Our first son Christian, is smart. I mean...he's like smarter than I am smart...and he's nine. It freaks me out a little when I think about how to handle it. My husband has this brain-teaser game that he's kept since he was young. It's a series of numbers from one through twenty that you have to work through a maze to get into chronological order. Adam kept it all these years because he's been able to get every number in order...except for two. (He's a United States Air Force Academy grad and he flew the F15 E Strike Eagle.) He has tried for decades to get those last two numbers.
Our son Christian found Adam's old game and thought that it looked "cool" so he sat down with it and within no time, had the whole thing done. My hand to God it seemed like "fun" to him. Adam almost fell over where he stood.
I would have thrown it in the drive-way and backed over it a few times, but Christian loved it. Translate that into school work, thought processes and social skills...and you have my exact opposite in the form of a nine year old boy.
It goes on down the line. Our younger three couldn't be more different from Christian, or each other. Our second son Ethan loves sports and can literally school me on all things football, basketball, etc. At the age of seven, his March bracket thingy for basketball is like a foreign language to me. It amazes him that I literally have no idea what he's talking about as he gets so excited about "his teams".
Our younger two are only five and four but they too - are just as different.
I saw an interesting post the other day regarding the differences of people who are more "right brained" verses "left brained". It stated this:
“I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. A master of words and language. Realistic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.”
“I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feet. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.”
I couldn't be more "right brained" if you smacked that definition on my forehead. My husband (you guessed it) could have had that description of the "left brain" written on his birth announcement.
I guess that's what came through to our kids. A crazy combination of the two of us. Who knows.
Maybe these differences will continue to grow as the kids get older. I can't begin to imagine what that would be like during their Jr. High and High School years and I only hope we'll be able to keep up.
One thing's for sure...it's amazing to see how unique their minds, personalities and nature are. Even though they're opposite and individual from each other and from us, I couldn't dream of it any other way. (I am a dreamer you know.)