When I read such writing, my head rears up from the page and yongs so far back over my shoulders I can see the insides of my knees. Please, I don't want to hear about your children and how cute and smart they are.
And yet our elder grandson Rowan just keeps delivering beyond all rational explanation, so this stuff has to be written down, it's important. This is not grandparental chest-thumping, this is a behavioural archive that will benefit others for years to come.
To be brutally honest, we blanched when the little fellow gained entrance to Chicago's finest school for gifted children.
I don't know much about gifted schools, but three years studying education at university taught me a good solid Dunedin primary school like Arthur Street, kids pulled from here there and everywhere, was as good as it gets.
Has there ever been a better teacher anywhere than Miss Gooseman? But Decatur Classical School was highly regarded and free, so it had to be given a chance.
Rowan, we were told, would begin studying Latin at 8. This seemed astonishing to me. But I was wrong. He is studying it now. He is expected to be FLUENT in Latin by 8.
"Rowan est nomen meum," he announced on the webcam a few weeks ago. I studied Latin for five years, but through gritted teeth and with a non-gifted brain. I had to resort to Google Translate to find out what he was saying.
"Roy est nomen meum," I retorted triumphantly 16 minutes later. He smiled. Two linguists together, battling it out, wit as sharp as a ferret's tooth. I am 62, Rowan is 5.
"Do you know how clouds are formed, granddad?" he asked next.
"Without doubt," I replied. "The man Jim on the telly says halfway through the news that they are forming and the next day they form."
Rowan gave me that look grandchildren give their granddad when he drops a piece of banana cake into his cup of tea and tips the whole shebang on to his thigh when he tries to get the cake out.
Apparently they do science labs at the gifted school to learn about electricity and how Australia beat South Africa in the Rugby World Cup. Rowan is 5.
But they are not all geek children, heads permanently in books. Bullying and fighting, that awful axial bifurcation common to all schools, has reared its reptilian head here as well. Sam was the boy. Bigger.
From Czechoslovakia. I listened intently to his mother unfolding the sorry tale and it was clear to me the bit she underplayed, that Elena likes Rowan more than Sam, and that Sam likes Elena very much, was the cause of it all. Rowan is 5.
There was some punching and some blood. An accident, said Rowan. Our daughter said her heart was beating so hard she thought it might pop right out.
So Rowan took over.
"Your Plan A isn't working," he said. "This boy is like Jekyll and Hyde."
"You KNOW Jekyll and Hyde?" asked our daughter incredulously.
"Of course," said Rowan. "Plan A, being NICE to him, won't work. I would like to try my Plan B."
It turned out Rowan's Plan B involved giving Sam a sheet of dragon language, which Rowan speaks fluently, so the two of them would share a similar thought pattern.
"Then I will put a spell on him," said Rowan.
Bwahahahah!! I thought this was utterly brilliant. Gifted even. His mother wasn't so sure.
She thinks 5 is a little young to be working the dark side.
The other parents have been brought to the table. Things have been better this week.
When Sam starts up his taunting, Rowan just tells him he doesn't want to talk to him and walks off. Cool as cucumber.
Doesn't even look back over his shoulder. Rowan is 5.
Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
