I am in total awe of my son.

He turns seven in about three weeks, and he astounds me at every turn (when he is not running around screaming and squawking like an idiot).  He has been called my Mini Me since he was born, but we couldn't have predicted how much that would hold true beyond our appearance.  We are alike in so many ways, and yet he is already surpassing where my vague memories of my childhood tell me I was at his age, and in some cases surpassing me where I am now at my age.  Every parent says it, but speaking as objectively as a parent can, my kid is REALLY smart!

At three and four years old, he could tell me more facts about dinosaurs than I have ever cared to know.  He is absolutely fascinated by Legos and Minecraft and anything with building (and you stupid spellchecker; how can you not recognize Legos??!).  He is presently in the middle of first grade.  He spells and reads like he's in fourth grade.  He is the only student in his class to be getting a separate set of spelling words and quizzes that he aces every week.  At his conference before the holidays, we convinced his seemingly reluctant teacher to allow him to attend a second grade class for reading twice a week.  He is loving the more advanced reading and discussion with other students rather than being shunted off into a corner with his own book while the rest of his class is doing simpler texts.  He seems to be in the early stages of understanding simple multiplication (I like to think setting him up with some Schoolhouse Rock! has helped with this a little, but that may just be wishful thinking).  He thinks his favorite subject is science, although when he talks about science it's actually social studies.  He is understanding sentence and paragraph structure.  A's down the line on his report cards.  Truly, the only thing academically that bothers me about him is his handwriting is atrocious.

Today, after picking our children up from school, my wife calls me and says she had another conversation with the principal (she works two days a week at the school, so she has easy access to him).  As the principal had suggested at the beginning of the school year, so he suggested again: "Do you want to put him in second grade?"  In the fall, we considered it for about half a minute before we decided socially and emotionally he was not ready for it.  As we see how far beyond the rest of his first grade class he is, we are now reconsidering skipping him up for the remainder of the year.  I think we are going to have him go to the class for one full day rather than just for the reading session to see how it goes, then make a decision from there.  I am little concerned about what he may have missed at that level for the first half of the year; how much will he need to catch up to not be lost?  I need more input, but I am more excited about this prospect for him than I ever thought I would be. Right now, the staff says the worst thing that could happen to him is the rest of his classmates will be able to drive a year sooner - who the hell cares about that??!

I know the prospect of a bright kid skipping a grade is not necessarily all that novel.  It's not like it has never happened before.  But I sit there and listen to this kid talk, his imagination and knowledge and curiosity, watching when he really applies himself to something, I'm telling you this kid is going somewhere.  I'm still not entirely certain where that is yet, but to again paraphrase Hamilton, he is going to blow us all away.