Mail isn't exciting like it used to be. Mail is bills and advertisements and bills and post cards from the MP reminding us how lucky we are to have him in our corner and bills and notices that garbage prices are going up again and bills...

BUT, once in a long while, something will come in the post that makes you want to do a little dance in the kitchen.

Like when a personal invitation arrives. From a university. For your fourteen-year-old son. To attend a math camp at their campus. To which only 32 hand-picked students in all of Ontario are allowed to go!

I mean...

I don't know where this kid came from. We always knew he was smart but it wasn't until we sat in the gymnasium last June at his eighth grade graduation ceremony and watched him cross the stage to collect the proficiency award that we realized he's not just smart - he's really smart - top of the class smart - like when I walked into a parent/teacher interview during the first semester of ninth grade, his geography teacher said, "I don't even know why you're here. I don't have one concern."

He's killing school. Murdering the average. Slaying the slacker-dragon and feeding "good enough" his genius dust. It's not uncommon for us to get a little notice home: Zander is currently sitting at the top of the class or Zander just got a 98% on the test almost everyone else failed.

I was a good student. But I was no Zander! {Obviously...there's no way I could pull off a fedora like he does!}

And maybe you're thinking, Math Camp? That's boring! But if you'd seen his face when he saw this invitation...

And what's boring about getting to spend long hours with the esteemed Professor Ian Vanderburgh* on the campus of a post-secondary school that's trying to woo a ninth-grader to their math program?

I wasn't expecting to be sending a cheque to a university yet. I figured I had a few more years before they worked hard to bleed me dry BUT, if math is what gets that kid excited, you can bet I'm not going to stand in his way!