5 Minutes for Parenting’s weekly column, A Dose of Humor, is here to remind you to take your humor pill regularly as the best medicine to treat the side effects of parenting! It features a different blogger every week and is hosted by Rachel at Grasping for Objectivity in My Subjective Life. Now you can also join in by linking in your funniest moment of the week, using the Mr. Linky at the bottom of this post!!
Leslie of Five to Nine is a new mom with an energetic one-year-old boy, a does-it-himself husband, a tiny old country house under construction, and a full-time job where she works with teenagers. When she’s at home, she plays with her son, cooks with her husband, and dreams about the day they’ll have closets, bedrooms, a dishwasher and more kids.
It’s still sleepless at our house (seven months and counting), which means I probably shouldn’t be dressing myself, using the stove or driving.
Because I know I’ll soon arrive officially in Desperation, I opened up my copy of What to Expect in the First Year the other day to look up the “Help! My baby still isn’t sleeping!” parts. For those unfamiliar to this self-help volume / baby-raising reference, the book is largely organized around parents’ FAQs. Flipping through the book, I happened upon this one: Is my baby gifted?
I think I resisted the urge to gag before reading on about the categorically vague ways that you can try to measure your infant’s intellectual gifts. The last item on the list took the cake:
“Does he have trouble sleeping? In a gifted baby, this could mean he has a hard time dialing down on the stimulation so he can get some z’s.”
The Gifted Babies page from About.com elaborates:
A common misunderstanding about gifted children is that their giftedness does not become apparent until after they start school. Gifted traits, however, can be recognized in toddlers. If you know what to look for you can also recognize gifted characteristics in infants!
Characteristics of Giftedness in Infants
- Extremely alert — always looking around
- Needs less sleep than most other babies
- Needs almost constant stimulation when awake
- May begin to mimic sounds earlier than other babies
- Tend to be exceptionally sensitive to sounds, smells, textures, tastes and may cry vigorously in response to unpleasant or strong ones.
Well, what great news! That was easy. In my/Jack’s case, the answer is All of the above. Why didn’t I hear about this sooner? Here I was, getting lectured about how I’m spoiling him, considering the Cry It Out method, trying to refrain from infant Ibuprofen, wondering if it was something I ate, fearing that his impatient and demanding nature were early indicators of his personality.
To think that I puzzled over what might be Wrong, when all along, Jack was just being Gifted!
I wonder what other would-be flaws can be coddled away explained by symptoms of acute intelligence? I can’t wait to see how Jack’s extraordinary giftedness manifests itself later on. This ought to make the terrible twos, tweens and teens so much fun! If the infant criteria are any indication, I guess we have a terrific lineup of fierce tantrums, articulate backtalk, and spirited mischief to look forward to.
(Is it too soon to teach him to say “euphemism?”)
This post was originally published on November 14, 2008 at Five to Nine.
If you would like to be considered to be featured in A Dose of Humor, email Rachel at doseofhumor (at) gmail (dot) com.
Join us and link up your funniest moment of the week here!!!
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