Aug 20, 2016

It's Hard To Be Bennett


Yesterday, we had some friends from out of town stop by for a visit. We only casually know each other, so there were a lot of questions floating around. Since Gavin is a senior this year, he naturally fields lots of questions about college, his interest of study and so on. We spent quite a lot of time talking about how he loves computer programming as compared to web design that Chuck does. Then these sweet, unsuspecting people decided to ask Bennett a question.

Bennett may be in the room with us, but he is not always 'present'. He loves to let his mind wander while people are conversing around him. What he's thinking, nobody really knows; probably basketball, basketball, basketball.  He gets confused easily when people ask him questions. His first response is usually, "Wait, what?" That is because he's coming back from that far away place he just spent the whole conversation whittling away time in.

So on this fine day, when he was asked, "Bennett, what do you enjoy?" he was surprisingly ready with his response. "I like basketball."

"Anything else?" friend asks.

"Ya. Maybe coaching." Bennett responds. We don't need to go deeper, just one word answers seem to be appropriate.

"Oh. So are you interested in designing a program to help athletes not get injured so much?" friend throws out there.

And then comes the response that reveals Bennett has zero clue what he's talking about and is said in typical Bennett fashion: "No. I'm not into programming or design."

Everyone else in the room knew that's not what friend was asking, except Bennett. All he heard were the two key words we had been talking about earlier 'programming' and 'design' in relation to computers. He wanted to distance himself as far away as possible from those two things.

We all had to hide our smirks and giggles. Friend moved on to asking what Chloe's interests were. Once these friends left, Chuck was like, "Bennett, what were you thinking?!" And Bennett was all, "I was confused!" And we were like, "No duh! When people are confused they normally ask someone to rephrase the question." Bennett says, "So, should I have said, 'wait, what?'"

"Not exactly." It's hard being Bennett's parents people. Very hard. That kid cracks us up all day long. So now, whenever we ask Bennett a question he answers, "I'm not into programming or design." Typical Bennett. Never a dull moment with this kid.
Share

Blog Archive