Gifted

When I found out I was having a baby in 1996 , so many things started going thru my mind..... Yippee!; Oh my gosh, I can't do this!; What if I'm not a good mother?; Will the baby be healthy?; What will he/she look like?; What if something happens during the pregnancy?.....it was 10 months of pure torture and emotional turmoil while I waited to meet my child. Then the day arrived and the nurse placed a tiny, slightly yucky and slimy creature in my arms and suddenly a whole new set of issues/questions arise.....Oh my gosh, I still can't do this!; what if I break her?; what if she doesn't like me?; what if I do something wrong?; how do I do this right?.....after a while I realized she was not breakable and she loves me unconditionally even when I do something wrong. Sure, I can still totally screw things up as my kids grow and my worries change with each and every year that passes. As they approach teenage years, I have the additional worries about driving, peer pressure, sex, etc. Then they become adults and I will still have to worry - will they marry the right person, find the right career, be happy, be healthy, etc. Once you sign on for parenting, it is a full time career that lasts the rest of your life.

Sometimes you get lucky. I'm still trying to figure out what I did right to have such awesome kids??

When A was in kindergarten, she tested into the Gifted and Talented program. I realized that was a big deal but figured it was because she had the honor of spending her days with her grandmother who spent so much time teaching her so much. I figured their time together had given A a leg up on the other kids but at some point it would level out. As the years passed, her teachers tried telling me how lucky I was to have such a gifted child. Again, I chalked this up to my daughter being an exceptional suck up at school and in public. I couldn't begin to fathom that she was so different than her friends. She hung out with other kids in the GaTeS program so I assumed they challenged each other to a higher level of learning and behavior. I couldn't (and still cannot) understand how the girl who never listened at home, ate with her fingers instead of silverware, tripped over her own feet on a daily basis and loved a good belly laugh over anything else in life could be any different than any other kid we knew.

Then she hit the end of her fifth grade year and teachers started trying to get me to understand that she was more than just a 'good' student or 'nice' kid. They encouraged me to put her in all PreAP classes in Middle School because "if any kid could excel in Pre AP, it was A". Then she won "GaTeS Student of the Year" and "LA Student of the Year" and during the awards ceremony, I heard her teachers say incredible things about her and I was stunned.

Now she's a 6th grader and the past few weeks have been a real learning experience for me. She was selected in the Top of Class program after the 1st six weeks. Only 10 (out of 530) 6th graders were nominated by the teachers to receive this honor. They get special campus priviledges all year and A couldn't have been more thrilled. Then yesterday, she called me screaming that she'd won "Top Student for the 1st Six Weeks". This means my daughter had the highest GPA out of 530 students for the first six weeks of school (carrying a full PreAP load). This is the kid that fought with me about the need to study for tests because she never had to study in gradeschool. I tried explaining that middle school was different and the tests would be harder. So far, she hasn't made below a 95 on any of her tests so it's hard to prove my point when she can still make grades like that w/o studying.

I guess this is when it finally hit me.....my kid is darn smart. Certainly smarter than me. She still has a lot to learn in common sense and life but when it comes to math, science, LA and geography - she blows my mind. My husband acts like it's a given that we'd have a smart child. Of course, if you know him you laugh at the assumption too. Sure, he's a pro at storing useless trivia in his brain and he's pretty good at geography but even he should realize that A is beyond him in math, science and LA.

The good news is....I still have E. As of right now, I'm still smarter than he is. I can still teach him things. A loves me but even she realizes she's left me behind in the intelligence department. She's not unkind about it because that is not her way. She shows great patience when she's teaching me something new she learned at school and I'm excited to learn new things. Somedays, I feel like she's the mom.

Hopefully the people that meet my daughter but do not know me very well will assume she gets it from me! A mom can dream.......