did you read in the local news about the seven-year-old child who recently passed ‘o’ level chemistry?

gosh. i barely passed mine at sixteen. even if i lived to be a hundred, i still wouldn’t know what to do with a freaking pipette. (and this coming from one who unwittingly did pure chem in sec school and failed miserably at every test, till ‘o’ levels when i *did* finally get a pathetic ‘C’, which incidentally was what the seven-year-old scored too, so you can say my understanding of chemistry is that of a genius seven-year-old’s… hah!)

according to his dad’s blog, the boy started crawling at four months (!), and started walking at six months (!), and started talking and reading earlier in general than his peers. and he does stuff like doodle atoms. (while i doodled stars – damn i should’ve taken up astronomy.)

his youngest brother (aniq’s age) is apparently a “genius” too because he can do stunts like climb up the stairs backwards, started speaking at eight months, etc.

!!

try as we might not to compare our kids with others, or use their achievements and developments as yardsticks or benchmarks, there’s something inherently competitive in our nature as human beings to do just that – compare.

we KNOW it’s unhealthy (for us and our kids), and we KNOW it’s unfair (coz every child is different), but we do it anyway, even if it’s somewhere at the back of our minds.

“their kid can do that, why can’t mine?”

it’s harrowing enough that we have to check against the developmental milestones charted in their health book every few months to see if they have the appropriate skills at the appropriate age. but measuring up to these proclaimed child geniuses/prodigies… hmm… you can’t help but wonder…

and as our parental pride deflates, we swallow the humble pie, and be thankful that our child is simply healthy, happy… and undeniably average.

he may not be a “genius” or a “prodigy”, but the future before him brims with hope and possibilities of being Someone Special or doing Something Good, in one way or another. we can only pray, and do our best to guide him…

meanwhile, the boy is way too busy in his own world to bother with “the rat race”.

busy with what?

“THWOWWWWW! THWOWWW BAWLL!”

his current favourite phrase (and action – then again, he throws everything, not just balls), complete with exclamation marks at the end. do you notice how kids have a thing for exclamations? it’s like they have this incredible abundance of energy, not just in their perpetually propelling limbs, but also bursting from their lungs.

“NAKK!”
“STARHH!”
“STOPPPP!!”
“TEHHNNNN!!”
*SHRIEEEEK!!!*

aiyoh, what next, “ROCK NEVA DIEEE!!!”?

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