Life with a Genius
So Evan's smart. It's no secret. I say that in the same frank way I would say he's sensitive, or that they all have big Irish heads... it's a statement of fact, is all. (I realize your kid's smart, too.)
He reads several words and writes many on his own, he can add multiple numbers at a time and quiz me; you're right, mommy! 5 and 5 and 1 ARE eleven! And that's all advanced and well for a just-turned five-year-old. But it's his creativity levels that are off the charts. (In time, I'm sure I'll get around to illustrating what I mean with recent stories, but not this morning...)
This morning what I'm marveling over is how he can be so intelligent and yet so "flaky" at once. (I guess he got the intelligent from Shaun and the flaky from me.) Thus, he's like Beethoven, concentrating so hard on his masterpieces that he's unaware of wetting himself. (Not literally, YET, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened soon.) His reasoning and logic go from being very "five-year-old," to being very advanced, and you can watch the tension between intellect and age as they battle it out.
For example, he always puts his clothes on backwards and shoes on the wrong feet. Not sometimes, but ALWAYS. Consistently. He's like dyslexically coordinated, to create a word. At the same time that he's putting his shorts on his head, though, he will be talking to you about the square root of pi, or why Jane Austen was a true literary genius. It fascinates me.
With the rise of the sun this morning, he appeared in our room pretending to undergo transformation after drinking a magic potion, making lots of boy noises, throwing lots of saliva around in the swirl of the ceiling fan, and we say, "hey Evan, could you turn the fan off?" (Not because of the saliva, but because we were cold.)
No answer. Still spitting and transforming...so we ask again. Still no answer. SIX times we ask without an answer and finally say, "Evan, sweetie, do you need to go to time-out already this morning because you're not listening or answering us?"
"What? What! I didn't hear you."
(Parents shrink in guilt.) "Ok, that's ok... just run turn the fan off, please."
So he runs over and madly flicks the light on and fan off, then the light off and the fan on, then gets it right. Mad flicking, though, like rapid gunfire, and faster than I knew what was happening, because his fingers weren't keeping up with his mind. (He does the same thing when he's trying to tell you about Pope Clement the XIII warning against the dangers of anti-Christian writings on November 25th in 1776; he gets stuck on "the pope... pope clement... on the 25th of November, the pope..." because his mind is already cataloging which particular writings the pope found to be anti-christian...)
Anyway, after the mad-flicking, and as usual, Shaun summed up with one sentence what it would take me pages to explain: "He's like the kid in the Gary Larson 'Far Side' cartoon with the door on the school of the gifted."
Labels: boys will be boys, Evan, humor, parenting
