Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Random Chatting

His pictures are so cute!! I honestly think that's my favorite age for drawing. My 3 year old daughter just started do draw actual pictures and it's so entertaining!

Hi Texican, sorry to hear about the anxiety over dad 'gone missing', in the eyes of your son anyway...We deal with some of that on a regular basis. I am outside the house 3 days a week (god forbid!) and need to regularly re-explain to my dd4 that I go to make money (for all the cheese she eats). And the house and the car, etc. She seems to 'get' this, and it does help her. Yesterday's explanation was a bit more detailed, I talked to her about working, getting paid a bit, the bank, the bills, but not too detailed. (This was more an explanation of how I couldn't by her a $2000 loft bed she'd seen somewhere (sheesh!!))

Anyway, while they do adjust, expect to continue to have questions for a while...

On the question of laptops, and chatting about other stuff, has anyone considered/looked at the tablets running android os? They "look a lot like" the ipads, they claim '1000's of apps' available right now, but they are very new so take that with a grain of salt. I think the next android release for tablet is coming out soon, however,...and they could become a pretty reasonably priced viable option, with a greater range of hardware options and a free-er market....

I've been great La Texican and thanks for asking. We usually don't share like this on this forum BUT hey the subject is Random Chatting! I did get my dream car over the Holidays and have been out driving it around. Since it was my dream car and what I've wanted forever DH wouldn't let me settle and I got to order exactly what I wanted so I had to wait for 2 months but the wait was worth it!

DD has been on break and goes back to school next week. We had the pleasure of seeing the extended family on DH's side over this past weekend and this side of the family speaks Spanish. They were blown away by DD's Spanish. One Uncle who is fluent in Spanish was in shock, stating that her pronunciation was better than his. Glad to know the school is really working for DD in that regards. (I am pathetic with any foreign language. It's my downfall.) It was really cute how all of them, when seeing DD, said something in regards to her Grandpa and how she is the apple of his eye. I guess all he ever talks about is DD. She isn't their only grandbaby but she is the youngest.

I hope you had a great Holiday and hope Wyatt adjusts soon!

Also: On the topic of video chat with Wyatt's Dad. I know money is tight for you but is it possible to get the IPhone 4s? They have video capabilities. Of course besides the cost is the service and if he would have service on the oil rigs. <<shrug>> just a thought. But I do agree that Wyatt might adjust faster if he could see his Dad when he talks to him.

Hi Chris - I was out of the house 5 half days when my son was 4, and I had heard that having an explanation phrase was helpful ( like your cheese - lol) so here is one I repeated almost every day:
Mommy goes to work for 4 reasons:
1) Make Money
2) Help People
3) Use my Special Gifts
4) Grow Inside

Of course there was discussion about what each of them meant. What is funny to me in retrospect, is that I thought that all 4 year olds would be able to have such discussions if only all moms were as wonderful at explaining things as I am. L O L My denial of my son's giftedness was firmly in place. If anything, I felt guilty for making him 'weird' for my on selfish need to communicate deeply with him.
I didn't really think of myself as gifted, except in a statistical 'top 3% of what school likes - but so what?' kind of way, and couldn't bear the idea of individual differences.

I would have said, at the time, that all people have special gifts and need to find them and use them, but that our society was imperfect at identifying, helping develop, and rewarding all the special gifts. I still believe this actually, but without the shell of denial that gifted kids have special educational needs that schools have an actual responsibility to provide an environment where development is even possible, let alone encouraged.

And without the shell of denial that most folks are so tuned in to the 'usual developmental path' that families with kids on a asynchronous developmental path are going to need to ignore most of the 'common wisdom' about parenting and find individualized ways to parent their unusually gifted kids.

Wow La Tex, I haven't been able to bring those two thoughts so close together in words before today - thanks for starting this 'Random Chatting' and thanks to C1234 for reminding me of those bittersweet days.

For what it's worth C1234 - as much as my son hated me going to work at age 3 and 4, he now at age 13 and 14 is that relieved that I have 'other places' to use my special gifts and Help People than on him!!!! I love these 'true but simplified' discussions what we can have with our preschoolers. In Kindy, DS didn't want to go to school, and said "Why do we have to?"

My BIL used to say things like "Because the police will come and arrest me if you don't" which I thought was horrifying at the time, so I said: "If you get in the car, I'll tell you all about it" and once he was strapped in the carseat was all onto Child Labor and Child Labor laws! What a fun way to take a 5 year old to school! I really wondered what was wrong with all the other Moms who didn't have these conversations.....Now I get it!

Live and Learn!
Grinity

Grinity,
I was thinking of you as I drove through Connecticut on 95 the other day - and it made my drive much nicer.

I too wondered why other parents wouldn't just talk to their pre-schooler. How silly I was! Even now, I sometimes forget that most other people don't have children like mine and what works for them won't work for us and vice-versa. What really brought this back to me recently was our trip to see my family for the holidays. My brother's daughters are both GT, the oldest probably PG+, but they have never had any educational issues with them because they are in a district that takes care of GT kids from elementary school on! (wouldn't that be nice?) My oldest and his oldest are almost carbon copies of each other and it was really funny listening the him remember how they dealt with their DD as a 7 yr old (she's 17 now) and how similar it is to how we deal with ours. Then we saw cousins who have an adopted 5 yr old son and are having problems with him in pre-school. I watched him play with my DDs and knew immediately that he is most likely gifted as well. They had been parenting using all of the "old standbys" that their friends had been passing on to them and it wasn't working well. I pointed them towards Hoagies site as an intro to gt and they went through the initial "wow - this is about my kid" as soon as they started looking at it.

After feeling like we're isolated most of the time with our DDs since we live far from family it was really nice to not only visit them, but to see that our daughters fit in nicely with the rest of the family and that what they do is "normal" compared to their cousins.

Fitting in at school or fitting in with relatives - both are nice! There are a few districts scattered through the U.S. where the schools really do take care of their GT kids. So nice! If only I had known myself better, and the genetic component to giftedness, maybe I would have made an effort to live in one of them! Oh well, not my path, I guess! Glad you enjoyed your trip. If shaking your family tree helps, then I say 'shake it baby!' - even though there is distance, with email and skype one can make worthwhile contact.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Haven't looked because android's verizion and we're AT&T. The 4gs only gives video chat where there's wifi, not in the field. Already tried that way to get the new phone. They got the hd video and an editor to put my video clips togeather. I would love to paste all my video clips togeather.
We have skyppe at the house. My sister said my nephew walked by the computer one night after skypeing and he was calling Wyatt, where are you?

Congrats K, santa's the greatest.

Let me tell my aww, cute story. Then i'll hit submit. We were watching CMT, something with George Strait in it. Martina Mc Bride came out singing Garth Brook's "the dance" and Espy started singing with her. From the belly, putting her heart into it. She's three months old now, and she is a chatterbox.

I have an IPad and I get some advertisements when I'm playing certain games. One such advertisement is about Skype and being able to use the IPhone with it now. Might want to look at it. Of course it could still be a WiFi situation.

Sounds like you have a talker on your hands. DD was a major chatterbox when she was a tiny thing. Okay ... she has ALWAYS been a chatterbox and I don't see that EVER going away. She even talks in her sleep!

Kind of like the Lexus commercial

La Texican - sorry that your son is taking it so hard. How about upgrading those iPhones to iPhone 4s?