One mom talks about her gifted toddler:

It may well be that all boys are instinctively proud of their penises.

Does anybody else have a problem with his child's expressiveness embarrassing him in public? My 24 month old son has recently started to compare his to the planet Venus.  I think this originally started as a rhyming game for him.  But when I told him (when we were at the grocery store) that his penis and Venus sounded alike, but really didn't have anything else in common, he declared loudly:  "No, no, Mommy.  My penis is hot and Venus is hot too!"  I tried to ignore him, but them he started chanting something about penises and Venus both being hot.

I was so terribly embarassed, and I tried to distract him with cookies or dinosaurs or anything.  But he seemed to realize that I wanted him to stop and so took pleasure in ignoring me and continuing his song even louder.

Sometimes I wish he were more like a typical 24 month old with barely intelligible speech!

My 2 year, 4 month old son was trying to get his best friend
(who is the same age, but about 7-8 months behind in symbolic language
abilities) to play planets with him.  He explained to his friend, "I am
Jupiter.  You are Callisto.  I will stay right here, and you orbit
around me."  To Jupiter's frustration, Callisto would chase him, but he wouldn't
circle around him.

Claire writes:

This reminds me of when Rose came up to another little girl at the
playground, and then blurted out in a rapid-fire manner: "did you know you
get pellegra if you don't get enough vitamin A? And you get beri-beri if
you don't eat enough vitamin B. You get vitamin B in beans and lentils and
brown rice. There aren't B vitamins in white rice.  You get scurvy if you
don't eat vitamin C. You're gums will bleed and your cuts won't heal. You
get vitamin C from oranges and lemons. You get vitamin D from sunshine.
We're getting sunshine right now. If you don't get vitamin D, you get
rickets and your legs won't be straight." on and on and on.

The other four year old just stood there and stared at her with her mouth
hanging open.

Dr Mom:
    A girl after my own heart!

Her interest in the penal system has led to bedtime readings of the California Highway code, and we're planning an outing to Alcatraz which grew out of her fascination with justice and the penal system. (She also likes to wear her bike helmet when she's in bed.)
 
And somebody else actually tried to lift a manhole cover because her child wanted to see what was under there!  I don't know who is more entertaining, the gifted kids or their parents! Bless them all.
Send me your gifted kid stories.
 

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Updated Saturday, February 09, 2002