I've been meaning to write you since our last conversation on a couple items:
You were talking about your experience with gifted/talented and your expertise, and I realized the way I respond to your assessment of Max being talented would most likely be construed as blowing you off, or not believing you. I think I told you that I definitely respect your assessment, I'm just afraid to believe it. I find the idea exciting, and I'll get carried away with it, and if these talents fizzle out with him, I'm afraid of getting disappointed, or setting the bar too high, or 100 other things that I find exciting AND stressful about him possessing these talents. Anyway, when you said something about how I should believe you, I realized that I must sound like I don't. Am I making any sense? It's like a self-defense mechanism. I don't talk about Max like that with anyone else because I'm afraid anybody else will think I'm bragging or trying to be competitive (they call it "mompetition" by-the-way). I'm just kinda burying it deep until. . .until what? I have no idea what I'm waiting for. . .
I think the other (which is why I cc'd Papa since it's more of an update) item is that the Lego fixation has nearly completely replaced the cars fixation. Max has been playing with cars since he was 18 months, now, at 4 years, he has migrated to Legos. Seemingly overnight. He had been wanting Legos since last summer and so we asked Santa for this one particular set (power miners - still not sure how he found out about this specific Lego set). Since Christmas it has taken over. So it hasn't been a month and he has completely let the cars go. I'd say by 98%. The cars that he would eat/sleep/bathe and play with, left in the cold. . .well actually, left with Quinn :-) Who, by-the-way, shows absolutely no allegiance to any toy. And the only thing he speaks of regularly is "football? football guy? football! football!", so yeah. . .yikes. But back to Max. . .like I told Patricia, he wants the sets that are beyond him in years, usually the 7-14 age range. It's right on the front of the box (which he now understands how to interpret, i.e. which is the model number, which is the age range, how many pieces), but he overlooks that and wants it anyway. We thought the power miners would be a good test because it was for 7-14 and had like 400 pieces. Although he doesn't really care what happens to missing pieces (and mom does), and doesn't stick to the BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS (and mom WANTS too), he is absolutely in love with Legos. We actually had a discussion last night about the power miners, and how it was okay to take it apart and turn it into something else. It gave me an ulcer to discuss it, but you should have seen his face light up. He actually repeated it back to me "So, it's okay if I take off the cage and make a ship out of it? And I could take off the drill and make it into a car?", all happy. I realized then just how much MY need to keep the power miner looking like the one ON THE BOX was getting through to him, without me even saying it. Just a trip. Of course, this has just given me license to buy my OWN Lego sets so I can fulfill that need :-) The close second is his recent obsession with Star Wars, which came out of the Lego obsession because there are so many Star Wars Lego sets. He has had a lot of Star Wars exposure thanks to both Uncle Jerrod and I, but it has taken on a life of its own. He's also given his own names to many of the Star Wars characters which also is giving me an ulcer "No, his name is battle droid", "No Mama, his name is Mario droid, that's what I call him". Another ulcer. Anyway, so my big life lesson is that I'm a big ol' control freak, so that's fun.
Okay, that's all for now!
Love,
Naz
