Midnight Musings

The above picture is from the banks of the Altamaha River in Appling County. We took a hike on the River Trail in the Moody Natural Area yesterday. The kid's a pretty good hiking companion. A bit slow, short legs and all, and you'll never see any major wildlife with is endless stream of chatter, but he'll walk for miles without complaining. If you're in our part of the world and haven't done Tavia's Trail and the River Trail in the Mood Natural Area, you're missing out.

Speaking of hiking companions, this was Aidan's first hike. Evan's going to become a big brother in late March and he's probably the person in the family most excited about that prospect. I don't know how many conversations he's had with the girl so far. He even makes Kim talk in a squeaky voice so he can pretend the baby is talking back.

Getting back to the kid's education level, his current plans for the future involve attending Stanford University where he plans on majoring in paleontology. Upon graduation, he expects to own his own museum with a nice restaurant inside. Other than genes, most of this can't be blamed on me. Stanford comes from a T-shirt his Uncle Sammy and Aunt Coo-Coo brought him from a trip out West a while back and a comment from me that Stanford is a good school. He's latched on and been telling people for two months now that he's going to Stanford. The paleontology is all him. He's obsessed with dinosaurs, even watches shows aimed at adults and grasps the basic concepts presented. I'm pretty sure he even learned the words paleontology and paleontologist on his own. The museum and restaurant thing are also all him. We took him to the Fernbank (above) because of his love of museums. The trip to Fernbank didn't create the love.

Of course I may not have pushed him to love science, but I'm definitely not going to discourage it either. When time comes to actually start thinking about a real career path, I may steer him away from the true academic paths and more into the applications of math and science for the practical considerations of not being forever poor, but the more the kid likes science now, the better off he'll be later.