As they say here in Massachusetts, Kent is a real “Smahtie.”
I have no idea what his IQ is, but I know he’s really intelligent. He’s not
only book-smart (thank goodness!), he’s life smart and street-wise too. I love
to tease Kent about his nerdiness, but he’s really proud of his Mathlete days.
He did pretty well, so I’m told, and even got to travel to Washington, DC to
compete in the national competition. Although I joke about it, I am grateful
for his serious math skills. They come in really handy when shopping sales,
splitting bills, or adjusting recipes. He’s my human calculator, and it’s
awesome.
His math skills induce a heavy interest in statistics. This is a trait that seems to run in his family and many
conversations he has with his brothers center around success rates of this or
that, performance of this team or that, etc. The combination of his love for
stats and his intelligence helps to drive his competitive nature, even if he’s
only challenging himself. I can’t tell you the number of times we take
different routes home, just to see if he can get there faster (without
speeding) or various other challenges he comes up with. We have some friends
that we play games with fairly regularly, and I can almost guarantee that Kent
is keeping record in his head how many times he comes in first, second, third,
and last. I would say most often Kent is competing with himself, rather than,
say, me. I don’t know if it’s because he usually doesn’t consider me real
competition or just because he likes to beat his own personal records, but I’ll
go with the latter.
I really appreciate how his intelligence causes him to be
interested in many different things, looking for new things to learn or know
about, and blesses him with the capacity to actually be successful at these new
endeavors. In almost all cases this makes my life in some way better. For
instance, he wanted to know more about gardening: we now have a pretty awesome
garden/yard with a variety of plants and I never have to mow the lawn. He was
curious about home repairs/construction: we have a finished basement where we
can send Hendrik and his toys, at a much lower cost.
Perhaps one of my favorite benefits of his smarts is his
ability to carry on a conversation about almost anything. It doesn’t have to be
intellectual or relevant, it can be goofy or ridiculous, but Kent will
participate in the conversation. He also brings up a lot of topics that are
interesting and make me think. This is really helpful with that whole
not-getting-tired-of-each-other thing. I’m often impressed with his ability to
know a little something about some random topic and be able to share an opinion
on it. I’m not gonna lie, it’s pretty attractive.
I just need to keep up a steady regimen of crosswords,
sudokus, and brain puzzles to keep up with him. Who wants to be the “dumb wife?”
Not I!
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