Last week I decided it was time for Ben to have his first computer. He has his first game system, and his first pair of skates, but if he’s my son, he should start learning how to use a computer. I was pleased when he took right to it.
*Geek Content Follows* In the late sixties, a man named Douglas Engelbart dreamt up a connected computer system, navigated with a pointing device that came to be called the mouse. His original invention had an array of buttons. Its fabled that by the time the mouse became commonplace, it was an almost religious debate over how many buttons it should have. The Xerox ALTO had 3 buttons, but Steve Jobs insisted fervently that there should be only one. Even today, with Apple’s new high-tech multi-touch mouse, the default behaviour is to treat all clicks as a left click.
It’s a tribute to Dr. Engelbart that our 3-year old intuited the use of the mouse within only a couple seconds, after I put my hand over his and showed him how to point and click. It’s a tribute to Steve Jobs that Ben’s graceless button mashing only ever invokes a left-click operation – no confusing menus for him to get lost in.
See, Ben’s first computer is a Macintosh Performa 6320 – a 14 year-old Mac that I would have killed to have in my room when I was in high school. *End Geek Content*
I picked up the computer, along with a Mac IIsi, for a grand total of $25 – thanks to a find on Kijiji. They smell horrible (having been owned by a smoker) and were filthy dirty when I brought them home. But I lovingly scrubbed one down, and cleaned up the system software and some extension conflicts, and it’s purring along (and starting to smell better) like it was a brand new computer.
It came with a package called KidWorks 2, which includes a drawing program with cute sound effects. Ben loves it and calls it his “Drawing ‘puter!” I popped in a Patch the Pirate CD (thanks Mom and Dad!) and it started playing right away, and within moments he was happily playing away with classic content on a classic computer — the perfect place for him to start learning. It even has a TV Tuner!
As I mentioned earlier, Ben was very specific that he would not agree to being 3 years old until he got a blue McQueen chocolate cake. So, Nicole very expertly made him this…
…which we happily consumed with the help of Nic’s parent’s, the McLeods, and Ben’s little buddy Nathan. Pretty awesome, eh?
We didn’t forget his birthday — it was December 27, and he turned 3.
He’s adamant, though, that he’s not 3 until he gets a cake. And not just any cake. A blue Lightning McQueen chocolate cake.
With the busy-ness of Christmas, and his insistence that he wasn’t ready to be 3 yet (“Soon, daddy. Three soon.”) we thought it would be best to celebrate his big day a few weeks later. So this weekend we’re having some family, and a couple of his friends (and babysitters) over for the requested cake.
It’s hard to believe he’s 3 years old already! So much has happened in his little life time. Happy birthday, buddy! We love you.
After 16 months of waiting, a trip to our MP’s office, and 18 days in which our kids had no health care at all, Benjamin and Abigail are finally official Canadian citizens.
Apparently, we were supposed to have filed their paperwork with the Canadian embassy in the States — even though we did file it with them and they mailed it back to us saying we had to file in Canada. This mix-up (can you really call staggering incompetence a “mix-up”?) was what caused the delay. A harsh phone call and a fax from our Member of Parliament seemed to resolve it fairly quickly. If only we’d tried that earlier…
Both our kids also retain their U.S. citizenship. While the U.S. requires dual-citizens to renounce their alternate citizenship (even though that renouncing is rarely officially recognized by the other country and dual-citizenship can be retained anyway), Canada does not. Our kids will be able to have both U.S. and Canadian passports (the combination allowing them to travel virtually anywhere in the world), go to school, and get a job anywhere in Canada or the U.S without hassle. It was a lot of work for their parents (mostly Nicole, who navigated the bureaucracies of both governments to get this done) but it will give them a level of freedom with their future that few people enjoy. We will raise our children with pride for both their nationalities, but with a broader world view than each would dictate individually.
In other news, our oldest dual-citizen pooped on the potty yesterday. He announced that he needed to pee (“Ben pee potty!”) so Nic helped him into the bathroom, then left while he did his business. After a few minutes she opened the door to check on him and he says “Leave Ben ‘lone!” A few more minutes later he steps out the door and announces: “I POOP!”
Apparently we’ve reached that point in life where people are more interested in our kids than us. I guess we’ve gotten so boring that we now exist only as a function of our children. Perhaps we’ll rename the site www.benandabisparents.com.
Since I’ve been told that I need to blog about the kids more, I figured at least a brief update is in order.
Ben remains a bit behind on his speaking, but he’s really improved in the past month. He’s way more confident about trying new words, and does a pretty good job verbalizing what he wants/needs. He’ll often confuse his word order so “Ben’s blue car” becomes “Blue car Ben” but we get the idea, and we’re glad he’s using words. He usually refers to himself in the third person, but its awful cute and first person pronouns are tricky to teach.
Nic and Ben are going to a Kids Ability class on Monday mornings to give them some tips on how to help him.
His fine motor skills, and his problem solving skills, however, lack for nothing. If you don’t bring him a pickle when he asks, he’s perfectly OK with opening the fridge and getting the pickle jar out for you.
He also drove his first car this past weekend — an early, but surely not the last, flirtation with the joys of motorized speed.
Abi is fairly advanced, we think, on her talking. She’ll mimic most things that Ben says, although she probably only understands the meaning behind her own repertoire of words and phrases. Its safe to say she’s firmly ensconced in toddler territory, and definitely not a baby any more.
She’s getting a little bit better at holding her own against Ben when he steals toys away from her, and recently added “MINE!” to her vocabulary — which is fine, because until now, Ben was sure that everything in the house belonged to him. We’re working on the concept of sharing, and taking turns, but that’s slow going.
It might be wrong to think it, but we wish Abi was a little more into TV. We don’t let either of them stare at the idiot box for too long, but there are moments when its nice to have them distracted for a bit while the floor gets swept, or a meal gets made or cleaned up. Ben calls it TT, and as soon as it goes on, he becomes immobile. Abi occasionally checks it out, but fairly promptly resumes pulling kitchen utensils out of drawers faster than you can clean up behind her.
Fortunately both of them like books — reading to them is great, but its adorable when they “read” to themselves.
Unfortunately, this has been about the grayest summer I remember, so they haven’t been outside as much as we’d like. But they love their sandbox, and they love the water, so whenever we get a chance, we find ways to enjoy those things with them. They continue to be beautiful, and generally well-behaved little monsters, and we’re lucky to have them both.
Most of this past week I’ve been on vacation from work, which means my computer has been shut off. I do have a laptop or two that I checked on occassion, but I’ve been otherwise pretty unwired all week. It was nice, but I’m a little behind on e-mails, comments, blogs, facebooks, diggs, flickrs, and other ‘net activities… I’ll probably stay that way until next week, but here’s a couple highlights:
- BBQed and ate supper (that’s dinner, if you’re from New York) on the deck last night. The sun shining, a cool breeze blowing, a little Sufjan playing. It was wonderful.
- NetFlix caught on to the massive, gaping hole in their geolocation system. I’m disappointed, but it was good while it lasted. Oh Canada, why can’t you catch up with this whole Internet thing going on?
- Saw a movie in 3D — Monsters vs. Aliens. You had to wear silly glasses, but it was still pretty neat. I’d like to see the new Terminator done in 3D.
- We had a free babysitter all week, but that’s good because I threw out my back last weekend. I’m pretty much healed up, but pursuing new avenues of resolution for this very persistent and frustrating issue. I’m hoping to get at least another 45 years or so out of this body — its too early to be hobbling around like an old man all the time!
- Continuing my new hobby of collecting obscure, obsolete media, I got a MiniDisc player. It needs a little work, but we had fun listening to some of our old mix discs from the late 90s…
- Ben is pretty much ready to use the potty — we (Nic) just needs to help him make it happen. He gets embarrassed if he wets his diaper while in bed, and takes it off and tries to get a new one on. We appreciate the gesture, but would prefer it if he waited for us to help with that!
- Abi has 4 teeth now. The bottom two are very obvious, the tops ones are only visible when she grins really wide. They’re big, but super cute. She also runs like the wind…
She’s known how to walk for weeks now, but refused to do it. Then last Thursday, she decided she was ready. The first day was a little shaky — she walked like a zombie with her arms in front of her. The next day was better. By day three she had variable speeds, could turn 360 degrees without falling, bend over and pick things up, then carry them around while she walks. She can open the sliding door to the back deck, and run out on her own. Its amazing!
Pictures are uploading, so check out the sidebar until we get around to posting something more interesting…
Every night before bed time, Nicole or I (usually Nicole, since I put Abi to bed) reads Ben a story. Tonite, Ben wanted to read one to her. He chose Thomas & Friends – Really Useful Engines. According to Benjamin, it goes something like this…
If this video doesn’t turn you into mush, you’d better visit your doctor and make sure your heart is still beating…
Nic was making lunch, Ben was watching TV and Abi was fussing in her high chair (I was at work in the basement, and came up just as it was happening.) Suddenly Abi was quiet, so Nic turned around to make sure she was OK, and found that Ben had pushed a chair over, climbed up on it, moved Abi’s food and was spooning it into her mouth — much to her delight! It was incredible!
Now, if we could only train him to change her diapers…
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