(no subject)

Magical moments with my children:

-Aaron, Isaac and Jake are drawing SUCH COOL STUFF! Aaron made a comic strip today with a robot and a dog, and a big step by step set of illustrations of the anthropomorphized fire from Howl's Moving Castle; Isaac drew a diagram of a boy lighting fireworks, complete with the word "BOOM", as well as a bunch of monsters rendered according to his "How to Draw Monsters" book. Jake did more elaborate scribblings that come clear as he explains them to you in elaborate detail.

-We're reading SO MUCH: I'm reading the 3 oldest each entry (one per day) from LIFE's "100 People Who Changed the World" - so far we've done Abraham, Buddha and Confucius (it's organized by section and begins with religious and philosophical figures); Ananda, Aaron and I are reading The Island of the Blue Dolphins; Isaac and I The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; and Jake and I, Alice's Advenutures in Wonderland. That last really impresses me - it's slightly antiquated language and spare on the (albeit awesome) illustrations, the real Lewis Carroll version that is many many chapters long, and he is totally into it. Elise and I read something like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie or The Parable of the Lily every day.

-Food today really boggled my mind. That pound cake I mentioned being for breakfast in the previous entry, the one that had FIVE EGGS AND HALF A POUND OF BUTTER in it? They ate it for breakfast. The entire thing. Then the big old pot of lentil and kale stew, plus pan of peanut butter fudge? They took it down, for lunch. Minus the small bowl Grant had last night and the chunk of fudge I gave Bob, they took it all down. It's frightening, I tell you, although also good to see them tearing into such nutritious stuff (that soup was not something you'd expect kids to beg for more of). I ended up going and buying 3 boxes of family size macaraoni and cheese tonight, and mixing a bunch of (6 boneless tenderloins) chicken, (3 heads of) broccoli and (half a bag, frozen) peas into it. There are definitely not leftovers. We don't eat mac n cheese much as Isaac really shouldn't have it.

It was a pretty good day around here overall. I took Elise and went and paid on the electric bill and deposited Usborne checks in the bank. Later, I gave my sister in law (who was full of wild stories about car accidents, the methadone clinic and supposedly false accusations by police officers) a ride to work, and grabbed the mac n cheese from Publix.

There was a brief interlude where I groaned and showed the kids the maps and charts at http://nhc.noaa.gov, which is a site all South Floridians are intimately familiar with, and then called my sister to warn her to be on the lookout (neither of us has cable or gets the paper so we could potentially get caught by surprise one morning when everyone in the neighborhood is putting their shutters up, and not get to the stores until all the supplies are gone).

Tomorrow I'm taking Aaron up to Miami Children's bright and early to get his cast off (FINALLY!!! YES!!!). I also have to go to BJ's to pay them for the freaking aforementioned check that bounced. Then to the dance studio to pay on his remaining JUMP fees.

(posted late: fell asleep before this was finished)

Child prodigies, potential, and laziness

When I was 9 years old, I got tested for gifted classes by my public school. I remember it as being about an hour of sitting across a desk from a man who timed me doing puzzles and asked me questions like, "How tall is the average man?" - among other things that are hazy now. I don't remember having any particular feelings about it - I was very distant and unavailable as an early elementary student. Kindergarden was fun, but then my parents divorced and I spent an inordinate portion of 1st grade throwing up on the daily, followed by being switched from private to public because of financial concerns after the divorce...I switched schools three times in second grade as we kept moving around, and when the guidance counselor wanted to see me, I pretty much just stared at her because there were so many weird things I wasn't allowed to tell her (about pot use and dealing at home, embezzlement case proceedings, etc).

So. There I was in 3rd grade with this very nice teacher who seemed to adore me (and recommended I get tested for gifted), and I was a total weirdo. I wore things like intentionally ripped up jeans, steel-toed cowboy boots and NKOTB shirts and slap bracelets; I kept getting in trouble for writing my name on all my schoolwork (and self-identifying as) "Tonight"; and I called everyone (including the teacher) "Babe".

I sat for this test and they called my parents in but nobody could come - I loved it when my mother DID come to my school, as she generally had 2 inch long red acrylic fingernails and tended to show up smoking, in a tshirt that said, "If you wanna complain about my badass attitude, dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT", which I still thought was cool at this point. I remember eventually my Nana (grandmother) came in.

They made me sit outside the room, but the door was open and I could hear everything they said. Also when my grandmother got home she told my mom and stepdad, and also my Dad and her husband, everything that they had told her, and I heard that as well as reading the papers they gave her that got left around.

Basically I had scored so far off the IQ charts they had there for kids that they couldn't give her an actual result but only say I was "definitely a genius, even by adult standards". They'd "never seen anything like it", and so on.

They wanted to talk to people more about this, and "do things" with me, but I had other stuff to worry about, like how my Dad took me from my mom and I was at some other school for the first part of the following year, and I got my period super early, and made dinner at home for my siblings and gave them baths, and then Hurricane Andrew hit and I moved away becase the freaking town was leveled, blah blah blah.

The point of this story is that when I look back, I really was a pretty astoundingly intelligent nine year old. I read many Stephen King books, and Beaches, and a Jim Morrison biography that year. I beat our neighbor (a grown man) and sometimes my teacher, at chess, and during the brief spell when I managed to be placed in gifted classes, I won an awful lot of comic books each week for logical reasoning puzzles most students never managed to solve. I recall sitting around talking about plate tectonics and debating the existence of God with my stoned stepfather and not being able to relate to other kids my ate, at. all.

More than any of this quantifiable stuff, though, I can't believe how smart I was because I really understood each of the highly dysfunctional adults in my life, well enough to see things from their perspectives, love them in spite of their hooey, and manipulate situations to get the things I really needed out of them. I was able to avoid sparking arguments or tempers in nearly impossibly convoluted, land mine situations and steer our living situation in ways far beyond my years...You'll just have to trust me on this.

Here's the thing: I think that was my peak lifetime intelligence.

No, really.

I was so used to schoolwork being effortless and I sort of naturally gravitated towards enjoying things I exceled at "more" and got more praise for: which was mostly communication (I impressed everyone with my vocabulary and thought processes) and writing (so many awards and ribbons for things I barely tried at). I also read every spare moment I could as it was an escape for me. Language and feelings and expression gradually became my everything.

I tended to miss about 80 days per school year due to nonsense of all sorts, and it got to a point as I approached and entered middle school that the absences made math hard to keep up with; language arts, social studies, history - those things were easy for me to stay with while missing class.

In 6th grade I took a grading period of archery and a grading period of badminton, in my "P.E. Wheel" at a great school, and somehow between those two arm-based physical activities I totally lost my previous ambidextrious ways and became reliant on my right hand.

In 8th grade I realized math was getting HARD and that I was not interested in doing anything I had to struggle at mentally.

In high school, I learned I could take a couple of math classes and then potentially be done with it for the rest of my life, and that I could bs my way through most of higher level sciences without knowing much math and still at least pass with a B or a C. Then Grant started reading books by Russian guys about chess and got himself a master rating and started competing in tournaments and knowing names for combinations of moves and, basically, it was no longer fun to play chess with him or anyone he played with, and I gave it up.

Then I got pregnant, and got placenta brain, which is a REAL CONDITION - the combination of volatile emotions from hormones and overwhelming new microcosm-style (i.e., baby only) concerns dominating your brain destroys a lot of your ability to be a supergenius. At least temporarily.

Multiply that x 6, and add in a dead second trimester baby tragedy and PTSD and a bunch of wack ass drugs and not sleeping for probably two years, cumulatively, and now? NOW?

Now I am someone who, when my sister sends me her husband's work schedule to peruse, replies "What do you think I am, a mathmetician?! That's written in CODE!" When something simple is wrong with my computer, I say, "Grant!!!" When I have a maze I found for Grant or a logic puzzle for Ananda, I give it to them with barely a glance and shudder as it leaves my fingers. I'm not kidding. I have to make a list to remember anything, and that only works if I remember to look at the list.

Whenever, if ever, I go back to college I'll go back with my english classes tested out of, my psych and philosophy credits down with straight As, and needing to take remedial math before I can begin Algebra 1.



I know, objectively, that my complete and utter lack of critical thinking negatively impacts my life. I also tend to cling to my former genius as though it means I can "go back anytime I want" - my reading about neuroplasticity reassures me that, one day, when I CHOOSE TO, I'll start working hard to make that side of my brain function again and reclaim my potential. I just have to kick myself in the ass and make it happen.

I just have to let these kids get a little older so I have the time and energy to spare.

I just have to get some other goals out of the way to make room for that one.

We'll see, I guess.