Gifted

After making jokes about looking at the What to Expect: The Toddler Years book in order to feel superior to other parents, I realized last week that it probably wouldn't hurt to take a peek at our copy and see if there was anything we should talk to the doctor about when we visit her in a couple weeks.

So I turned to the 18 month chapter, which I was a little early for, but, you know, close enough. Mihret will be 18 months old on the 28th, after all.

Mihret could do everything on the list, from the "Your child MUST be able to do this, or you should call the doctor," to the "Your child MAY EVEN be able to do..." listing the things that only the most precocious child manages by 18 months.

So I checked month 19. She could do all that as well.

And then I checked month 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24.

She can do all of it. And more.

The big one is words and pictures. Apparently, being able to look at a picture and tell you what it is? Is a very big deal. A huge one.

One so "hard" to do that your kid should be able to look at two pictures, by the age of two, and be able to tell you what they are.

Things Mihret can see in pictures and tell us what they are right now: Doggy, Kitty, Elephant (Ellie!), Nona, Papa, Monkey, Elmo. That's stuff I can just name off the top of my head.

Oh - and all her classmates at school, and her teachers.

She's supposed to be able to use, say, 75 words by age two. She knows more than 100.

She's supposed to be able to use two-word phrases by the time she's two. In fact, that isn't even on the list for a couple more months.

Phrases she can already use: Help please, Down please, More milk, (Foodstuff) please. Also, Thank you, and Bless you, which she says when we sneeze.

Physically, she can run, throw a ball, and KICK a ball. And she's got amazing fine motor control.

I asked my mom, who specializes in development about this - did she know that my 18-month-old is basically two?

Yeah, she knew.

There's an old adage about your parents wishing that you had a kid "just like you" when you grow up, and it looks like it's actually happened.

And what's kind of scary about it is, I didn't realize it was a big deal. Which is exactly what happened to both my parents and Kara's parents.

In my case, it happened like this:

My mom wanted to get me into preschool, but I'm a June baby, which always throws that kind of thing off. Plus, boys are, I guess, dumber than girls, so they usually try to hold us June kids back for an extra year.

This was, more or less, what the teacher at the preschool was trying to explain to my mother, when I turned to my mom and said, "Look mom, there are two o's in the word school."

So the preschool took me.

I have no idea if Mihret is going to be an early reader, or some kind of sports star, or if she's even going to keep ahead of the curve. At some point, she might just become a child completely average and normal for her age.

We're okay with that.

But if she does end up as a famous dancer, a respected engineer, or a brilliant athlete, I guess I won't be able to say I never saw it coming.

-Josh