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| Peo espoused two pearls of wisdom during her lunch today: 1) I was cutting a pear up for her and a bit fell off of the plate. I said, "This piece is trying to get away! Better eat it and show it who's boss." Peo said, "You are?" I said, "Good answer." :D 2) Later she said, "The day before tomorrow has the same name as today!" And she's right. | ||||||
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Blatherings
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November 16th, 2009
November 6th, 2009
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| There has been a lot of consternation and fuss over the last week or so that Hydrogen is so far away from Helium on the periodic table. Since they're 1 and 2, Peo wants them side by side. Oh, she'll tell you readily enough that she understands that Helium belongs in its column because it's a noble gas, but since Hydrogen is unassigned, she wants it moved over beside Helium. I don't have a good answer for why she shouldn't be right. She's also been playing with her letter magnets in an anthropomorphic way lately. This morning the two play themes met: Peo: "Moooooom! Hydrogen is lonely and has nobody to play with, so Oxygen is going to play with him!" me: "Good idea, because Oxygen likes to play with Hydrogen. Lots of elements like to play with Hydrogen because it's so reactive. In fact, Oxygen really likes to play with two Hydrogens at once." Corran: "Yeah, but Helium isn't!" Peo: "Yeah, so Hydrogen and Oxygen are going to take a class and Oxygen is going to help Hydrogen in the class." Me: "Is it a class about water?" Peo: "Yeah. And baby Boron is sad because it keeps falling over." Followed by self-play with elaborate narration regarding baby Boron and Mother Boron being helped by other elements, Mother Boron lecturing some elements in playing nicely, and later shouts of excitement that, "Part of Neon is in MY NAME! I have some Neon in my name!" | ||||||
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October 27th, 2009
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| One of the hallmarks of a "gifted" person that distinguishes them from other smart people is that, if you ask them a very basic question, you will frequently get a convoluted/overreaching and quite possibly incorrect answer. This is because the gifted mind assumes that a very basic question must have some other side to it, a hidden agenda, a trick answer, or something else to make it worth asking. It's a significant problem in testing gifted people of any age, because a badly made test can result in a highly gifted and knowledgeable person looking clueless. It's one of those things Corran and do ourselves, and when we spot it in others, we make a mental note that they're someone we might want to get to know better. Peo has demonstrated this occasionally, but came up with a good version on the weekend. After I took her to that Spooky Science Extravaganza I posted about earlier, I was trying to get her to recount what she'd seen to Corran. Regarding the experiment where the kids dragged a soapy film over bowls that contained water and dry ice, Peo told Corran that the bubble was filling with gas. I asked her what kind of gas it was, hoping for her to give a basic description like "white" or "cloudy" or "smoky". Instead, she frowned with thought for a moment before carefully guessing, "Noble?" | ||||||
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October 17th, 2009
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| Here's a nifty milestone...Peo built her first electronic circuit today. With gobs of help from Corran, of course. She got a book called The Amazing Book of Facts at the resale shop yesterday and she's big-time into it. This morning she was reading about electricity so Corran decided to help her build a circuit. She explained to me how the electricity goes around and around, and how she has to touch the foil to the LED's wire to make it light up. She also explained to me that one AA battery wasn't enough and that they needed two. Video and pics were taken, and one of these eons I'll catch up. :) PS Only two years until she can start kindergarten... | ||||||
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October 5th, 2009
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| Peo learned the Mandarin words for red and green ages ago on Ni-Hao Kai-Lan. Today I did her a nice turn and looked up a bunch of other colours on a Pin Yin dictionary. Then I whipped up a document with very large text and put each set of words (the Pin Yin/Mandarin and the English) in the corresponding colour, since we have a shiny new colour laser printer. She loved it, and was particularly excited that I'd put the first seven in ROY G BIV order, since she's learned about ROY G BIV from the TMBG Here Comes the Science DVD. But as Corran pinned the document to the wall beside her maps just now before bed, Peo realized (with some prodding by Corran) that in Chinese, the colours don't spell out ROY G BIV. So she shouted, "Chinese Roy G. Biv isn't Roy G. Biv at ALLLLLLLLLLLL! He's someone DIFFERENT!" And then giggled maniacally. Incidentally, before anyone gets envious of a 4-year-old who is committing the periodic table of elements to memory, realize that today she got up while she was supposed to be napping to insist on reading another element first. I acquiesced just to get her back to bed, but then she lingered at the poster, whining things like, "Awwww, not Lithium! I've already done Lithium! I know all about Lithium." Repeat ad nauseum with a half dozen other elements until I finally made her pick one, and she did, then ran into her room and slammed the door. *sigh* | ||||||
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October 4th, 2009
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| Peo got sick yesterday. She had a fever after her nap and then when we tried to feed her some chicken soup for dinner, she claimed to be full, then wandered off and barfed her earlier meals all over the living room. At least we can confidently say that Seventh Generation's carpet cleaner does appear to get out blueberry barf stains... She knows that when she's sick she gets extra TV time (and she has attempted to oh-so-dramatically fake illness in the past to get this benefit, though it has never worked because she'll cough and say she's sick so I'll say then she needs to go to bed and then she'll either admit she was faking or claim she's suddenly better), so this morning she told Corran that two of her red blood cells were feeling better but three red blood cells were still sick, so she needed to watch three extra things on TV. At the end of each, she dutifully reported a new healthy red blood cell. One is still sick at this time. Oh, and we had to explain that white blood cells fighting off germs was a good thing, because on the TMBG video, they look angry and Peo knows that fighting is mean, so she thought white blood cells were bad guys. In other childhood geekery, we were talking about Mars, Red Rock Conservation Area in Vegas, blood, and other things that are red because of iron. Peo wants to know if the skin on her plum is red because of iron...anyone know? Presumably not everything red in nature is iron... | ||||||
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October 2nd, 2009
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| Peo has just asked Corran if there's also a Periodic Chair. | ||||||
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September 30th, 2009
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| I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I'm probably the only mother who ever had to console her crying almost-4-year-old due to having excitedly gotten a kids' book about the periodic table out of the library only to be CRUSHED, nay, DEVASTATED to discover that it didn't cover Curium. "*sob*sob* But I wanted to read about Curium because it's number 96 and I like 96!" (The book appears to only cover naturally occurring elements.) | ||||||
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September 25th, 2009
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| Pi digit recitation is soooo last year. Now it's memorizing the periodic table (thank you, TMBG!). We have to cap how many she's allowed to read before bed like we used to have to cap how many words could be spelled/read before bed. Today during lunch I decided to see what's stuck so far. Me: So what element is H the symbol for? Peo: Hydrogen! Me: What about O? Peo: Oxygen! Me: And C? Peo: Carbon! Me: Do you remember what number carbon is? Peo, thinking: No, what? Me: 6. They all have numbers. Peo: Yeah, hydrogen is 1. Me: That's right. What about He? Peo: Helium! It makes balloons go high in the air! Me: Yes it does. What about Fe? (I was trying to be tricky.) Peo, immediately: Iron! And it's my favourite element! Me: Why? Peo: Because it's a metal, and I love metal things. Me: You do? Peo: Yeah, because robots are made out of metal and there was a BIG robot that shoots pongo-pongo balls out of its MOUTH! See, last year at Maker Faire there was a giant robot that shot ping-pong balls out of its mouth and Peo still has hers as a coveted prize... I suppose learning the elements is like building blocks to someone bent on world domination, eh? | ||||||||
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September 18th, 2009
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| So Peo's into the new TMBG DVD, and there's a song on there about the periodic table. It mentions that most living things are made mostly out of four elements. Corran says this morning, Peo told him she's made out of four elements, and her heels are made out of helium. :D | ||||||
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June 21st, 2009
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| Peo's teacher told Corran on Friday that her reading has impressed the older kids at school. Peo thinks this is great because the big kids praised her...pretty much manna from heaven for a littler kid. Unfortunately, the teacher also told Corran that some of the older kids were also starting to show signs of competitiveness with Peo over it. Peo hasn't noticed. She's too happy. Here's to hoping it doesn't go ugly in any way. This teacher is really good at this sort of thing, so we are indeed hopeful. But when I mentioned it to a knitting friend who works for the local gifted association, there was a lot of nodding and dire hmm-hmming because this can be the precursor for harsh judgment. And let's be clear about this: nobody said the dreaded G-word to these kids, nobody elevated Peo in any way, nobody did any of those things that the parents of gifted kids get accused of. Heck, Corran and I haven't even met most of these kids, since Peo gets dropped off earlier and picked up later than most. All that happened was Peo read in front of them. | ||||||
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June 3rd, 2009
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| *sigh* How many 3.5 year pods do you know who throw temper tantrums during pre-bedtime tooth brushing because the water is in laminar flow when they want it turbulent or vice versa? Mind you, she was being stubborn about going potty until I asked her if her per would be laminar or turbulent, and then she HAD to go in order to find out. And then declared her poop to be turbulent. Ow. | ||||||
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June 1st, 2009
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| I keep meaning to post this but always remember at the wrong time until just now... As of a week or so ago, we're willing to say that Peo is absolutely, undeniably, full-out reading. We have suspected she could do it for some time...last fall at a Biscuit Brothers concert she asked me what "klah-roo" meant and it took me a moment to realize she was reading the call letters for the local PBS station, KLRU. Around the same time she took a book she had never seen before, sent by Grandma, and read it fully on her own (granted, the pictures assisted her in guessing some words but it was clearly more than describing the pictures). I think I grabbed the camera and took video of that but I'm so far behind in photo/video sorting that I can't quite remember. But many examples of her reading until recently could have been brushed aside as mere rote, and indeed, some of the unpleasant people we've encountered in the negative playgroup I've mentioned before loved to cite it as such when Peo would spontaneously read in front of them. Also, she still frequently refuses to perform on command and gets worried when asked to read because, I suspect, she fears that nobody will read to her anymore if she can do it herself. (Mind you, as I'm posting this, she's trying to show off some reading to Corran because he's busy cooking and she wants his attention.) So until recently, we've been fairly sure she could do some sight-reading but couldn't prove it, especially in the face of nasty nay-sayers. But then a week or so ago, she was in a snit and wanted to watch a specific episode of Ni-Hao Ki-Lan on the DVR and we didn't have that episode avaiable. She insisted that we check each recorded episode to prove that we didn't have the one she wanted. As we scrolled through the list, whenever a title was shown, she'd shout, "No, I don't want [name of epiosode]!". Granted, on a couple of them the screen shot next to the listing showed a scene that made the episode obvious. But most of the time it was the title screen showing, and she was clearly reading the words. She has also been reading signs while out in the car, labels on jars/cans/toothpaste tubes, etc. She doesn't always get complicated words right, but after seeing a LeapFrog video from the library that taught her about how a silent E makes the previous vowel say its name, she handles most words quite well (and has demanded that I knit a silent E machine for her Fisher Price Little People). So in a nutshell, Peo can read. She can read new words by sounding them out even in the absence of pictures or other context. Yay! Well except for wanting to tell Corran about ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} nightxade's trip to the zoo in code...I had to describe it as the "last letter double vowel place" and let him work it out...and frankly I bet Peo could guess that too if she had been paying attention... | ||||||
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January 14th, 2009
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| This afternoon I took Peo to an information session held by a private school that caters exclusively to highly gifted children, started a few years ago by some parents whose kids weren't functioning in public school, even in G&T programs. ( Read more... ) | ||||||
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January 3rd, 2009
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| Hey, know what else I've figured out lately? In all of the knitting interviews I've done, I've happily described myself as a nerd. I take on the label "nerd" as a thing of pride. I'm proud to be geeky (and yes I know there's a technical difference but colloquially these days, they're interchangeable). I'm proud to be smart and into D&D and Klein bottles and be the sort of person who idly wonders about the chemical properties of this or the physics of that and have a clue about how to find out answers to my questions. I'm proud to know a lot of stuff and be able to figure out a lot more. When I say I'm a nerd or a geek, people are generally okay with that. But what if instead of nerd or geek, in saying the same things about myself, I instead said I'm smart or gifted? Well, we all know by now that the response would be totally different. When I use what society deems a disparaging word for intelligence like "nerd" - even though I do it in a reclaimed, prideful way - I guess I'm keeping myself "in my place" or something. I'm almost certainly perceived as less threatening. I'm categorizing myself into a negative group that may have the positive attribute of intelligence, but can then retain all of the ugly stereotypes about social and physical awkwardness. Now, if I were to take Peo's idiosyncrasies that probably mark her as gifted but instead describe her as a nerd, I would almost certainly be chastised for verbally abusing her. I have actually received negative feedback for proudly saying that we're raising a happy little nerd back when she was a baby playing with her DNA toy. So let's sum this up: if I say I'm a nerd, that's okay. That's not snobby. If I say I'm smart or gifted, even if it's otherwise the exact same context as saying I'm a nerd, then I'm a braggart. If I say my child is smart or gifted, I'm a braggart. If I say my child is a nerd, I'm a mean parent. Is it just me or is this insane? | ||||||
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December 22nd, 2008
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| We had Christmas music on today, including Loreena McKennitt. When one of her songs came on the shuffle, Peo asked who she was. Corran told her and added, "And she's Canadian." Peo said, "Mummy's Canadian! I'm not." Corran said, "Yes you are. But I'm not." (No, Peo's never been to Canada, but she has her Canadian citizenship.) Peo thought for a moment and then announced, "All ladies are Canadian!" And for the sample at hand, that was true. We gave her kudos for that. But then Corran told her that while that was a good hypothesis, they should test it. He asked where Grandma lives, and Peo said, "Australia!" So Corran pointed out that Grandma is not Canadian, and Grandma is a lady, and got Peo to acknowledge that her hypothesis was false. She was mildly concerned until Corran explained (as he has in the past) that it's a good thing to be able to prove something wrong. And Peo was amused, as were we all. | ||||||
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December 12th, 2008
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| We're having another day where Peo is refusing to nap. There are two reasons for this today. 1) The most common reason, which is she keeps pooping herself. See, she's so determined to not poop in the potty that she withholds it until nap time and then poops herself there so much that she can't sleep because it's uncomfortable (go figure). Willful much? 2) A new reason for today: she told me she can't go to sleep until she knows "what a plus a equals?" So I told her that depends on what she defines a to be. I said if a=1, then a+a=2, or if a=2, then a+a=4. Then I said a could be any number she wants it to be. She said she wanted it to be 1. So I said, "Then a plus a would equal two." She let out a HUGE whine and said, "Noooooo! I want a plus a to equal 1!" So I said, "Well, the a has to equal one half, because one half plus one half equals one." She grinned, sighed happily, and said, "Now I can go to sleep." Mind you, she's not going to sleep. She's still up playing, talking about a. THIS is why I need help with her. Is it cool that she's doing math? Yeah, I guess, although it's not like I was expecting it or desiring it at this age. Is it cool that she's working herself to the point of cranky exhaustion in order to think mathy thoughts? NO! HELL NO! GAHHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS NOT FUN! THIS IS NOT BRAGGING! She's making so much noise that I can't even watch the video I need to return to the library tomorrow because I can't hear it over her, but if I turn it up any louder she'll know I'm watching TV and get jealous and not sleep. Sometimes I can use closed captioning but this disc doesn't have it, especially not on the commentaries, so I'm pretty much just missing chunks. And now she's kicking the walls while screaming out random numbers, with occasional yodels and hysterical giggling in between. WTF?! This is why I can't ever get any writing done! How the hell can anyone think to such noise and mayhem? AIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! eta On the poop thing, I should probably make her wear underwear to bed since she's pooping in the nappy in there, but honestly, I've just been so exhausted and busy that I haven't felt like having to clean an entire bed full of shit, not to mention the mess it'll make on toys, etc. If I thought that she'd poop in underpants once and then figure out that she'd better go in the potty after all, I'd endure it, but I know this kid. She'll hang on to the bitter end. I'll be cleaning shit-filled sheets for weeks. I'm not up to it. I'm just not. eta2 I went up there and told her to be quiet, and she said, "But I'm smelling." I said, "It's not smelling time, it's sleeping time." She said, "But I need to smell everything." I told her to go to sleep, tucked her back in, and left. She's singing again. And for the record, yes she needs to nap. She has not outgrown naps. On days when she naps, we have reasonably pleasant family evenings. On days when she does not nap, by dinner time (and that's EARLY dinner) she's a total nightmare. She doesn't eat well when she doesn't nap. It's not healthy for her to give up naps. I do not want to be told any examples of how some other kid gave up naps at this age; some kids don't need to nap at three, Peo does, pure and simple. eta3 An hour later, still not napping, has a major tantrum. I go up and she's upset because her puzzles "came off the shelves by themselves!" I asked her if really they fell out because she pulled on them and she admitted yes. I held her in my lap as she continued to wail and asked her if she knew why she was so sad. She said, "Because I didn't have a nap and I'm very very tired!" So I suggested that she go to bed and try to sleep. She wailed again, "But I NEED TO READ!" I asked her why she "needs" to read. She said that she has to read "all the books! ALL OF THEM!" I told her there'd be plenty of time for reading after a nap and that she'd read better after her nap. She totally freaked out, in complete compulsion-overdrive. I told her if she couldn't sleep with books in her room, they'd have to come out. So she wanted to "sleep sitting on the bed so you'll leave the books here." I said she had to lie down. I then tried to get her to lie down, which she resisted, doing the limp-arm thing making it hard to pick her up. I laid her down, she sat back up and started pounding her head shouting, "I'M HITTING!" I calmly said, "Yes you are. Now it's sleepy time." She gave me a look of fury, then laid down. I tucked her in and she cried again, "Leave the books in here." I said I would if she went to sleep. She cried as I left, but in the time it took me to type this paragraph, the monitor has gone quiet. Now we'll just have the fun of her sleeping so late that she'll end up going to bed past ten. I normally call it quits at 5, but she was already so insanely worked up over little things that I really didn't feel like dealing with that while cooking dinner in a few minutes. And I felt it necessary to really drive the point home about needing to sleep. This is so not fun. And it's sooooo not bragging. It's pleading. | ||||||
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| Right now Peo is reading a book while also watching Signing Time. One hand is idly signing at the TV while her eyes and other hand are on the book. Whoops, no, now she's holding the book with her feet (or trying to, and it's not working) so she can sign with both hands at the TV. Okay, she just got too rough with her feet on the book so I told her to please be gentle with it, and she gave me a dirty look. Now she's holding the book with both hands and wagging her feet at the TV. But, according to certain other parents I've encountered recently, I'm a horrible braggart and snob if I mention any of these things. Yes, apparently it's okay to talk about anything your kid does as long as it doesn't involve high intelligence. I've been told that "people in Austin just don't like labels", in particular that dreaded G word...y'know...*whispers*...gifted. Apparently because someone else's child might be behind in language or something similar, it's perfectly AWFUL to talk about a bright kid, even in the context of, "OMG please help me because my smart kid is seeing through all of the standard punishments, she's running around like a crazy person all day wearing me out, she won't finish her meal in less than an hour because she's too busy spelling/reading every label she can see in the kitchen, she's having total meltdowns when I can't converse with her in Mandarin or Spanish, and she's hitting herself in the head all the time because she's constantly trying to do things outside of her physical capability." Everyone's oh so VERY happy to give me advice/lectures on how to deal with the angst and tantrums, but when I explain that the suggestions have either been tried and failed and/or they won't fit because Peo will see through anything the slightest bit manipulative, well then I'm BRAGGING. And apparently, that's MEAN to parents of other kids. Never mind that I effectively have a "special needs" child of my own here. I'm sure I could manipulate someone into getting some kind of label for her that would get me some pity. Let's see, looks like you can apply Sensory Processing Disorder to just about any kid, so that works. Now can I ask for some help without being accused of bragging?! Sheesh. "Giftedness" is the only special needs situation where simply asking for help or support makes you instantly a jerk. And it's only going to get worse. Those unfamiliar with the challenges of giftedness will assume that Peo ought to be able to do EVERYTHING on a higher level all the time. So if she can count and read like a normal 5-year-old, she should have the emotional maturity of a 5-year-old too, right? WRONG. Or if she can absorb new languages so easily, then surely she should be able to master simple chores, right? WRONG. And because she's smart, it should be easy to explain things to her, have high expectations of behaviour, and everything should come easily therefore I should be having a fairyland fun time of parenting, right? WRONG WRONG WRONG! When I recently pointed out to someone who was telling me that I mustn't BRAG about Peo, even in the context of asking for help/support because it's hurtful to parents of kids who are behind, that by that reasoning, nobody should be able to say when they've potty trained their kid because we're behind on that, the other person told me that that's "different". No it bloody well isn't! I am never upset when another parent is happy to announce that their kid is potty trained, even though I do wish Peo would get out of this refusal to poop in the potty phase. But if it's offensive that Peo can read at 3, isn't it then also offensive to speak of children who potty train early? What about early waking? Nobody was offended about Peo's early walking. Many even understood that it was actually a hassle to have a nine-month-old who could get into everything, versus one that can still be plonked down and will sit still. Ah, but intelligence, that's the kicker. Doing anything early that's linked to intelligence means you're a snob. Screw that! Look, every kid is different; some do some things early and some things late. Some kids are always lagging behind the "average", some are always ahead. Some are ahead this year and then suddenly behind the next. Some kids are good at one thing and bad at another and might stay that way their whole life. Is that fair? No, but life's not fair. It is NOT an insult to any other kid to have one kid be able to do something. Now, if a parent is constantly implying that their kid is better than the rest because he/she can do something ahead of the pack, then hey, sure, that's snobbery. But when a parent says they're having trouble disciplining a kid who is constantly trying to outwit all discipline, that's no more bragging than to say that they're having trouble with a kid who just can't seem to learn to talk but loves to sign. If a parent has a kid that's "behind" in a certain area and is automatically insulted by every kid who is "ahead" in that area, that parent needs to SUCK IT UP and DEAL WITH IT. Where is the insult, assuming the other parent isn't actually saying, "Ha ha, my kid is better than your kid"? If the "ahead" kid's mere existence is an insult, that's something the parent of the "behind" kid needs to work on in their own head. That's evidence of their own issues, not the issues any of the children involved. That parent needs to do their own introspection and figure out why they're so touchy; are they disappointed because their expectations were too high, are they having trouble dealing with the problem and need support, or is there some other problem in there? Because it simply isn't offensive for a kid to be GIFTED. It just isn't. It's a state of being like any other, with benefits and with problems. When little kids fight on the playground, we parents make them go have time-outs to calm down and figure out their problems. I think it's about time for some overly sensitive parents to have their own time-outs before treating the parents of smart kids as pariahs for daring to talk about it. | ||||||
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December 4th, 2008
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| 1) A couple of weeks ago Peo tried saying, "Shit" to get my attention, but it didn't, so she got bored with it. As most of you probably know, I don't really care about swearing beyond telling kids that they probably shouldn't do it around other people. But two days ago Peo did say something that chilled me to the bone. She suddenly announced, "I'm SO fat!" WTF? Where did she get THAT? I'm fat but I don't recall having phrased it like that in years. I refer to myself (and Corran for that matter) as "big" to Peo. And actually, more than once she's referred to Corran as being bigger than me because she's learned from storybooks etc. that daddies are usually bigger that mummies (especially with animals). I do talk about weight loss in terms of healthy eating, trying new recipes, etc. But I'm pretty sure that's a whole different context. Miss Piggy has some plot lines regarding her weight, but I don't think she's ever said, "I'm so fat" because she tends to be in denial or deliberately obfuscating it (ie talking about a fat friend who wants diet advice). I really can't think of where Peo heard the phrase, so that means either she's heard it on the playground in some way that I didn't notice, she's seen some kind of TV I didn't know about (or have forgotten), or worst of all, she's just come up with it on her own. Meep. 2) Right now she's in her room looking at books, talking about how she has a million books, loves her books, but doesn't have any in Spanish and needs some in Spanish. This is most likely because I got some language DVDs from the library (Spanish, French, and Mandarin) and she's totally addicted to them. I haven't heard a lot of those languages coming from her yet, but if quizzed she's definitely picking up things like parts of the body and certain foods. The French one is fairly easy for me since I learned those words ages ago. The Spanish one is relatively easy since I can look at the sentences and usually tell which word is what (ie identify the obvious verbs and nouns). The Mandarin one goes right over my head except in its most basic formats of this word equals this word, and even then, I guarantee that I'm saying the vowels wrong and probably telling someone to go stick their head in a pig instead of passing the milk. But Peo likes it, so good for her...hopefully her young ear can pick it up better. Either way, I can think of worse things than to babysit this kid by language instruction DVDs. In fact, I have noted that she's gone two days without a major tantrum or hitting (which has received much praise), and those are the two days I've had her brain seriously challenged with learning these languages. (There are Spanish books at the library, but I admit to steering Peo away from them, mostly because I don't know how to say the words right and if Peo does, I get yelled at and I don't need that crap right now.) 3) Speaking of hitting, Peo announced randomly the other day that she doesn't like to have too many people around her at the same time. I can't remember her exact phrasing, but basically she explained to me that she gets angry and does hitting when she feels surrounded by people making too much noise and doing too many things all at once. And that's really cool and introspective of her, so I praised her for recognizing that and said we could try to make sure she doesn't get surrounded... ...but actually, she's just as likely to tantrum or hit when it's just her and I in the house and I've told her she's not allowed to do something dangerous like stick her hand onto the hot stove. So in reality, having observed her reactions, I think the real problem comes when she suddenly notices she's surrounded by other kids doing things and wakes up to the sharing situation that's been around her already for an hour, because prior to that she's been hyperfocusing in her own little world. I think in her perception, she's been in a bubble of solitary play at any playgroup (into which she may occasionally let one other person, if they'll follow her commands), and then all of a sudden she becomes aware of the group and it's overwhelming, so she starts to act out. And I'm sure it coincides with the point where she's touched/seen/done everything in a given area, so she instantly becomes bored and the world rushes in at her. So I probably need a multi-faceted approach of keeping her brain engaged and removing her from situations if she's overwhelmed. That's much easier to say than to do. eta After posting this, I gave Peo her breakfast and she started quizzing me on Mandarin, then scolding me for getting it wrong. *sigh* | ||||||
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November 20th, 2008
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| I had to buy some Worchestshire sauce today and Peo and I were having fun deliberately mispronouncing it. Then Corran and I were discussing how it's one thing to have odd pronounciations for words that aren't English because the non-English phonemes are weird for us, but it's quite another to have English words that are so oddly spelled relative to how they're commonly said. As an example, Corran cited the Texas city of Manor, which is pronounced "MAY-nor". To do this, he asked me, "How would you say m-a-n-o-r?" Before I could answer, Peo said, "Manor." (as in "MAN-or") We were stunned. It's not like he even spelled slowly. And Peo has no context that we know of for that word. It's not in any of her books or on any of her shows that we can recall. So Corran said to Peo, "I think somebody can s-p-e-l-l." Peo replied, "Mell?" We said no, that'd be m-e-l-l, and then emphasized the s-p for her. Peo: "Spell?" Much applause. So that was a few hours ago. Just now before bed, Corran spelled out manor in alpha magnets on Peo's board in her room. She tried to sound it out but couldn't get it. Then when Corran read out the letters quickly, she said, "Manor!" We are confused. She's usually quite good lately at sounding out words when she sees them (as long as they're literal to their spelling, not freaky words like thought or phone), but had trouble sounding out manor but could do it by ear instantly. Freaky. Oh, and insanely advanced. But freaky. | ||||||
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Blatherings
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