My sister sent me this story… I just had to share. Keep in mind my family is pretty science/biology oriented. 
============================================================Life with the Thinker
Everyone can always tell when my 6-year-old Lee is thinking. Nothing moves but his eyes. They dart straight to the ceiling and Lee starts “thinking.” You never know what can set it off, this self-induced, contemplative trance of his. It might be something he read, saw, or it might be something that he’d forgotten 2 years ago and suddenly, POP, there it is blanketing every other thought, topic or idea he happened to have had in his brain at that moment.
No, you never know what gets him started, but when he’s
there - oh, THAT you know. Because right there, right on that topic he stays. And that’s when the questions begin.
“A sign of the gifted,” his teacher told us. “They feel the need to focus on or DEVOUR a subject.” Devour, yes, that is it exactly! And while he devours his subject the rest of the family clings to the furniture trying not to get sucked in to that gaping black void Lee is trying to fill with record speed.
It’s a parent’s dream, a child who has a thirst for knowledge, a yearning for learning, so to speak. And Lee’s father and I wouldn’t trade his charm and quirkiness for all the Tom, Dick or Harry’s of the world. We respond to
his inquiries and provide him with as many opportunities as we can. We love him and support him during spells of intense sensitivity or overwhelming perfectionism. But neither one of us is what would be considered “gifted.”
And from the beginning, we knew they were going to be in for a ride.
It started as a toddler. Once I was lying on the couch trying to sneak in a snooze while my infant, Andrew, was taking a rare 30 minute nap. Lee, a mere 14-months-old himself, brought me a book. It was a large Mother Goose
Nursery Rhyme book with the hardback cover. It was okay, but most of the rhymes were ones I’d never heard. Or, if I had, they were slightly different than I remembered, leaving the sound of them a bit more hollow than satisfying. So it wasn’t exactly my favorite. But it was Lee’s. “Book, Mommy, book,” Lee said, pushing the corner of the book into my right cheekbone. “Not right now, Sweetheart,” I whispered with my arm draped over my eyes trying to shield the light streaming in from the window. “Why don’t you look at the book by yourself for a minute. Mommy’s going to take a little nap.” BONK! Lee brought that hardback nursery rhyme anthology down on
my head faster than I could say “Jack and Jill” “BOOK! MOMMY! BOOK!” Lee demanded. And nothing has really changed since.
“I wonder how the fish in the icy bottoms of the ocean find their prey. Whales use echolocation and so do bats. Do you think they do too?” I was asked the other day.
“I don’t know, Lee. Why don’t you get your Sea Life book and we’ll see if we can look it up.”
“You mean my Life in the Sea book?”
“Yes, Lee, that’s what I mean.” Now, if I said Sea Life book and you didn’t have a book entitled Sea Life, but you had one called Life in the Sea that you had already shown me 15 times that day, wouldn’t you know that that
was the one I was talking about? Would you REALLY find it necessary to question the title? I think he just loves to correct me.
“The Viperfish swims with its mouth open and when you shine a light on it you see it’s head glow, but it doesn’t have a light on a line on its head. That would be the Anglerfish. This is the Viperfish. The Viperfish has a
very, very ferocious look. It has so sharp teeth that it could maybe bite your whole hand off!” and on it goes for one, two, maybe three week. You’re never quite sure, because as quickly as it comes, it’s gone. He drops that
topic like a hot potato, and something new emerges on the horizon.
The other day during one of our standard mad-rush-to-get-to-school mornings, Lee came up to me with a question about his latest topic of interest, musical instruments.
“Mom, what’s your favorite instrument?”
“I don’t really know. Have you brushed your teeth?”
“No, but I will. Really, Mom, what’s your favorite instrument?”
“I guess the double bass, Lee. Here’s your toothbrush, now brush.”
“Why?”
“Because you have bad breath and your teeth need cleaning.”
“No, why the double bass.”
“I don’t know, its not really, but I’ve heard you talk about it a lot lately.”
“Well, Mom, the double bass is the biggest string instrument. It kind of looks like a giant cello except the mouthpiece is shorter. And since the double bass is the biggest string instrument, it makes the lowest sound, like
BOWIM, BOWIM. And since the double bass is the biggest instrument, it has the smallest bow.”
“It does?”
“Yea.” I’m not sure if he’s right, but he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.
“Wow, that’s pretty neat. Boys, go get in the car. It’s time to go to school.”
“Do you mean the Expedition, Mom?”
“Yes, Lee, that’s the only vehicle we have.”
“Well, you said car, so I didn’t know. I thought maybe you had bought a car or something.”
“No, Lee, we have not purchased a car sent you went to bed last night.
Get in the Expedition before we’re late for school.”
“Hey, Mom, I got a question for you? Is the saxophone a brass instrument, or a woodwind instrument?”
“I don’t know, I think it has a reed, so maybe it’s a woodwind. Did you buckle your seatbelt?”
“No, but I will. I believe it’s a wood wind instrument. But it’s not used in the orchestra. It’s used in the band, but not the orchestra.”
“Lee, buckle your seatbelt.”
And questions aren’t the only challenge facing the family of this gifted child. His imagination sometimes seems to take control and Lee becomes lost in a world no one else can see. This is usually no problem, unless, of
course, you are in church when the Howler monkey happens to spy the approach of the jaguar. And if his 11-year-old brother, Caleb, is there, watch out. Lee’s trip back to reality is usually accompanied with a pinch on the arm and
a “SShhh Lee!! You are so embarrassing!” Now I don’t know about other families, but a pinch on the arm in my family is not generally a real effective way to quiet a child. “OW!” screams Lee. “SSHH!” says Mom. “BE
QUIET!” says older brother while muffling his younger brother’s mouth with a less than gentle hand. “STOP IT!” yells Lee, much louder than expected since he was just trying to be heard through the hand over his mouth. “Leave him alone, Caleb. You are not the parent,” snarls a desperate mother through clenched teeth. Caleb tosses himself back against the pew with a loud exasperated sigh for having to be seen with such an uncool family, and Lee is
already back to whispering jungle noises. “Peace be with you,” whispers the older gentleman behind us with a smile of amusement on his face. “Yes, peace,” I whisper back already hearing the beginning of the warning call of
the gibbon.