MSI Press Blog

  When Lizzie was offered the chance to skip first grade, I sought counsel from a professor of gifted and talented education. My concern wasn’t academics—it was social development. He reassured me, citing both research and experience, that if she was intellectually ready, she’d be socially resilient enough to manage the transition. So, she skipped. And he was right. The only social friction she encountered came from her classmates not quite understanding her academic passions. Still, they humored her—letting her lead them into scientific explorations that were far beyond the curriculum. Her delight at receiving a college-level genetics textbook for Christmas in fourth grade confirmed her oddness, but her enthusiasm for building a rocket launcher in the backyard was contagious. That is, until I shut it down. Maybe some mothers wouldn’t mind a backyard rocket launcher. I just wasn’t sure I wanted one in mine. Years later, Lizzie had the opportunity to skip seventh grade. Again, sh...

  Second grade at St. Alphonsus was no joke. It was a stretch academically—and financially. We chose Catholic school because it offered more challenge than the local public school, and we could just barely afford it. Tuition checks were written with prayer and crossed fingers. At home, we were transparent about money. Lizzie, precocious and perceptive, absorbed more than we realized. One day, her math teacher—a sweet sister with a chalkboard and a mission—wrote the problem: 23 - 35. She asked the class, “What’s wrong with this problem?” expecting a chorus of “We copied it wrong!” Her point: slow down, be careful, copy accurately. But Lizzie had other ideas. She raised her hand and said, “Maybe the problem is forgetting the negative sign, when you write the answer, -12.” The sister blinked. Negative numbers were not on the second-grade syllabus. She replied gently, “There is no such thing as negative numbers.” Lizzie, ever the truth-seeker, tilted her head and asked, “Well...

  We thought the hamster era would be fun. Noelle adored animals—especially hamsters. So we got her a pair from the pet store, not realizing they were male and female. Nature took its course. Babies arrived. We figured it would be a sweet experience for Noelle: watching them grow, learning about life. But one baby didn’t grow. It had three legs. And the mother killed it—right in front of Noelle. We weren’t prepared. Not for the brutality. Not for the questions. Not for the heartbreak of explaining that in the wild, animals don’t have the means to help their disabled young survive. They do what nature tells them to do. And nature isn’t always kind. Noelle was four. She didn’t have three legs, but she had two legs that didn’t work. She asked, “Would the hamster mother have killed me?” And the answer, of course, was yes. We couldn’t lie. Covering up the truth would have been as cruel as telling it. So we told her. And she sobbed. And sobbed. And sobbed. Nothing we said could ...

  Precerpt (excerpt from book prior to publication):  Raising God's Rainbow Makers  (Mahlou)   I once thought of Shane as my most “ordinary” child. He was a late walker, a late talker, and content to observe the world quietly. But when he began reading at 23 months—likely earlier, if I’m honest—I had to revise that assumption. He wasn’t slow. He was simply unfolding on his own timeline. When the fall semester began in 1980, Shane had just turned three. I was deep into my doctoral work at the university, which had a well-regarded lab school with a preschool program. Perfect, I thought. Lizzie was in elementary school, Noelle was thriving in a special needs preschool, and Shane had spent the previous year in a different center alongside her. This setup would be convenient: drop Shane off, climb the hill to my classes, and reunite at day’s end. On his first day, we parked in the graduate student lot and counted the 100 stairs up to the lab school together. Shane knew ...