To the envy of his cousins, Jon’s been typing for years now. Writing or drawing is very hard, and to get the required stability it has to be hand-over-hand, which means an adult has to be there, and the chances of spontaneity are pretty much crushed.
While doing reading homework on the deck yesterday afternoon, Jon and I had a following conversation, witnessed by Bachan:
Jon (pointing to an exclamation mark, knowing full well but teasing me): What is that? Is it a period?
Daddy: No, it’s an exclamation mark, goof!
Jon: It’s a period! How do we make it an exclamation mark?
Daddy: Easy, we just draw a line straight down over the period.
Jon (wrinkling his forehead, more serious): Nooo.
Daddy: Yes, just drawing a line down.
Jon: Nooo. By pushing shift and 1.
Daddy: ??? Ohhhhhh…..
Jon (seizing my weak moment): By pushing shift and 2!
Daddy (reaching to the very height of his knowledge): Noooo! That’s an @ symbol for email!
Jon (smiling): Ahhhh!
Daddy: Okay, Mr Smarty-drawers, what’s Shift and 3, if you’re so…
Jon: Number sign.
(Pause)
Daddy: Okay, let’s get back to reading…
yeah jon I have that trouble with your dad all the time, i always have to tell him how the shift key works:-)
paul
For fun at bath-time tonight I asked Jon what shift-3 was (just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, silly me!) He answered correctly, then I asked him what shift-4 was. “Dollar” he said. Shift-5: “percent”, shift-6: “caret”, all the way to shift-0: “right enthesis”; he got them all, even the ones in the middle I can never recall. Peter didn’t even remember what a caret was—and truly, why does it get its own button, anyway?—but Jon sure knew what you do to get one!
Hmmm, should I let you in on Jon’s secret? Sure, why not? It’s the combined magic of the Intellitalk program with Jon’s great auditory memory and thirst for knowledge! What a great kid! Don’t you love it when he surprises you like that?
Tami
Okay, Jon. Now get started on the capitals of the countries of the world. Betcha I know more than you do!
=;]
I never really learned to type. I can semi-touch-type (I’m doing it now) but I have to look for the numbers and the special characters above them, as well as any infrequently used punctuation marks and so forth.
If I stop to think about what letters I’m typing (like now) I have to slow down and look sometimes, instead of just zen-sufi’ing it. I just had to stop and look at the keyboard to type this. LOL.
Good stories, Jon! Keep’em coming! Thanks.