that many of his classmates.
We did our 'large number' party around that age - we set up water splash games and kept them outside with waterballon toss, a pinyata and a treasure hunt. I asked a few of my 'grown up' friends to come over and keep an eye on things. I've also seen a giant craft go well, such as build a giant poster birthday card out of pre-hidden materials found with clues.

If the kids bring presents, you can allow them to be opened and played with as part of the party, after all the planned activities.

Of course, you get to pick how long this thing will last. We've gotten into trouble with having 'post party sleep over' where an invited kid rubbed it in the face of an uninvited kid. My advice is to say 'No' but be ready to say 'Yes' if the topic is discussed after the rest of the children go home. It is hard for my son to go from 'life of the party' to 'home alone again.'

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Hi Chris1234 - I'd love to be able to do the bowling thing, we also have rock climbing parties which are great especially for the smaller groups! but unfortunately with all his allergies we've found these kinda places aren't keen on us bringing our own food in, guess thats where they make a lot of their money. Unfortunately nothing so simple for us...

Grinty - I like the thought of the water splash stuff - especially if we are in for a hot weekend, often happens that weekend which is traditionally a holiday weekend, which I'm hoping may reduce the numbers that can attend! Its not so much a case of DS liking all his classmates more that I think he finds it hard to leave anyone out - the sensitive side, and also I think he is quite desperate to make friends as they have all been together for 2 and 1/2 years now and not only was he new to the school but I think they do find him a bit 'strange' and don't quite get why he has been skipped a year when most of them are also GT. The craft project could also be a good idea given that most of them are in the GT range.