Nerding Out…

Lillian would spend all day on the iPad, iPhone or computer playing games or watching weird YouTube videos — if parents and grandparents would allow her to. But they are kind of spoil sports, and don’t.

Yesterday, she got a Raspberry Pi computer kit, and put it together last night, using an old monitor of her grandfather’s.  She loaded the Raspbian operating system herself. Today, we started learning the Scratch programming language and she animated a cat and a unicorn.

Don’t know if we are encouraging or discouraging computer addiction, but we are having nerdy fun!

Foxes and Invisible Diamonds

It’s summer, and I get to spend time with my favorite companion, who moves on to the second grade this fall.

Somehow or another, she has turned into a reader. She likes books about dragons and wolves and unicorns and animals and science.

Holding her hand about 4 feet off the ground, she asked me if I knew what kind of animal was that tall.

“No,” I said.

“A fox. A very, very, very, very, very unusual Fox.”

“Oh,” I said, “what makes her so unusual?”

“She wears a jewel at her throat. An invisible diamond.”

Lillian looked at me for a long time, then said, “Only girls who believe in dragons and chocolate and unicorns can see the invisible diamond.”

“Do we know any girls like that?” I asked.

“Yes, we do. Me,” she said.