Your Kids Might Be Gifted If...

...He can never do things the easy way.

Wolfie, Wolfie, Wolfie. He can never do things the way everyone else does them. The first time he made dinner for the family, he chose to make beef stew and refused to follow, or even look at, a recipe. And the other day when we were making gingerbread cookies, instead of using the cutters, he ended up sculpting a gingerbread travelling salesman and a pair of tied eighth notes out of the dough. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but sometimes it's really hard to give him the space and time he needs to do things his way.

...The strangest things turn into word games.

Several years ago, I bought a set of stocking hangar letters. The set spelled PEACE with a star at the end (we needed six stockings so the dog could have one, duh!). Sure enough, the star became a wild card and the mantel began to read things like APE and PACE. We needed more letters so we added the SANTA set and the next thing I knew, we had EAT CANAPES. Now we also have JOY, NOEL and WISH. My mantel currently reads SANTA'S WRATH. (We added a leg to the P, to make R.)

Oh, brother.