How Awesome is He?

Normally, I try to keep the "my son is SOOOOOOOOOO awesome" (how awesome is he!?)" blogs to a minimum, but I have a couple of stories about Mason I just really, really want to share.

In the first story, however, the awesome rightly belongs to Mason's new teacher, Mr. G--. When I picked up Mason at school the other day we had this conversation:

Mason: "Do we have any books at home that contain a lot of information?"

Me: "Sure. We've got the Encycolpedia Britannica." (Brief explaination that we actually have several copies of the 11th edition.) Then, "Why?"

Mason: "So I can get a scholarship to Yale, of course."

This prompted a whole discussion during the rest of the ride about what undergraduate degrees are, graduate school, and Ph.D. programs. I reminded Mason that his grandpa has a Ph.D. and this got Mason even more excited. Plus, he was just about jumping out of his seat at the idea that he could actually get a degree in READING (like me, I told him, as I got a BA in English). He decided that he would get his docorate in "fantasy literature," just like one of his favorite authors J. R. R. Tolkien.

Turns out, Mr. G. had been talking about how a friend of his got a full-ride to Yale and really stressed to the kids that if they wanted to, they could go to one of the best colleges in the world and not pay a dime in tuition.

I LOVE this man.

Then, when I stopped by Mason's class yesterday to talk to Mr. G. about what time he wanted me to come in on Thursdays to do my volunteering, Mr. G. had a couple other funny stories to tell. He had an introduction excercise where he had kids write down "Three things you might not know about me...." He collected everyone's answers and read them in front of the class and had the students try to guess who the answers belonged to. When he got to Mason's he started reading, "I have an EXTENSIVE..." and hands shot up instantly. Just the use of the word "extensive" caused the entire class to guess Mason. (Full answer, even bigger clue: "extensive library at home.")

The second introduction excercise he had them do was bring in pictures of their families doing something they enjoy. Mason brought in a picture of the three of us up at a friend's cabin. But when we were going through pictures with him, he decided that, for fun, he'd bring in this one as well:

Mason, ever the showman, set the picture up by saying, "As you know, one of my favorite things is reading. I also like swimming. But how about combining them?"

One of the other personality plus boys in the class, our friend from kindergarden, yelled out, "That's IMPOSSIBLE!!" (unwittingly playing the perfect straight man.)

Mason said, "Ha! I have photographic evidence!" and showed off the picture. Mr. G. was utterly delighted and has asked permission to put the extra picture up on their board in class.

Awesome.

And it's only the first week... of THIRD GRADE!