I'm sitting here tonight watching my 17-year-old son do his AP Chemistry homework and my 10-year-old daughter do her math homework. I'm thankful that Heavenly Father has blessed me with such intelligent kids. Both Eric and Marlee are so smart. They never cease to amaze me. At the risk of sounding mean, one of my biggest fears before I became a dad was that I'd have kids who weren't smart. I've seen so many parents at school struggle with kids who either can't or won't do their school work.

But Heavenly Father has seen fit to place these two choice spirits with Shannon and me. We have had so many teachers and others lavish great praise on our kids. They often follow those words up with praise for the good job that Shannon and I do. Truth be told, I don't know what we've actually done...other than hold high expectations for the kids.

Tonight at dinner Eric said he was getting all A's on his mid-quarter report card except for a B+ in AP Chem. Shannon asked if he could still raise that before the quarter ends. Eric said he could. At that, Marlee asked why all the grades had to be an A. We told her about high school transcripts and graduation and GPA's and scholarships and getting accepted to the college you want to go to. But then I told her this: the main reason we want our kids to get A's is simply because they can. Lots of kids can work as hard as they can and struggle to get a C or B. But, Heavenly Father has blessed our kids with wonderful, sharp, and inquistive minds. They can be among the best in their classes, so they might as well be. And they are.

Marlee's GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) teacher told us at the parent conference that Marlee is not one of the smartest kids in her class--she IS the smartest. The gifted program exists to challenge upper level kids who might find the normal curriculum too easy. Mrs. Walter told us that she struggles to challenge Marlee, because she is so incredibly smart. I smile because my 4th grader reads more books and tougher books than most of my 9th grade students. (She recently finished Pride and Prejudice--albeit an abridged version--and Uncle Tom's Cabin.) Yeah....she's pretty amazing.