Little Did We Realize...

Tonight was a quiet night at home. The 'men' of the house, who are periodically known around here as "Muscle", were off helping Dad move Laura's play house over in order to make room for his new shed in the back yard. Well, it might be more like a small barn in these here parts, but we'll stick with shed since we know what a real barn is. Anyway with Don and Matthew gone, Laura, Jonathan, and I kept ourselves busy. Jonathan was doing his best to ignore the end of his history assignment he didn't want to finish by playing computer games, Laura was playing with her babies, and I was sorting and cleaning out files on the computer as I'm almost out of room. Apparently it is one of the negative side effects to owning a digital camera. All was quiet on the homefront.

And then from the far reaches of the family room I hear "I wan to pay on my caputer." I quietly ignored it thinking she'd get sidetracked as I knew we didn't have hers plugged in to the internet yet. The router was on our to do list but hadn't filtered to the top yet so she was not attached to surfability. After a moment or two I heard it again. "I wan to pay on my caputer!" Yes, it was a big more firm this time. I figured I'd wait her out one more time.

Pretty soon I was rewarded - or not as you will see - by the growing insistence in her voice. Only this time she said "I NEED to get on da INDERNET!" While I can totally relate to her feelings of need, I knew she didn't have email quite yet so I was a bit amused. I realize when she learns to read I'll be dealing with her request for her own email, but until then I think I've got the upper hand. However, she didn't see it my way. The insistence in the voice rose once again. As she walked in to the living room she said "Mom! I NEED to get on da INDERNET! Now MOM! I NEED PBSKIDS!"

Yeah, I had to hold back the laughter, too. Somehow I managed. I calmly went with her in to the family room, explained that Daddy needed a new router so she could get on the internet. and she just needed to be patient. Meanwhile I told her I could put another game on her computer for her to play. Very brightly she said "So I can play PBSKIDS anyways???" Uhhh, no. But soon. I promise. She declined and followed me back in to the living room and promptly asked Jonathan to play something on his computer with her. They are playing happily as I type.

As I considered the fact that my four year old daughter understands so much about technology I realized she probably had no choice. After all, we started her out pretty early...

Maybe we rushed it just a bit. :)