My kids are gifted!

It's really amazing. Every parent secretly thinks their child is gifted, but it's unusual to have four gifted kids in one family.

Usually, once I've revealed my children's talents, the questions start pouring in. The most common question I get is whether I had the children tested to confirm their "gift." There are 100 standardized tests from the CoGAT to the ITBS, but I recommend you test your kids at home. I, personally, find that my kids are tested almost every single day. Either that or the kids test me every single day. It's practically the same thing, right?

One of their gifts is sensing the EXACT moment that I stop working. I can fold laundry, scrub toilets, vacuum floors or do taxes. I can do these tasks and I won't see so much as a glimpse of my children, nor hear even a peep from their mouths. But the minute I'm finished... the second I plop my butt into my favorite chair... poof!... there they are... telling me that the entire roll of toilet paper fell into the toilet (after they already pooped), asking if they should flush it, asking whether it would be really bad if their gum fell out of their mouth while doing a handstand and subsequently got ground into the carpet (not that it happened but, you know, if it did), informing me that there is a four-legged creature in the pool, or wondering what's for dinner.

They also have a gift for mixing up the time on weekdays and weekends. All four of them can tell time. They all have clocks they can see clearly from their bed. So how is it that on weekdays it takes a stick of dynamite, a huge measure of patience, the bulk of my sense of humor and a fair number of threats to their physical well-being to get them out of bed at 7:15. On the other hand, at 7:00 AM on Saturday morning they are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and asking if Dad's going to make them pancakes.

Really, this is a double gift as it's also a gift for avoiding physical harm. Awaking early on the weekend and then dancing around the bed where mommy and daddy are trying to sleep and alternately singing the praises of pancakes, and beating on one another/fighting, is a sure fire way to get yourself wiped off the face of this earth. And yet they're all still here. This isn't really so much of a gift-- it's more like a miracle.

But their final gift, selective hearing, is the one that amazes me the most. They can't hear me ask them to unload the dishwasher, but when I'm sneaking into the pantry to raid the Girl Scout cookies? They're on me like white on rice. It starts innocently enough; the kids are outside playing on the trampoline and there's no way they could know what I'm up to. I start with one Thin Mint. Then, I have to sample a Samoa or two. But my oh my, those Thin Mints were sooo yummy... and before you know it half the box is gone. Just as I'm sneaking out of the pantry to bury the evidence of my naughtiness, there they are. There's not even time to wipe the crumbs from the corner of my mouth before they're lined up like the food police. Begging for their share. I'm convinced that with the slightest crinkle of a bag of chips or the muffled tearing of a new box of Girl Scout cookies my children are alerted and instantly teleported to scene of my crime. They're gifted I tell you, GIFTED!

I know it's irritating to listen to parents go on and on about how talented their kids are. But sometimes you have to acknowledge genius when you see it.

Bow down, people.