This flu is made for reading

For a moment there, I thought I had a heart attack. My fear was fueled by propaganda from the recent February Women’s Heart month. Women frequently miss the signs of heart attacks. Those red dress pins and symptoms listed on grocery bags make me concerned. And then, I was feeling achy from the flu virus that has brought down everyone in the house to lethargic, coughing, and complaining creatures. Or maybe it was just my computer arm muscles upset from over use. Thank goodness I did not have a heart attack, but just the flu aches and pains. However, now everyone is laughing mildly about my moment of worry; the new in joke is about my weirdness during sickness. At least we can all laugh together!

I am posting yesterday’s photo of our garden frog. Two weeks ago it was covered in snow, and a week later it was poking its head out. Now it looks like spring.

While in this fog of illness, I have been thinking of ideas to blog. I am trying to focus on just writing about parenting, kids culture & stuff, and how these intersect with technology

The only book I have been interested in while sick is How Children Learn to Write. [see link on side list] Perhaps this flu is a good thing: it makes one read informative books! I am trying to figure out how learning writing works. It is more difficult than reading. Speaking comes relatively naturally to all children. Reading is a about deciphering codes, and quite difficult as well. But writing also involves eye-hand coordination, hand movement, and a very structured way of communication. In order to write, writers must have an idea and then be able to organize their thoughts coherently, rather than the loose way of speaking. (The only person I knew who deliberately spoke in complete sentences was a high school English teacher and I found it annoying.) More on writing later.

Intersecting writing with technology, I find it interesting that my son is trying to learn keyboarding, sort of bypassing one kind of hand movement for another. I think many children must be doing this. He’s taking a keyboarding short class in school, so we’ll see how this goes.
One tech issue that bugs me is that my Bluetooth mouse from Rad Technology doesn’t work as well as I thought. It does not connect consistently and I have to keep reinstalling the software. My brother said he had some problem with his Bluetooth mouse. So I am wondering if Bluetooth technology is more buggy than I thought.

And, hello to my brother out in Microsoft land who emailed that he’s read this blog, which is great! But now I can’t say anything bad about the xBox he gave to his nephew for his birthday last summer! Actually, the xBox is a lot of fun, but a little addicting. It has made our son rather popular among his friends. I particularly like how the hard drive saves games. That has made playing Lego Star Wars II, with characters from the earlier game, more fun.

Finally, on technology…does anyone know of a good sponge mop for cleaning floors? I have yet to find one that doesn’t fall apart in some way. Or, when I want to purchase sponge replacements, they’re not available because the mop model is outdated.