Child Age "2" Shows Amazing Promise!

Today my husband and I made a discovery that leads us to wonder, "Is our Grandson a Boy Wonder?" We all would like to have our children excel in life, above and beyond the norm, but let's face it, most of us are average people and if we want to excel in something, we must work very hard at what we are trying to achieve. Through study, repetition, and in putting in many hours of hard work, one can become "good" at something, even very good. But isn't a savant supposed to be someone with a natural learned talent. A special something that is just there inside of you waiting to come out, and when it does: **POW**, the world stands up and takes notice?

I've always wondered how people discover the genius in a child. We all have seen the rare 4-year old who can pick up a musical instrument (usually a violin or a piano), and at the age of 4, they can put great musicians like Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Daniels and even Schroeder to shame. I'm talking about the Baby Beethovens, Baby Mozarts, Baby Tiger Woods' and Baby Michael Jordans! How do you know if your child (or grandchild) is one of these? I mean, if I don't give my grandson violin lessons or even a violin to play; how do I know if he can or can not? If golf makes me snore, how do I know if my Grandson will ever wear a green jacket if no one takes him out on the links? Perhaps he's the next Apollo Ono or Scott Hamilton. If we lived in Sunny Florida, he might never strap on a snowboad or a pair of ice skates. Obviously you can't give your kid lessons in everything.

Our Grandson will be 2 years old next month, and although "we" think he's smart...we don't have much to compare him to. All of our kids are grown and we never kept up with their baby books anyway, so we cannot compare who walked first, who talked first, or who made their first free-throw and at what age. Likewise, our Grandson is not in Daycare...so we have no other 2-year olds to compare him to in this way. So unless you are the OctoMom who has 8 kids all the same age - how can you tell if your offspring is more gifted than most?

But fear not, I think I have your answer! The answer is: you will just know. I think that one day when you least expect it, you will just know if your child has that "certain something", that "inner star", that "it" factor. It may come out in a BIG way, or it may come out in a more quiet subdued way. But if you are aware of the signs, you will look for them and pick up on them. Genius can't hide!

It started out with little things. We would find his little colorful ring of plastic keys hanging out of a keyhole in one of the doors in the house. If we listened very closely, we could hear him singing a lot of the words of the "Thomas The Train" song. He even locks the baby locks on the cabinet doors when we forget to, lest he open the doors up and get ahold of some cleaning product that will hurt himself! Now see, some or all of this may be signs of genius...we don't know. We think it's great, but again, we have no gaggle of 2-year old Grandsons to compare him to. But today changed all of that! Today he let his genius come out and it was in a way that someone not as astute as ourselves, could have missed!

It all started with the upstairs bathroom and some tubby toys. I know right? Sounds innocent enough, but read on. This little boy has several toys up in the bathroom for tub time. He has cars, and a bubble maker, your average rubber duckies, etc... But this is where it gets interesting! Among his many tub toys, he has a set of foam letters and numbers. All 26 letters of the Alphabet, along with the Numbers 0-9!

Our 4-year old Granddaughter was here visiting from Baltimore just last week, and she is an average child. Cute, but average. At bathtime, she would pour bath water into a cup and I would say things like, "Hot Cocoa. Find Nana the letters for Hot Cocoa," and she would dutifully put the letters H & C from this set of foam letters & numbers, into the cup of bath water. I would pretend to drink the Hot Cocoa and the game would continue, with Nana asking her to make me a cup of Tea, where she would then put the letter T into the cup of bath water. Just a fun little learning game, with a fun little average kid who was taking a bath.

But last night, after returning home from a dance class, I went in the bathroom to use the facilities and dread of all dread...the toilet was plugged up! Now this toilet had been working 2 hours prior, and toilets do not just suddenly plug up, so the only deduction one can make out of a situation like this, is that someone, flushed some thing, down the toilet; or rather they tried to flush something down the toilet. Ugh! My husband immediately started complaining before going out to Lowes to buy a new wax ring in preparing to operate on the toilet. He had recalled the job and watery mess he had experienced many many years ago, rescuing a plastic green dragon from a toilet of which one of our 3 sons decided to watch go down the drain. It was de ja vu all over again, as we naturally assumed a yellow duck, a Matchbox car, or a toothbrush had met the same fate of that green dragon many years ago.

Wrench in hand, he pulled off the nuts and unbolted the toilet, placed the toilet on a bunch of towels and couldn't "see" anything. He eased the toilet snake up through the pipes, but with the pipes curving all this way and that, he could not free what had caused all of this trouble. He stuck his big old hand up there and his fingertips could j..u..s..t   b..a..r..e..l..y   t..o..u..c..h something. He stretched and he strained and he grimaced and groaned as his willed his fingertips to s--t--r--e--t--c--h just a little bit more. And just as he could stretch no more and was about to give in, suddenly **POP**! Out came the offending nuisance with an uneventful: plop.

What was it you ask? And what ever happened to the story about the "Boy Genius"? Are you ready??? (This is going to be one of those small subtleties I told you to be aware of...) It Was: The NUMBER 2 !!!! The NUMBER 2 !!! Don't you get it? He could have thrown in a car, a duck, a hair brush, an A,B,C or D...but instead, he threw The NUMBER 2 in the TOILET!!! He's a GENIUS! A MATH SAVANT if you will! Out of 26 Letters in the Alphabet, and 10 Numbers, along with any number of bath toys, our Grandson literally Did #2 in the Toilet!! OMG! I don't know where or when or how he will show us more signs, but now that we know what to look for, we are ready to steer him into the Mathmatical world, or the Puzzle world or into some other like Numerical category. Perhaps he's a Baby Einstein or a Baby Sir Isaac Newton .I don't know, but with 26 letters and 10 numbers to choose from, he had a 1 in 36 chance of choosing to do #2 in the potty, and if you want to say that he's not that smart...he could have done #1 in the potty also; so be it. A 1 in 13 shot of putting #1 or #2 in the potty is still pretty impressive from where I'm sitting! All I can say is, your child may also be a Savant and if he or she is, will you be ready? Don't let your child's talent go away undiscovered in cloud of dust. Watch for the signs. Again, everyone can't have a child with genius, but if you just look hard enough, you just might find that genius. I know we did!