growing and healing

There were two things I resisted in the teachers' report: the notion that, somehow, pretending needed to be corrected and the fact that Jacob's desire for adult company was a problem that needed to be fixed. He will develop friendships with children. He already likes some kids very much. Prescott, he says, is his best pal. Still, he prefers grown up. One of the characteristic signs of gifted children is preference for the company of adults. A lot of smart people I know were the same. (Other signs are early langauge acquisition [check], precocity to the point of inappropriate behavior on occasion [check], and curiosity and desire for reading/to read [check].) Both of these were addressed in the conference. First, they said they didn't want to stifle his creativity (I explained that his father was a creative writer, and I appreciated his creative story telling as a gift), but that they wanted him to be able to talk about it as storytelling, so he didn't suffer social consequences (i.e. "that didn't really happen, Jacob!" or "you're crazy--that's not real.") Second, Laura, the teacher admitted that it might be that play dates wouldn't necessarily change Jacob's preference or help. They talked about how he was adjusting well and said they thought he was being parented well.

He's on the mend. He's been eating since the day after he began vomiting, and, while his tummy is still a little shaky sometimes, he's definitely feeling much better. He might be coming down with a little cold (which seems rough, since he just got over the intestinal bug), but he'll make it through that too. It's a function of school attendance--this catching of everything--I'm sure.