It totally blew my mind when he did it, so that's why I grabbed my camera and recorded him! My brother and his family gave Dominic a 500-piece puzzle for his birthday. While that may sound like too many pieces for the average 10-year old to do by himself, Dominic has been doing puzzles with 500 pieces or more for several years. He will sit sometimes for an hour or more while working on a puzzle, which given Dominic also has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), astounds me.
Yesterday, I finally put a picture from his First Holy Communion into the awesome frame his godmother gave him and put it up on our mantelpiece. He went over, looked at it and said, "First Holy Communion, May 3, St. John's Church, had bread, had pizza!" No where on the picture did it say the date or the location of the church. The bread he was talking about was the communion wafer he received for the first time. We had pizza that night to celebrate. Good grief, he was 100% right. To test him later on in the day, I asked him, "what day did we take Lauren to college?" He responded back, "20!" Yep, that was right. I thought since the August calendar was on the wall, maybe he saw it. So, to test him further, I said, "what day are you going to school next week?" He said, "2." Yep, he goes back, September 2nd! In the afternoon, I gave him a puzzle word search for teenagers, he finished it within minutes. When I asked him to solve single digit math problems, like 8 + 6, he could tell me the right answer verbally within a few seconds, without the aid of a piece of paper and pencil. When I saw him looking at the i-Pad last night, I asked him what he was doing. He said, "Google Earth." I looked down and and saw our house on the screen. Back last winter, Dominic got a hold of some screwdrivers, went down to the basement and started taking apart some of his toys. He would take the screws out and then put them back in again. We started calling that room his "workshop." When he started unscrewing the switch plates off the light switches, we had to "shut down" his workshop for a while!! Like any mom, I think about Dominic's future. Will he go to college? Will he get a job? Will he be self-sufficient? When you are a parent of a special needs child, those types of questions are not easily answered. I don't think Dominic is a "savant," but he does have some "extraordinary" talents. This morning, I asked him, "what day did we take Lauren to college?" He was nowhere near the calendar and said, "20, it was a Wednesday!"
Yesterday, I finally put a picture from his First Holy Communion into the awesome frame his godmother gave him and put it up on our mantelpiece. He went over, looked at it and said, "First Holy Communion, May 3, St. John's Church, had bread, had pizza!" No where on the picture did it say the date or the location of the church. The bread he was talking about was the communion wafer he received for the first time. We had pizza that night to celebrate. Good grief, he was 100% right. To test him later on in the day, I asked him, "what day did we take Lauren to college?" He responded back, "20!" Yep, that was right. I thought since the August calendar was on the wall, maybe he saw it. So, to test him further, I said, "what day are you going to school next week?" He said, "2." Yep, he goes back, September 2nd! In the afternoon, I gave him a puzzle word search for teenagers, he finished it within minutes. When I asked him to solve single digit math problems, like 8 + 6, he could tell me the right answer verbally within a few seconds, without the aid of a piece of paper and pencil. When I saw him looking at the i-Pad last night, I asked him what he was doing. He said, "Google Earth." I looked down and and saw our house on the screen. Back last winter, Dominic got a hold of some screwdrivers, went down to the basement and started taking apart some of his toys. He would take the screws out and then put them back in again. We started calling that room his "workshop." When he started unscrewing the switch plates off the light switches, we had to "shut down" his workshop for a while!! Like any mom, I think about Dominic's future. Will he go to college? Will he get a job? Will he be self-sufficient? When you are a parent of a special needs child, those types of questions are not easily answered. I don't think Dominic is a "savant," but he does have some "extraordinary" talents. This morning, I asked him, "what day did we take Lauren to college?" He was nowhere near the calendar and said, "20, it was a Wednesday!"
Amazing! Our kids have some spectacular talents! Yours seems pretty awesome. I sometimes (ok, often) question what my son's role in the world will be- where his talents will take him, how his deficits will impact him, what his life will look like...but I have little doubt that he will find his little niche in the world. God gave us these wonderful little kiddos some amazing skills!
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