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I want to say thanks to all as well – I love coming here!
(Almost too much; I’m getting addicted!
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I find my husband’s treasures, but to me they just look like junk.
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Thanks, Steffie, KrazyKat, sugargremlin, pete-puma, and nodopamine! (Did I get everybody?)
KrazyKat, I hope your on-pins-and-needles phase passes as smoothly as it can! Hang in there!
Steffie, you are right about my husband; he’s amazing. I’m betting he’s a bit relieved as well, as in, maybe now he won’t have to do it all by himself!
Yesterday on the meds was…interesting. As in, is this really the lowest dose? Got lots done and felt really positive about it. The best example: There’s an extra chair by the kitchen table that has had a big pile of books and papers on it since mid-June; the last day of school, to be precise. Yesterday morning I started going through the stack and putting things away, and in the middle of the pile were a couple of writing journals my sons had been doing at school.
Now, normally, when I see something like this, I’d have started reading it, and then started beating myself up for not being more attentive to the kids’ schoolwork all year long….or maybe just felt guilty about how long the thing had been sitting there…or whatever. But I’d have been caught up in my own head and then I’d have quit the project.
But this time, I just grabbed my sons for a cuddle on the couch, and we lay under a blanket and read the journals together, and I complimented them on their great writing – because it really was pretty awesome overall – and we talked about the great word choices in the poems (“Teal is a narrow lake”), we talked about the memories evoked by the stories (“I remember all those crabs on the beach, too!”), we went over the details (“What’s this word here? ‘Quit’? Is that the word you meant?”) and just basically did all that sort of involved-parent schoolwork stuff that I normally hand over to my husband. We had an absolutely lovely time cuddling and reading –
And then, when we were done with the journals, I actually put them away, and went back and KEPT WORKING ON THE PILE TILL IT WAS DONE!
To me that was the most amazing part: that I was able to interrupt a task for a few minutes, and then, return to it and see it through to completion.
Here’s hoping there’s more of that to come!
REPORT ABUSEHi Geoduck! Thought I’d chime in here because, like you, I’ve got a super-smart daughter and a super-smart hubby, too! So naturally the whole gifted/ADD thing intrigues me as well
In fact, one of the questions you posed when I was still in my “wondering” phase was Was I bored and daydreamy in grade school because I was gifted? And I have to say that it probably was a big factor: I wasn’t necessarily gifted, (but then, they didn’t really test for that sort of thing back then), but I was definitely smart, and not being challenged, because back then they just threw everybody in the same classes, so it was all taught at the same speed, and so reading ahead in the books in class was something I couldn’t help doing.
However, looking at my daughter over time has been one of the things that made me begin to suspect I have ADD, because she’s really smart, and, like me, she devours books the way I used to at that age and has a love of writing…..
BUT she’s also a lot of things I never was: organized, disciplined, a planner, social, and, overall, very confident. Sometimes she’s hesitant to try things if she’s not sure she’ll do them perfectly right out of the gate, which can be frustrating, but she pretty much amazes me on a daily basis. I love to go into her room and look at her desk, because I was with her when she set it all up back in September, getting ready for middle school, creating special spaces for everything….And here it is, nearly one year later, AND IT STILL LOOKS THE SAME WAY! I marvel at how together she is, and all the wonder and awe at it all made me realize how much of that was lacking in my own study habits (or lack thereof).
Like you, I credit my extreeemely smart hubby with a lot of what my kids are doing right. It actually becomes a problem sometimes, when I’m feeling low: “All the kids’ good stuff comes from him, all the bad stuff comes from me….” It gets hard, sometimes, to not feel an imbalance, real or imagined.
Got lots more to add, but I can sense this is getting long, so maybe I’ll add more later on.
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@pete-puma: Cracking up over your half-sentences!
I’m sometimes amazed over how long after I’ve misspoken that the realization comes along. Like a full one minute, two minutes later –
– BING! Hey, I think I said North Dakota instead of North Carolina!….Did anybody notice? And then I have to ask out loud what I said, which feels pretty stoooopid.
So I’m sort of the opposite of the fast-thinking type; there’s a “processing-please-wait” that seems to be chronic with me. I suspect my brain has compensated for a missing pathway here and there with some really long, circuitous, through-the-woods trails: “Left hemisphere: Ten miles, be sure to follow the blue blazes on the trees.” But the thought does arrive eventually!
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