Parenting Reality in the Land of Willful Ignorance.

Every so often we run into folks who just don't get what life is like at our house. They have an image of what a "gifted child" is in their head, and when our life doesn't match that image, obviously it is because none of us are gifted. I wish, fairly frequently, that our lives matched that image, but they just don't.  However, the fact that we aren't all bookworms who enjoy studying, who raise their hands first, or who don't have parties, but instead have Socratic Conversations over weekends, while engaged in high-profile careers which allow us to have a housekeeper, and incredibly flexible hours so we're mostly paid to just think...  Well, people seem to not realize that no, that's not what gifted (much less 2E!) is. At least, not by and large (I can't speak for people I don't know!).

At our house, gifted means three computers running while the television plays a video, and Spotify plays music. Half the time, there is someone either running through the house, or falling over, and the rest of the time we're all sitting down. There is no "mildly emotional" area, it's either fine or end-of-the-world.

A Very Tinker-y Holiday!

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I hesitate to write this post now, largely because it's still daylight hours and Mad Natter is right behind me (playing a game)... and I'm about to start talking about his Christmas gifts.  But, he's pretty preoccupied, and as long as I save the actual photo-linking until last, we'll be cool.

For the last several months, Mad Natter has wanted one thing.  Just one.  He wants to make a boost button for the car.  He wants this in the worst way, and he is terribly upset I don't have wires just sitting around the house so he can wire up a button.  He wants to make and do in the worst way!  But, I don't really have a lot around the house that works for this.  I mean, he's got sets of Snap Circuits, but really, that's just not the same thing as wiring up a boost button for the car. I mean, come on. He can make the lights light, sure, or he can make the car go turbo. No contest. And so, I started the hunt for a tinkering kit.

Same Bat-Tropes, New Bat-Stations.

It's gotten to be almost an annual event. That someone has put their foot in their mouth and something needs to be said. Last year, it was a post about "All children are gifted, every single one." This year, it seems, there are some big names going on about how giftedness is a school-based construct, and doesn't exist. I'm rapidly reaching the point where I've run out of spoons to deal with people so catastrophically closed-minded as to not even acknowledge that not all people think the same way, and so now I feel an awful lot like the bitter old lady everyone knows in their childhood, bound and determined to just be grumpy. Kind of a shame, really.

TomTom!

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With the holiday season heading into full swing, a lot of people do a lot of traveling, and usually we're among them.  This year, we're staying home, but that doesn't stop me from telling about my new favorite gadget - my TomTom.

Shelf Elves

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Now that we've rounded the corner on Thanksgiving in the US, and are heading straight into Christmas/Yuletide/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa, it's time to introduce a friend of mine.  This is Gingerbread.  Okay, this is a shot from the amazon.com website for Elf on the Shelf, but that's still Gingerbread. He comes to our house every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas... and behaves very oddly for an Elf on the Shelf.