When Miles becomes passionate about a topic he jumps in with both feet and it oozes from his pores. He is learning about space in school right now and after endless questions that I couldn't answer without saying, "Hmm, I don't know where going to have to look that up," I thought of something I did know about space that I thought he would like.
"You know, I think the Russians once sent a monkey into space. Yeah, I think there was a monkey astronaut." And because Tim is also a fan of John Prine and had heard the same song from which I was getting my information, he backed me up.
Miles was completely fascinated and I had no idea the excitement and entertainment that this one topic would lend itself to in our house. Miles went the next day to school and asked his teacher about it. While he was at school I thought I should probably do a bit more research on it than the song provided and so by the time I picked him up from school we both knew that there was not just one monkey but 32. We also learned that Iran is now planning on sending up a monkey within the month. He spent some time on Wikipedia and wrote out some facts and with the help of his brother they printed some pictures. Miles is determined to go to school today and present the facts that he learned to his class. You see, this is something I find so endearing and beautiful about this kid. He can be so shy and is usually very soft spoken at school and around his hockey team, yet when he has passion for something he's willing to step right through that shyness and get up in front of his class and give a presentation without being asked. It's like how he stood in front of his class in 1st grade and sang the Star Spangled Banner because he was the only student that knew the words and one of the kids asked him to. I admire his bravery.