My Son is a Genius!

It’s every parent’s wet dream – if mothers had such nocturnal moments – to know that your child is smarter than the average pooh bear. When Alex was two months old, he spoke his first word, “Okay.” That morning I had placed him on the bed, back when he was an agreeable pillbug who hadn’t learned to roll over.

“Mom’s going to be back right away, okay?”

And he chirped right back, “Okay.”

Not just once that day, but two more times. There, I had scientific proof, 100% positive results with no chance of error, that my kid had spoken English back to me. My son was a genius. And being an agreeable little guy, he wasn’t saying “no” like those ornery toddlers. My boy was answering in the affirmative, a “yes” man in the best sense of the word.

When Alex turned one, he was no longer bent on pleasing Mom. That’s okay, I figured, because he was still a genius. At 13 months he could hold a pencil more properly than I can, and doodled over the New York Times Book Review, taking in some heady essay about smart babies, no doubt. That gave me an idea.

I set a deadline for him to write legibly by 17 months, a month younger than that smart-alecky girl I heard about who was reading and comprehending full sentences. I’m a serious writer mom who, like everyone, has had to do some sacrificing. Before he came along, I completed my first novel in a year. A children’s book could be less than 500 words. If Alex wrote just two words a day, he could churn out the Great American Children’s Novel in nine months. And if we socked those royalties into his college savings fund, no worries that his parents would wind up in the poorhouse before we hit our golden years.

Now that Alex is 28-months-old, I have a confession to make. My son is no longer a genius. He’s not writing that book of my dreams. But he can draw pictures resembling a centipede on wheels, and he has oral talents like regurgitating his food, but he doesn’t speak in full sentences. He’ll start preschool soon; it’s not the Princeton of preschools, but a supportive Montessori-inspired program.

Alex’s lexicon revolves around food (cereal, milk, mum mum), urgent needs (Mom! Mom!) and entertaining objects on wheels - trains and trucks. And the word, “stop” which comes in handy at street corners. He understands a lot of what we read to him from baby books, so it seems like his eager brain is just soaking in the alphabet soup of words and sentences he hears in English and Cantonese.

So there’s no hurry, just as there was no need to pipe Mozart into my belly when he was on the other end of the umbilical cord. We’re hoping that preschool won’t be the huge Valium-inducing odyssey that we fear it has become. As for that Great American Novel, maybe it’s a good idea for our son to have a little life experience first, or at the very least, be potty trained and drool free before meeting his public.