Roald Dahl only wrote so many books.

I love Roald Dahl. I loved his books when I was a kid, and I love them even more now that I'm a mom with kids who need high reading levels with appropriate content. Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of his shorter books, and the reading level that is listed online is 4.9, end of 4th grade.

Kessa is reading it to me. She turned 5 in August. She's not reading it because I'm making her, she's reading it because she wanted to. She's not reading the words without understanding the context - she's reading with inflection, correcting missed words based on context, laughing at the appropriate parts, and can tell me what's going on in her own words any time I ask. She won't usually read chapter books out loud to me, so I was shocked; I had no idea she was capable of this level.

When I talk about how unusually bright these kids are, most people don't understand that I'm not bragging, I'm worried. The ones who do understand THAT I'm worried mostly don't understand WHY I'm worried. We live in a more-is-better society, and so higher achievement = smarter = more-is-better, right? Not always. Here are some of the issues surrounding giftedness (for the kids and for their parents).

1) Appropriate content. Roald Dahl only wrote so many books. It's an ongoing process finding books at the right reading level, with content that is interesting and inoffensive for their maturity level.

2) Another kind of exceptionality. Giftedness is often thought of as the normal brain made faster or bigger, but in reality, gifted children's brains work differently, just as children with learning disabilities are wired differently. (Dual exceptionalities are common - children then have a learning disability in one area and are considered gifted in another.) The difference between a disability and a gift is that the former makes it more difficult to perform a function valued by our society, and the latter makes it easier to perform said function.

3) Ill-equipped public schools. We spend 10 times as much money on children whose exceptionalities make them low-performing than on those whose exceptionalities make them high-performing. On the surface, it makes sense to help the kids who need the most help, but our resources should help each child reach his or her potential. "No child left behind" should never equal "no child allowed ahead," yet it does. Even those districts which still offer programs for gifted kids often do not understand issue #2; their programs are simply fast-track normal programs, which, like grade-skipping, reduces boredom for the accelerated learner but does not allow the gifted child's brain to use its unusual pathways. Programs that truly meet the needs of gifted children are rare.

4) Social difficulties. Gifted kids don't fit in with children their own age. Their brains often don't include a bunch of social graces. They are often more mature in some facets of emotional development, yet highly sensitive, and more able to relate to adults or older children than their own peers. Yet they are often immature in enough ways to not be able to smoothly pass as older. The literature says that gifted children usually do better socially when they skip grades than when they don't; anecdotally it appears that either way, they fare worse than their peers of the same age or of their new grade.

5) Parenting challenges. In addition to the above issues surrounding a child's education and social integration, you get to have deep, thought-provoking conversations. These are usually fun and are the moments that you are proud of your unusual children. Even so, you do occasionally debate whether you might rather your child was content with your initial answers to her basic questions about the birds and the bees when she was five, rather than prodding you into a discussion of vasectomy at the age of six and the "Turkey Baster" conversation at the age of seven.

You can bet that I'm glad these are the challenges for my family. I wouldn't replace them with ill health or an exceptionality on the other side of the spectrum. Yet they are real challenges, and when my 5 year old read me a 4th grade book, I was impressed, and also got tears in my eyes. Tears knowing the difficulties she will face because she is different, recognizing the effort I will need to put in to her education, acknowledging my responsibilities in getting her needs met.

They're too smart for my own good.

K: "Treat please."
Me: "You can have one if you can spell that."
K: "T-R-E-A-T P-L-E-A-S-E"
Me: "You did it! So what do you want to eat?"
K: "Pumpkin pie."
Me: "Hmmm... you can have it if you can spell it!"
K: "P-U-M-P-K-I-N P-I-E. Did I do it???"
Me: [OMGmyfiveyearoldcanspellpumpkinandtreatandplease.]

For the record, I was going to give her the pumpkin pie just for trying to spell it. I'm not THAT mean.


E: "Eeeewwwwww, that stinks!!!"
Me: "Yep, we're in the middle of nowhere. It smells like that in some rural places because of all the cows."
E: "Mom, I am so glad we live in suburbia!"


D: (points to spider) "PIE!"
Me: "Yep, that's a spider."
D: "Dada."
Me: "Dad's not here, so we can't show him the spider."
D: "Dada pie."
Me: "Ohhhh, you mean that's a daddy long legs spider. Yes, yes it is."
D: "Me."
Me: "You want the spider?"
D: "No. Ouds me."
Me: "Oh, the spider will hurt you, I get it."
D: "Dada pie ouds me."
Me: "It's not a good idea to touch spiders. Don't touch it and it won't hurt you."
D: "Dada ouds dada pie."
Me: "You want Daddy to kill the spider?"
D: "Yeah, yeah, yeaaaaah."
Me: "Well, dad's not here, but maybe when he comes home."

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. It's the one guaranteed time per year that my extended family comes together. We're all nutty and we are truly blessed to enjoy each others company in a way I know to be rare. Everyone gets along with everyone, and we have a blast.

This year, I came home with no blackmail video. I was there without Scott, so I had more responsibility for the kids than usual. (I say "more" rather than "total" because my parents and aunts and even younger cousins did help out. They rock.) I can't blame it on that, totally, though. It was our first Thanksgiving since my grandpa died, and I just wanted to look around and soak it in a little. Our family.

We laughed as hard as we always do - although I don't think Aunt Nancy peed her pants, so I guess we didn't quite reach maximum hilarity, or maybe she just wasn't there for the funniest bits. We didn't play darn or poker, or finish the 1500 piece puzzle. We did drink gewurztraminer, Martinelli's, finish the fudge before the dinner leftovers, and make even faster work of the chocolate liqueurs. My girls tagged after their older girl cousins and Donovan learned 4 new names and made it clear that his favorite new buddy was my 13 year old cousin Andrew (ayyew). We teased the young (and the not-so-young!) about boyfriends and girlfriends, retold the favorite family stories, ribbed each other at every chance.

It was just like always, exactly the family my grandparents created. They're gone but they're always here, in our playfulness, our offbeat humor, our love for each other.

Vomitus virusus

Saturday evening as I was walking out of a lovely baby shower, Scott called me: "Donovan's sick; he threw up." Scott put him to bed, he slept decently, considering, but woke up the next morning throwing up again. Just a few times, then stopped and seemed in pretty decent spirits, so I left him with Scott again while I took the girls to Sunday School and stayed for a parent education session, then to Eliana's soccer year-end party, then on to a 7th birthday party for a dear friend's daughter (who happens to be one of Eliana's favorite people). I checked in with Scott a few times, and he said Donovan was doing much better. After about 7 hours out, I was very happy to go home and nurse my boy, who was also very happy to see me.

We sat on the couch, nursed, and just as I said, "Do you want the other side?" he nodded, latched off, and threw up all over me. Soaked me down to the skivvies. It was very clear that Scott had been feeding him normal food far beyond the BRATY diet. Ew.

The girls and I needed dinner and there was nothing reasonable in the house, so I sent Scott to the store to bring home sandwiches and some coconut water for the boy. He'd had most of the two bottles of pedialyte that were in the house, and he loooves coconut water. (The triple O vowel is a very special vowel that you may not have been taught in school.) Right before he left, D threw up again, but fortunately this time I had a towel handy.

While Scott was out, D cried, and cried. I started worrying. Now he had a low fever, where there had been none before. He said, "Pee. Pee." when there was no pee, and said, "Ow," pointing to his crotch and belly. It was past urgent care hours on a Sunday, so I did what any reasonable parent who doesn't want to spend $1000+ clogging up the ER unnecessarily would do. (Did I mention we have a $6000 per person insurance deductible? Did I mention that as of December 1 it will only be $250?) I called my inside help - Dr. Aunt Katie, my sister in law, my phone triage doc. She told me what would warrant an immediate trip to the ER and I decided to stay home, as those symptoms weren't quite presenting.

D had another decent night. In the morning, he either nursed or cried. He still made eye contact with me and did communicate a little bit, so this was looking a lot better than when I rushed Eliana to the hospital, but it was definitely time to see the doc. I got an appt with a ped we hadn't seen before (ours is out on medical leave!?), and she was great. She was worried about him, said he was on the verge of needing to go to the ER to get hydrated. She gave us until 1:30 for him to perk up or she wanted us to go to the ER. She also sent us home with a stick-on pee collecting bag (oh fun memories from E's hospitalization). The ped said to push pedialyte bigtime and to feed him. He did take some yogurt and initially drank about half a container of pedialyte, but by 11 he stopped eating and drinking altogether. He only wanted to nurse, but he was not swallowing, so I know he wasn't transferring milk. When I realized that nothing was going in and therefore nothing was going to help him get better, I decided it was time to go to the ER.

Right then, though, he fell asleep, and I thought, hmmm, maybe a rest will help. I had about an hour until our 1:30 deadline and thought that would be a good amount of sleep. At 1, the nurse from the ped's office called to check in and agreed that it was time to go to the ER, so I woke him up and we headed over.

They would not let me nurse him until after taking his temperature. OK wait wait wait. I totally get how if you are going to have your temperature taken orally, and you have something cold or hot to drink, that it would mess with the temperature reading. But we're talking 98.6 degree boob that is not transferring milk, and then they took his temperature rectally. Now, obviously, I could've popped the boob in no matter what they said, but when your kid is that sick, hoop-jumping in order to get the treatment you need is just kind of what you do. At that point it is not about figuring out that this might be a stupid idea - this thought process didn't happen until I was actually walking out of the ER after it was all over. So, people who know more about physiology and illness and hospital procedures than I do, (Dr. Aunt Katie?) if there was a good reason for me and the whole ER to have to listen to him screaming, please let me know what it was. Because from where I'm sitting, it seems like a hospital protocol lost in translation and being enforced when it didn't actually pertain to our situation.

Anyway, cry cry cry because I'm not nursing him, and as I've established, it was either one or the other all day (it was now about 2pm). The nurse was trying to get a pulse ox on him and it wasn't working, and when I said for the third time since meeting her, "if you just take his temp and let me nurse him he'll hold still," she finally switched to taking his temp. Hold down strong screaming toddler event #1.

Nurse nurse nurse. Pulse ox on the ear, he pulled it off, I held his arms, no tears because we're nursing, it goes back on, success. Nurse nurse nurse.

Two nurses came in to set up for IV placement, with a blood draw, and a catheterization to rule out bladder infection. They asked me to lay him flat for the IV placement, and I sang into his ear while the nurse put a tourniquet on his arm and he cried. I laid my body across his legs, held the arm the nurses weren't using, and felt just a little bit thankful that I had been pregnant and unable to be in the room for Eliana's x-rays during her hospitalization, then guilty, then thankful that she had been so out of it while she had her IV's placed that she didn't cry or even show any signs of registering it, then guiltier. The nurse remarked how strong he was. Thankful that he was not in bad shape like Eliana had been. Hold down strong screaming toddler event #2.

After the IV was placed, the blood was drawn from it, and as they went to finish taping and put on a splint to keep his arm straight (which didn't work), I let go of him, leaned over the table with my shirt up, and let him nurse. The nurses were amazed. Wonder if they'd ever seen a nursing two year old before, let alone a mother willing to contort herself for the sake of ne. A bit more time passed and they weren't going for the catheter, so I asked if I could sit back down with him as, contortionist nursing or no, that would be more comfortable. They said they were going to wait for some of the fluids to go in, so I settled in. Nurse nurse nurse. He finally fell asleep.

Just in time for the nurse to come in for the catheterization. Hold down strong screaming toddler event #3.

Over fast, back to nursing. In and out of sleep. Two boluses of fluid. All tests back normal. Doc said we could go home. The nurses came in to take out the IV, and he woke up a new boy. Talked to me about the clocks on the wall, about wanting the splint off, about going home and seeing Kiki and Lala. On our way out of the ER, he said, "Moon up," and on the drive to pick up his sisters from our friend Sharon aka angel's house, he sang the Laurie Berkner Band's "Moon, moon, moon." All I could say was, "Oh, I missed you so much. It's so nice to see you."

Overall, we were treated very well. This is my second ER experience at ValleyCare and the nurses and doctors have been respectful and have provided an appropriate level of care each time.

All day I thought about how lucky we are to live in a place with clean running water, with pedialyte and coconut water available every mile, with IV fluids available. In other places, dehydration kills toddlers regularly. We are so lucky.

Activism

Wonderful article about how the desire to help others is not a desire to put others down, it's a desire to lift them up.

http://dailymomtra.com/2010/11/activism-isnt-about-being-better-than-you/

(teen)

I thought sevenTEEN year olds were supposed to sneak out their bedroom windows, not seven year olds.

The latest...

...from Eliana: "Mom, I can be a midwife right away when I grow up, without having to go to school first, because I've learned so much from you, and I was there when Donovan was born."

...from Kesenia: (a new song comes on the radio) "Mommy, are you sure this song is appropriate for me?"

...from Donovan: "ayyy, ohhh, ayyy, ohhh" (Hip hop hooray... with arms overhead and everything)

Taco Bell

I'm not a fast food person; we generally only eat it on road trips. A few days ago, however, I wasn't near home and had only a few dollars cash in my pocket - no credit cards. So, I took the 3 kids to Taco Bell. They behaved great, in my opinion. The girls sat still, ate nicely, spoke with appropriate volume. Donovan also held his volume and, although he tried to make a break for it once while we were in line, he settled down at the table. After a while, though, he was full, and got down. He started swinging his chair back and forth, which caused a slight "thwunk" sound. I told him to stop and get in his chair, told him I'd have to come get him to stop and put him in his chair if he didn't do it now, and then I went and did it, saying "OK, I'm going to sit you down now."

A very rude voice comes from behind me: "Yes. Thank you."

I turn around and see a man in a business suit, old enough to have grown children if not grandchildren, glaring at me.

Sir. You are in TACO BELL. You are sitting in a plastic chair at a plastic table eating a meal that likely cost you under $3. My children are behaving better than many I have seen in real restaurants. If you don't want to be around children, find a posh place to eat, or eat at your desk. Do not act like I am the inappropriate one because I dared to bring my children in public, and one of them actually acted like a child for one minute out of fifteen. In, did I mention - Taco Bell.