Never mind her bad table manners, check out those mouse skills
on Dec 14 in General by DanAs I have mentioned before we live in a pretty small house. It’s small even by British standards, never mind American (have a look here for an interesting take on British homes from a US perspective). We have lounge, kitchen, three bedrooms and a bathroom. We have no room for a dining table so have to eat off our laps, which would be a problem for entertaining if it wasn’t for the fact that Kerry and I are too ashamed of our general untidiness to actually invite anyone round anyway. What’s more, any toys Amy receives have to go through a stringent measuring process where their volume and footprint are accurately calculated to ensure that the space they take up doesn’t mean that one of us has to sleep in the driveway.
We used to have a study but that was magically transformed into the third bedroom as soon as we learned that Evan was on his way. As a result the computer has been relegated to a corner of our lounge. This has its advantages and its disadvantages. On the positive side I can spend time tinkering on the internet whilst still spending time with Kerry. On the negative side I spend a lot of time tinkering on the internet when I should be spending more time with Kerry. The lure of the blogroll, statcounter, or Wikipedia’s random button can sometimes be overwhelming. A simple trip to pick up my wallet from the computer desk can turn into an epic adventure into cyberspace.
Amy has started taking a lot more interest in the PC recently. We bought her a Noddy computer game just after her birthday, and the lure of being able to help Mrs Pink Cat construct her ice cream stall for the Toytown fair has proven pretty much irresistible. Irresistible for her anyway; I pretty much lost interest once I realised that no combination of random button pressing was going to unlock Mr Wobbly Man’s secret whirling blades of death finishing move. Mortal combat has spoiled me for other games.
Since playing Noddy Amy’s ability to use the mouse has rocketed from being non existent to being pretty expert. She can move it around accurately, left click, right click and drag and drop. This morning I left her alone while I went to get breakfast and when I came back she was sat at the computer desk successfully navigating the Flickr page that I had loaded before I went out (Greg, you can tell your friend Dwayne that Amy thinks his daughter is very pretty). This afternoon she told me she wanted to write a letter to her friends and spent a happy half an hour on the word processor mashing the keyboard.
It just makes you wonder what she’s going to be doing when she’s eighteen. Our kids are growing up with a level of technology that was only dreamt of during our own childhoods, and who knows where it’s all going to end up. No doubt when I’m seventy I’ll be sending Amy and Evan a hologram and demanding they come round and set the clock on my antimatter transponder.
Related posts:
- Mouse Mouse
- Now we can afford that Sherlock Holmes boxed set!
- Nocternal negotiations
- Like the corners of my mind
- ET phone home
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It is really fun to think ahead and try to figure out what it is going to be like. I remember about 12 years ago, one of the doctors told me that every exam room in the clinic would have a computer in it and that we would be doing all charting on the computer. I just nodded my head and said, “uh, huh,” thinking he was out of his mind. Now, not only is that true, but we have parents who bring their laptops to the clinic so that they can get work done while they wait. I am not sure if this is a good thing or not. If it is me bringing my laptop, then it is good, but if it is the patients bringing theirs, then it is annoying. LOL
Hey, thanks for the ping. I wondered what British people did with all the toys that come with having young folks running the house! I think that not having all that extra space can be a good thing in many ways – it leads to less excess and commercialized living.
We’re back home in the states now, and waiting for final word on if and when we are moving to the “home country”. Once we have more info, I’ll start posting again.