Always Cool

Quiet time, at some point, usually finds the boys on the big bed upstairs with their respective electronic books. Ted reads for a bit on his Nook, while Joe tinkers round with one of the few ebooks Ted has downloaded for Joe onto the iPad.

Here we pause to note that Julie is probably more conflicted than she need be about these electronic books, but that she is, nevertheless, conflicted, albeit less than when they first arrived on the scene. She has a difficult time discerning with what level of technology she is comfortable for our young man in the making, and so she tends to just go for Luddite levels, and then frets about her children being the only two freaks who don't know how to use a mouse in kindergarten or being made fun of because they don't know who Mater is. It's unfair of her, she knows, to assume all technology is bad. After all, she has fond, fond memories of playing the Number Munchers game (in which one makes a monster munch, say, multiples of a number) in four grade, and spent hours and hours watching the sitcoms of the eighties to say nothing of the Dukes of Hazzard, Love Boat, The Price Is Right, and All My Kids (as her grandfather called it) when she was even younger, and she is, still, a certified book worm. So, the conflict is unfair, but it is there, nevertheless.

Anyway. These electronic books are not the same as paper books as Joe more watches them or interacts with them, rather than reads them (or supposedly learns to read them), and the nature of his experience with these books seems much the same whether a parent is heavily involved, or he is manning all the bells and whistles himself. During quiet time, he manipulates the books himself. Recently, Ted got Joe some headphones, as we plan to bring the iPad with us to Arizona as part of the parade of in-flight entertainment for Joe, and they will allow him to enjoy the adventures of Thomas et. al. without subjecting his fellow travelers to them. Joe has been trying them out during quiet time.

So here he is, in all his preteen boy glory. His shirt, Fans, reads, "Always cool." Indeed.

[Editor's note: This was the tamest shot from the photo shoot.]