I can't keep up.

I just want to start off by telling you that my youngest son has announced that he no longer wants to be mentioned in any way, shape or form on the blog, or on either of my facebook pages. No photos, no names, no stories. In order to respect his privacy I have agreed to his terms. The really awful part of that is that he is the source of some of my best stories! So, if I was to start an anecdote with "I have this friend...", I will leave you able to make the connections.

Now seeing as though my oldest son hasn't placed conditions on his presence on the blog, we can talk about him today! He is almost 16 and he is brilliant and funny and mostly good :)  He is a very talented musician, wanted to be a trauma Dr for most of his years, is interested in joining the Army, and most recently announced that he wants to be a chef - oh, and that he wants to be a part of some research project that will have people living on Mars by the year 2023. For his whole life he has been told that he is capable of doing whatever he wants (and he really is a kid that could do WHATEVER he wants) and for his whole life he has played down his intellectual abilities.

Until today.

Today, he was at work and got involved in a lengthy conversation about dark matter (the literal scientific dark matter, not things like sorcery, zombies or the colour black) with a scientist guy who is visiting Vancouver to participate in some kind of research project (I'm not really sure what the research is about, I had kind of tuned out at that point...). Anyways, the point is, this total and complete stranger talks to my kid for a couple of hours and tells him that he is way too smart to be a chef, he should be using his brain power for problem solving science things. (I am in no way implying that you can't be smart and be a chef.) Stranger guy says if Brendan wants to be a chef, that should be his hobby. He needs to get himself a quality science education and get solving. Of course, now Brendan thinks he's the next Stephen Hawking brain and thinks maybe he should take some physics classes next year. (of course, the benefit of homeschooling is that he can take whatever he wants and try it on for size!) I tried to point out that he has the attention span of a fruit fly and sitting in a research lab for years to come is probably not going to work out well for him, but what do I know?? So as of tonight, Brendan is going to join the Army, who will pay for his education, serve his country while cooking in the mess hall and be part of a scientific think tank that will help him successfully get to and live on Mars, all while playing bass in a band that hasn't yet sold out to the mass marketing machine of the music industry.

Well, at least he won't be bored.