Intelligence?

Pumpkin received his very 1st school acceptance letter in the mail today. Woo-hoo for Pumpkin! It's from a fancy-schmancy (read: expensive) private school for gifted children. As pleased as I am about this, I'm torn about how to proceed.

Besides the price tag for this new school, which I'm still reeling over, I kind of feel like sending him to a school like this will be throwing too much at him too early in his life, and I'm worried that we won't be able to keep up the pace through his teen years when holding his interest matters most.

If Pumpkin is really gifted, is it better then to start him early and make sure he receives enough mental stimulation from the get-go but possibly risk burning him out or is it better to let him go at another pace and pray that the public school system doesn't end up failing him and cause him to want to drop out? Surprisingly, statistics show that gifted children (i.e. those in the highest percentile of intelligence) drop out of school at the same rate as those in the lowest percentile. I read this sometime ago so I can't quote any specifics, but it's a sobering thought nonetheless.

Well, by the time of this posting, we had finally decided to bite the bullet and enroll him. Actually, I finally decided. QT was for it all along. I suppose what finally nudged me into this decision was the memory of how my days went once Pumpkin was born. I'm talking about AFTER QT went back to work and the outside help had gone, and I was left at home...alone...with a tiny new baby. Eek!

Since he was a preemie, Pumpkin only "ate" about a 1/2 oz of milk every hour or so then he'd take another half hour to "burp" before finally falling asleep again. Basically, by the time he fell asleep, it'd almost be time to feed him again. I remember having precious few minutes in between naps and feedings to tear around the house scarfing a sandwich, washing bottles, etc in preparation for the next feeding and naptime. Some days, I'd actually get to take a shower! (Those days were especially blissful, haha.) I even remember snapping at poor QT when he'd inadvertently call during my "alone time" because every minute I spent on the phone was one minute less in which I could be doing something more essential...like pooping or brushing my teeth, haha.

Naturally, I won't be as ill this post-pregnancy as I was then, but keeping my previous experience in mind, I thought it might not be such a bad idea to give myself a few hours every morning to devote to little baby girl Beckham without having to worry about Pumpkin as well. Besides, his new classroom has a train table (YES, you read that right, folks!!). Needless to say, Pumpkin's already jazzed about going there. :)