on #1, Ben, doesn’t get enough press on this blog. He’s gone most of the day; he spends more than an hour on the bus; and because I work two nights a week, we don’t have as many laugh-out-loud moments as I have with the other kids.

But Ben is growing into quite the amalgam of Brooke and myself. He drives me crazy with his heart-on-his-sleeve emotions, which he gets from Brooke, and the way he notices – and ask questions about – everything annoys Brooke to no end.

He loves to play the piano (from Brooke), but he has a hard time staying on task (like me). He can take an hour to complete his fifteen minutes of practice because he gets sidetracked picking out songs by ear. (“For he’s a jolly good fellow” was his latest accomplishment.) And, though this is changing, he can spend as much time sulking over his chores as it takes to finish them.

His intellect is my favorite part. Last year his teacher apologized. “I don’t feel like I’m meeting his needs,” she confessed. I told her that she’s under no legal obligation to meet my son’s needs because he is an able-bodied, above average, white male (an unprotected species). But she still tried her darndest.

This year his new teacher offered excuses about time and the number of students she must work with. Though I know her situation is difficult, she showed no empathy or even slight concern for Ben’s time. He spends most of his day in the corner independently reading because he’s finished his work. He’s getting through two or three A-to-Z Mystery books a week in class. He enjoys it. “Mom,” he said last week, “I have a new favorite thing, and it’s reading!”

But, thanks to his curiosity, he is learning. Last night we gave one of the twins a breadstick to gnaw on. Ben laughed at the expression on the baby’s face. “He’s examining it to see if OK to eat!” Seriously, what eight-year-old uses the verb “examine”?

“Ben, where did you learn the word examine?”

“Oh, I just know it, but it was in my book…” He fetched an illustrated Clone Wars volume, opened it, and began reading about the Jedi master Yoda using the force to snatch a Sith’s light saber, and then examining the weapon as it levitated before him.

Then we watched Mythbusters together. It was a rerun of last week’s show where they tested whether leaving the windows open could save a house in a hurricane. When they finally put a playhouse behind a giant turbine, Ben told me, “They have to test it with the windows open first because, if the house blows over with the windows closed, they’ll have to start all over to test if it would happen with the windows open.”

So, there you have it. Our overly sensitive too-smart-for-his-own-good, talented little big boy.