Another confession. . .

I have another confession to make here. And I know that none of you will think I am the least bit biased when I make it. Here we go: my son is brilliant! Now I know that every mother thinks her children are special and brilliant and all that, but I know it is true about my son. His preschool teacher even told his grandmother that he was the smartest kid in the class and maybe she tells this to all of the moms and grandmas, but we all know it is true about A.J., right? So indulge a proud mother and read on.

Our first clue that we might have a brilliant child came very young. A.J. began speaking before he was a year old. At thirteen months, he could say 13 words, like aluminum and recyclable. OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but he’s always been very verbal. This in spite of all the troubles he has had with his ears over the years. Now he always comes up with things to say that make us wonder. The other day he came to me and said, “Mom, I have an interesting problem. Maybe you would like to help me.” What? He’s four years old and he has “interesting problems.”

Right now, A.J. is learning how to read. I knew he would be ready for this before Kindergarten, but this is a bit earlier than I was planning. I never wanted to be a pushy mom but he has dragged me into this early reading madness. We’ve spent hours over the past couple of weeks talking about letters and the sounds they make and what words rhyme with each other. I can see gears in is head really working as he starts to figure it all out.

It’s very satisfying to teach your child something new that you know he will use for the rest of his life, but I don’t know exactly how much credit I can take for his brilliance. It’s the whole nature vs. nurture thing. We've tried to do something right, like read to him early and often, have lots of books in the house, set a good example by reading ourselves. But we've also done things that many experts warn against, like letting him watch too much TV. When it comes right down to it though, I think A.J.'s brilliance comes from nature, not from anything we've done exceptionally well.

Now, raising a child like A.J. isn't all academic joy! Brilliance comes with it's own set of "interesting problems." We bought A.J. a shirt a few months back that sums it up well: "It seemed like a good idea at the time." When we were painting our house a few months back, we had one of the neighborhood girls over to play with A.J. while we worked. After several hours of this, A.J. got bored and went upstairs I thought to go potty. But no, that is not what he had in mind at all. He went up to our room, grabbed my good craft scissors and used them to cut the cord on our TV, while it was plugged in. What would make a 4 year old do such a thing? Curiosity. And just ask my friends about the paint jobs he has done at their homes.

But there are plenty of joys too. A.J has discovered the wonderful world of jokes, just today. The first one, "What does a robot mommy sing to the robot baby? Row, row, row your bot!" And to follow it up, "What kind of key do you use to open a banana? A Monkey!" Of course because I laughed the first time he said them, now he wants to tell me them over and over again. I guess we'll have to find him some new material!