WELCOME!! Sounds like my son, actually! Ben spoke his first word at 3 months. By 9 months, he was speaking about 10 words, but then he lost all of them by 12 months. We know now that he was working on his motor skills and no longer put his focus on speech, but at the time, doctors assumed he was either hearing impaired or autistic. He was tested, and he was fine (I knew he could hear, because he obeyed commands wonderfully). He had a language explosion at 18 mos. It was then that we realized he already knew his numbers, letters, shapes, colors, and all 66 books of the Bible. He taught himself to read at 22 mos.
Fast forward...
We put him in preschool at 27 mos. That was a disaster. At the time, we didn't realize he was gifted. He was our first, so we assumed everything he was doing was normal. He HATED preschool. He would collapse and cry when I dropped him off (oh, and this was a so-called "accelerated" preschool, as well... most children went straight into 1st grade after graduating), he'd sit in the fetal position in a corner the whole time he was there, and he ran to me with tears of joy each time we picked him up. He was CONSTANTLY VERY sick. His temp went up to 106 twice. He was only there for 4 months, but of that, he spend about 6 weeks out of school and/or on antibiotics. (We had his adenoids taken out that summer, and he's been great ever since.)
The only things he learned from preschool were (1) the pledge of allegiance and counting to 10 in spanish the first week he was there (2) bad words/phrases (3) how to fight with other kids. We could've taught him #1 in a day, and I'd prefer if he'd never learned # 2-3!
Fast forward...
Ben is now almost 4 (Dec 1st). Last year, shortly after his 3rd bday, he started begging us to let him start kindergarten. Obviously that's not going to happen, so the request didn't even phase us. I started reading gifted literature, and "A Nation Decieved" particularly caught my interest. It was then that I decided to give homeschooling a try. I bought the K5 curriculum over the summer and started with it in August.
The problem is that, by the time August rolled around, he was no longer ready for K. He was ready for much more. It took us about 4 weeks to figure out where all of his skills were. Now, we've been homeschooling for 3 months. He's doing kindergarten writing (because his motor skills are age appropriate ... which means terrible! LOL!), 1st grade math, finishing up 4th grade reading (phonics), finishing up astronomy, doing K-1st social studies and art, and doing our own Bible program. In the spring, his phonics will switch to 2nd grade English/grammar and 2nd grade vocabulary. His Astronomy will switch to Zoology 1 (there are 3 books... air, water, and land). Next year, we'll start doing Latin, because it'll help solidify any vocabulary problems we run into (gaps), and because it's the foundation of most languages. He'll be able to pick up on a lot of things other kids can't. I mean, even things like science have a Latin foundation (astronomy, for example is aster=star and onomy=knowledge of ... so "knowledge of the stars").
It is VERY normal for gifted children to have asynchronous development! I "thought" my goal this year was to catch his reading and writing up to his math. Now that I've done the research, I know better. (1) You can't catch up a motor skill to a cognitive skill without time and practice. It's physically impossible. He absolutely won't be writing on a level as well as he reads until he's in middle/high school. (2) Focusing on the bad makes the good suffer. If I spend all of our time on math, he'll learn to hate school and resent me for not letting him read. Kids need playtime. They need to learn how to explore. Some kids do that on a bike. Some with a ball. Some with a book. For Ben, books ARE playtime. I can't take that away from him and expect him to be happy. Besides, abstract reasoning comes from a totally different part of the brain. Most children aren't able to do the type of math he's doing until they're 6-7 years old. He's struggling a little bit in math, but at the same time, he's years ahead of his peers. We take math one day at a time and make it fun.
Another point I should make... gifted children in public schools many times will go for years (or their entire school time) unchallenged. They'll be "learning" things in class that they learned on their own a couple of years early. Simply skipping a grade or two isn't the answer for most, because while it catches them up to their current level, it doesn't account for their accelerated learning speed. A profoundly gifted child can do a year's worth of learning in only 6 weeks. Even an exeptionally gifted child can learn all elementary level work in 1-2 years. Just because they "can" doesn't mean they "should", though. Children like that don't fit in a public school setting because, when they're placed with age peers, they're bored. When they're placed with intellectual peers, they're not able to keep up with the written work (like note taking) and they're not large enough to participate in things like contact sports. Socially, statistics say they get along well with peers, but emotionally, there will still be some issues. The point is, if children go through life never hitting a brick wall, they'll never learn how to solve problems. Many adult failures were gifted children who never learned how to think. Things came easily to them, so when they got their first real challenge in college or on the job, they had no clue how to handle it and failed (my brother is a prime example of this... long story). Gifted children need to have their gifts challenged!
It's hard to find a balance. Homeschooling works for us ... at least for now. (My hubby's still considering public school in 2 years, but come on... he'll be on 3rd math and high school reading by then. Why would he want to sit in a class where the other kids are learning the alphabet??) There are also private schools for gifted children. For children who are on the low end of the gifted scale, public school works well usually. They get all of the regular academics, and then if you're in a state that mandates and funds gifted education, they'll have other opportunities available as well. Some places don't have that support in place, and some have only a pull-out program once a month where children are given "extra" work rather than "better" work (that's how it was for me, and I hated it!).
Sorry to write a novel.
Here are some links you'll find very helpful, I'm sure...
IRPA - A Nation Deceived (read volume 1 ... it's short. if you read volume 2, only read the chapters that apply to you... it's the nitty-gritty of volume 1, so not all will apply to you)
Dabrowski's
How to tell if your preschooler is gifted | BabyCenter
NAGC :: Home
Profoundly Gifted Children Services and Programs by the Davidson Institute
Small poppies: Highly gifted children in the early years
Educational Options (skip down to find the levels of giftedness scale)
SENG: Articles & Resources - Director's Corner, August 2005
babies and toddlers - Gifted Education
Frequently Asked Questions About Extreme Intelligence in Very Young Children
Welcome to the Gifted Development Center (this is where we'll probably have Ben tested next year... working on getting the money for it)
We haven't had any formal testing done so I don't know if my daughter would be labelled gifted, but I plan to assume she is unless/until proven otherwise 
Jordana is 27 months old and she has really taken to reading. She knew the letters expressively at 18 months, all their sounds expressively at 19 months and now she sight reads 21 words, all the ones we've shown her so far, and I think she looks at the phonics too because when she is in a hurry, she'll confuse them a little but it's always another word that starts with the same letter, like she'll confuse dog and duck if she's not paying attention. On the other hand, She's not nearly as advanced with her numbers. She recognizes one through ten but that's it and she doesn't count correctly. She'll say 2, 4, 5, 9! lol So question 1: Should I focus on the numbers now and try to even up her level for both numbers and letters or should I keep advancing the letters since that's the area she's more interested in? Also, :::excuse this being a big paragraph, my enter key isn't working::: My younger brother is autistic and so is Dh's cousin so we've been very worried about that and Jordana hasn't had any shots yet. I know the shot/autism link is debatable and I'm not trying to start one, but because she has no shots, we're scared to enroll her in preschool where she'll be exposed to other kids a lot. Question 2: If she is advanced in reading, do you think we're cheating her by not enrolling her in a program? I'm not sure if the risk of the shots outweighs the risk of holding her back because I know she'd thrive in a preschool program.... 
Any advice? Thanks!!!
I agree with everything she said....LOL
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