For those who have asked (and those who haven't) here's Tenley intently training to be a hacker...er..."network administrator" just like Daddy. She's always had a fascination with technology, and was always able to tell the difference between a toy cell phone and the real thing (and she only wants the real one) and a computer keyboard that was not hooked up to anything, and one that did things when she pressed on it. She loves to sit in our laps and "help" us with what we're doing, and pitches a royal fit if you try to put her down.
Since we can only play on www.noggin.com for so long (she loves to move the mouse and look for Zee while pages load), we put the Child's First Computer by Comfy on her Christmas list (item # 1582406 at www.flaxart.com), and the other cyber geek in the family, Grandma Suzie, happily bought it for her.
It's a large tot-designed keyboard with 20 or so keys that hooks up to any PC (with a Pentium III or above and Windows 98SE or higher) with a plug and play USB connection and a software CD. The keyboard comes with 1 CD that has 3 levels to teach kids ages 1-3 about colors, shapes, body parts, music, and day/night in any one of 16 languages (sadly, Chinese is not one of them). There are at least 4 other CD's available to grow with your kid up to age 5. As an adult, it will bore you to tears after 5-10 minutes, but Tenley will happily entertain herself for 20-30 minutes at a stretch on the thing (sitting still for 20 minutes for Tenley is amazing), and frequently plays with the phone component even when it's not hooked up. We just hook it up and put her in her booster chair at the computer desk and let her have at it. Again, a major fit will occur if you try to take it away before she's done with it.
I'm sure there are other computer type things out there for toddlers, but we liked this because it gave her her own keyboard with big buttons, it had multiple levels & software titles, and she can't just click out of it and get onto the desktop and begin throwing the hard drive into the recycle bin. Which, in case you're wondering, she has actually tried to do.
3 comments:
Hee hee.... Gwen can also tell the difference between a toy phone and a real phone. And she seems to be able to tell the difference between those with an active plan in effect!
We gave her a working cell phone with no service (but how did she know?) and she drop-kicked it almost immediately and shoved her little paw into mommy's purse and starting digging frantically for the "real" cell phone!
I guess she just likes talking to her new friends in Lugano, Switzerland when my back is turned!
:)
Donna
Thanks for the information and link. We were DTC on January 9 so maybe we will be traveling a year from now to be united with our baby. She is definitely getting a Tenley keyboard for Christmas, along with whatever else I can get away with buying before my husband has a panic attack. :) Tenley looks absolutely adorable working on her plan for world domination.
Oooh! This is exactly what Sophie needs! I'm going to order it right away- Thanks for the hot tip!
Kisses to Tenley!
Shana :)
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