When I grow up...

I need to interrupt (what was going to be) continuing ramblings on vacation to record a great coversation I had with Amelia last night. She is in 4th grade.

A: "Mom. Did you take one of those tests to tell you want you wanted to be when you grow up?"
M: "Yes. But not until 10th grade."
A: "So that's high school, right"
M: "Yes. High School"
(By the way, smary pants Margaret interjects at this point "Aptitude test".)

A: "I can't decide if I want to be a musician, a veterinarian, a weather forecaster, an on-screen meteorologist, or a storm chaser when I grow up"
M: "Well, you have a lot of time to decide. Some people even change their minds after college."
A: "Well, I don't want to be a hurricane expert. That's scary."
M: "Maybe you can be a veterinarian in Kansas and be a storm chaser."
A: "Yeah. Maybe I can combine all of them. That would be a perfect job. I wonder what I would need to study in college."

and so on...

You know what I love about this conversation? The realization that just maybe I am giving my kids the gift my parents gave me. The expectation that going to college is just "how it's done." My Gram Shaler was a smart cookie.. she wished she had been able to go to college. So was Grandpa Anderson. He had a scholarship to go to college and had to turn it down because his father died and he needed to run the family farm. But all of Grandpa's children who wanted to go to college, did. That included my mom for 2 years (Luther College in Decorah!), My dad went two years to Rochester Junior College. Growing up, there was no talk other than.. "when I go to college". I didn't think much of it then, but now I realize what a gift that was. Not that you have to go to college to lead a great life, I realize that. But I'm glad that the seeds are growing in their little brains that college is the normal thing you do after high school. Makes me happy.