Gifted people are known for their intensities, at least amongst those who understand giftedness. Sadly, that's not a large sample. And even for those of us aware of such intensities, it's a struggle to truly understand them and know how to cope with them.
I was first introduced to the intensities of the gifted mind via my husband, albeit I didn't know it at the time. When he is working on a project, his mind becomes more single-tracked than that of a sixteen year old boy. Once, he insisted on building a boat in the upstairs of our small house. The thought popped into his mind somehow and he literally couldn't stop until he saw the idea through to fruition. He spent hundreds of hours researching, perfecting his design, purchasing materials and ultimately constructing a boat from nothing but the depths of his own mind. Then when he decided we were going to make our own maple syrup right here in the city, it was the same story. Hours and hours on end. Days, weeks, months. Once I walked past the bathroom and saw him drawing an imaginary design in the air above the toilet while he peed. Usually an avid opponent of screen time (we still don't even own smartphones), he would spend every waking moment on a message board full of maple syrup makers gathering "data" on the daytime temperature versus night time temperature vs. the sugar content of the sap from tree varieties in various locations across the country. Yes, such discussions really exist. Who knew? Eventually he designed and built his very own evaporator- something that had great potential to explode and kill us all, though luckily it didn't. His from scratch design was flawless. Thankfully, that "hobby" ended up engaging our whole family in a way I never could have imagined and now sugaring season gets the four of us even more excited than Christmas does.
My point is, I should have known. Yet here I am, trapped in my own house by my own children. I'm about to go mad and I'm not sure what to do about it! We often have a hard time getting the boys to leave the house. We use to think they were stubborn. We used to think they were manipulative. I use to think they were purposefully trying to torture me. (Sometimes I still wonder about that). We even went as far as to consider that possibility that they were "overscheduled" despite the fact that they have only ever had one 45 minute gymnastics class per week and nothing more than that one activity. At least we now know what it is. It is the same intensity that over-rode any rational thought my husband should have had about building a boat in a house. Or making maple syrup on the side of a busy road. Or his current obsession of floating a saran wrap and cardboard kayak down the Detroit River. Except that one son is building the Sydney Opera House out of pillows on my couch and the other is reconstructing the Seattle Space Needle out of Legos- and not the kind designed to actually build the Seattle Space Needle. We were supposed to go see Santa an hour and twenty minutes ago. But I can't get them to leave the house. They are so intensely focused on their designs that they don't even want to go see Santa. After an hour, I contemplated threatening them and saying that they won't get anything for Christmas if they don't go see Santa to tell him what they want. But I know in my heart of hearts that in the heat of the moment (all 80 moments and counting), it wouldn't matter. They would gladly give up Christmas if it meant they could stay focused on their work.
So what's a mother to do? My sanity is already hanging by a very, very thin thread. My couch has been sunk by torpedoes, blasted to the moon, fashioned into a Frank Lloyd Wright house, turned into ancient Incan ruins, exploded by hydrogen, unearthed the bones of a Stegosaurus and used to build a record breaking rollercoaster- all in one morning. As I type this, the end table next to me is now the country of Papau New Guinea and someone literally just knocked the ugly duck lamp off of it, breaking it for the third time this month. Moments ago Caleb whacked his head while walking across the Golden Gate Bridge constructed out of my dining room chairs and couch cushions because no matter how many times I tell him that his wonderful bridge designs aren't really bridges he insists on trying to walk across them anyways.
The good news is that moments ago we moved on from the Lego Space Needle. The bad news is that I haven't left the house in nearly 48 hours and I don't see that changing any time soon. I can't for the life of me think of a more exciting way to convince my kids to leave the house than going to see Santa. And Starbucks doesn't deliver. It really should. Like, really. So I'm left with nothing but the act of trying to remind myself that this intensity will lead to great, grand, wonderful things later in life and it will serve them well and all be worth it in the end. Or at least remind myself that someday they will annoy their own wives with it and I will be free to leave the house as I please. I'm trying, but I still feel trapped. It's selfish, I know. Because I know that the boys want and need with every fiber in their little bodies to be able to ride out this one particular intensity. And if I'm going to be honest with myself, its hard to argue that Santa or Starbucks is more important than good old fashioned play.
I just wish their was a guide book for situations like these. An instruction manual if you will. Something, anything to guide me as to how I am supposed to walk this fine line of nurturing young gifted minds and keeping the thin thread of my sanity in tact at the same time. I guess I'll just go make another pot of coffee. It's not Starbucks or Santa but until someone publishes that manual, it'll have to do!
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