Children and Christmas Celebrations.

It is long since Christmas could make me jump with excitement, and anticipation - but today I was brought back to that time, by watching my children.

It was time to open their gifts. The children had risen early and huddled around the tree - but refrained from opening them: they just looked. It was not until we rose that they allowed themselves to pick up their gifts, one by one and begin to unwrap them.

If I were to pick one memory of today, to take with me into the future, it would be a single snapshot image. It would be of Tiarnan, so excited at the prospect of opening the gifts, which he had foreborn to touch, these past few weeks, that he could not open them. He was so consumed with the thrill of it that he jumped up and grabbed Syahidah's legs, encircling them with his arms. He held on tightly, suspended above the ground. In that moment did I fully understand how exciting this was for him. He did not know what to do with the excitement that he felt and could not express it in any better way, than that movement. I was touched.

He finally let go and set about opening his gifts, periodically jumping in excitement or smacking the table, as each wonder (to him) was revealed.

The other boys were also excited, but their response was somewhat more mature and less expressive. It was Tiarnan, twenty-two months, who showed best the spirit of the day.

I feel that it is moments like this that my young children will recall when they are adults, themselves. It makes me smile to know that they will remember this day.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)