Mal's Destiny?

On Thursday, Mal said something for the first time that he's never addressed before. We don't ask the kids "What do you want to be when you grow up?" (or "Do you have a girl/boyfriend?" or "What's your favorite subject in school?" or a number of "grown-up" questions, just because) so I don't know that it's on Mal's radar at all that when he's an adult, he'll likely work at something.

However, we'd gone to the library and were looking at a book entitled "What Happens When Fire Burns?" The book actually doesn't answer that question on any level, but it is about fire, and that fires don't start spontaneously, and fire safety, and different ways fire teams tackle different fires differently.

Mal was looking at a picture of one guy with his mouth gaped open as he struggled to control a full-blast fire hose. Mal opened his mouth like the picture. Then on the next page, there was a crew dealing with a fuel fire, and they had on the metal-looking fireproof clothes and were shooting foam.

That's when Mal said, "When I'm big, I'm going to do that." I asked, "You are?" He said, "Yeah. I'm going to have to put on those clothes, and then *ppwpcccssshhhh* and after the fire's out, I'll take them back off."

That's the first time he's projected out to when he's bigger. He wants to drive construction vehicles NOW. But what a cliche thing for a three-year-old boy to want to be when he grows up.

This is a cool thing to want to be, but as we watched videos of fires yesterday (and fire training), I realized that, as a mom, I wouldn't want to know too much about what was going on with him at work! Yikes! I'm sure there will be plenty of iterations of vocations before Mal lands on one (heck, I never did), but it's neat to see him trying ideas out.