We're very lucky.
Jack is the sort of child
we all assume we'll have
when we decide to have children,
and the sort of child
less experienced parents
congratulate themselves for.January and February 2004
March and April 2004
May and June 2004
July and August 2004
September and October 2004
November and December 2004
Blogs we read:
Monday, Jun. 21, 2004 - (Mamma)
Twenty First Century Baby
Jack's current favorite!
BabyWow 3.0
Well, Our Jack is definitely a 21st century Baby. He already has his first computer software at 13 1/2 months old!
(Mamma never saw a computer until she was 30 and I assume it was something like that for Dad, too!)
After we read about how regular computer use -- as long as it's not video games -- actually increases a child's academic performance, Dad and Mamma decided that maybe it would be OK for Jack to use the computer.
Well, actually, we didn't have a lot of choice about that. If we momentarily can't find Jack, our best bet is to go into the office. Usually we will find Jack in there, on tiptoe, pushing the mouse around on either Dad's computer or Mamma's. And if he can get his hands on the keyboard, Jack already types up a storm! (If only we could figure our how he manages some of the very useful stuff he does -- stuff that otherwise seems as though "it can't be done".)
So now, Jack has his very own software, developed specifically with toddlers in mind.
When he presses letter or number keys, the software performs. The CD actually has about a dozen modules, each of which responds differently to keystrokes. The first module Jack experimented with sends a catepillar from one flower to another with every keystroke, while a voice over encourages him to press keys and congratulates him for doing so well. Some day Jack will slow down enough to hear the voice ... I had to play it when he was asleep to figure out what the squeeks and squawks were trying to say.)
The second module he's explored displays a photo and names the object in any of 8 languages (including Spanish, French, Chinese, etc.) every time a key is pressed.
So far the languages are irrelevant for Jack, since, again, he presses keys so fast that the voice is just a series of squeeks and squawks.
Parents get to decide how long the game will last -- from 1 minute to "no timeout". Mamma's patience wears thin after 10 minutes, so I always set it to stop at that.
Ahhh, but that's just the "objective" part.
The look on our young man's face as he makes the computer respond to his every keystroke is wonderful -- he is wide eyed and smiling for the entire 10 minutes. He is just rapt! It was fun to play with the keyboard and look for random events while Mamma and Dad endeavored to read their mail -- but with his new software, every keystroke gets a reaction! He is amazed and thrilled.
This software is a good thing, I think. And it runs on either Mamma's or Dad's computers (Mac or PC) so neither of us is doomed to lose our computer to boy entirely.
There are other toddler software packages out there -- maybe we'll add to this as time goes by-- but this has so many options that there really isn't any hurry...
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