FOOL'S GOLD
The most prized find of a recent excursion into the countryside. Found by H's friend C, a budding geologist perhaps. It is a funny thing, this thinking about "what I'm going to be when I grow up!" Oldest boy, P, at 11 nearly 12 years old, has already progressed past the "I wanna be a professional soccer player and an astronaut!" phase, and is considering software designer or medical researcher. But H, and his friend C, in the 8-9 year old area, are still hovering on the edges of the Fantasy Career arena, with Egyptologist and Children's Book Illustrator jockeying with Pirate and Ghost Hunter. Still, some people DO get those fantasy careers (well, maybe not pirate or ghost hunter...) so I don't want to be discouraging. It is very endearing really.

And having one non-verbal low-functioning autistic kid in the pack definitely puts these things in perspective. We actually WISH Henry was high-functioning enough to someday get a job bagging groceries at the supermarket! But, looks like that is as distant a dream as P someday being an astronaut/soccer star. It could happen, I suppose, but not very likely. Right now Henry's team is enthusiastically preparing him for a career in sorting plastic cutlery (something he is very good at). So maybe I'll just dream for him: that he'll be the first astronaut/cutlery sorter to explore the Rings of Saturn!