Summer Camp

"Aim for the Stars" is the name of the Lego Robotics camp at the local university that Maya (aged 9, our fourth daughter) was excited to attend when she got the paperwork at school last May. Sunday night, before the start of the week-long camp, she was filled with dread at the prospect of actually attending it.

I hate this part of parenthood.

Do you make her go? Do you let her off the hook because she's scared? (And forfeit the non-refundable $160-payment you've made.)

It's not like I haven't had experience at this. You would think that I should be pretty well equipped to handle this stuff.

Let us review...

I spent almost a year with my eldest (now 21) when she was three years old and dying to be a ballerina, deciding whether to make her go to dance lessons. I did make her go (well, half of the time). Twenty years later, a quite accomplished ballerina, in a heartfelt moment, summing up all of her life to that point, she thanked me for making her go to dance class early on and couldn't even really imagine not having danced all her life.

I let my second daughter skip out of soccer. Not only did she not take to it, but also the other parents had the worst potty mouths! I couldn't believe my ears at most of the games. Anyway, this one ended up a ballerina, too. And a beautiful one she was.

Next we have our third daughter. She doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do. If you can make her do anything, I tip my hat to you. I've known her since she was born, and I defy anyone to cajole, bribe, threaten, or blackmail her to do anything. So, in a sense, she was easy. I don't make her do anything. It seems to work for all of us.

Then there's Maya. She's the baby. She still needs to explore things, try things, find what she likes. Hence, the camp. It promised to wed playing with toys and programming the computer. Here she is coming out on the first day:

I wished I had been the parent of the boy in front of her. (Not really.)

She hated it. It was boring. It was hard. No one helped her. There were no potential friends. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. (What movie was that from?)

So, Monday night, I called the director of the program and told her Maya's findings at the robotics camp. The director assured me that she would contact Maya's teacher and get her some extra attention and even move her to another subject, more to her liking, after trying a second day at the camp.

Ok, Maya, here's the plan. You go one more day and see how it goes.

Kicking and screaming, she goes.

I cross my fingers on Tuesday when I go to pick her up.

Same deal.

She hates it. She is bored.

So, daunted by the thought of half an hour in the car on Wednesday morning with a sobbing child, I relented and told her she didn't have to go anymore.

What stuck in my craw was that she had left a rather nice lunchbox on Tuesday. Since I was in the area on Thursday, I stopped in to pick it up. I ran into her teacher.

"Oh, is Maya alright? Is she sick?"

No, she's throwing fits so I didn't make her come.

"We miss her! She had a bit of a frustrating day on Monday, but, by Tuesday, she was helping the other girls and showed a predisposition for programming."

What a stinker. I had no idea of any of this.

The gig was up.

I made her attend Friday, the last day of the camp, and she had a really good time. Here she is with Dad, both wearing their badges.

Thank goodness she's the last one. I'm really tired of figuring this stuff out.

And To Think I Was Going To Delete These

After all the tedium of switching over to a new computer, it's time to see what this new puppy can do.

Well, to really explore all the bells and whistles of an application like, say, iPhoto, let your eight-year-old have a little quality time with it. Here's what mine came up with:

Hey! I didn't know you could take a picture of your eye and see it four different(?) ways! Wow!!!

Or, how about this one? Somehow she manages to get the audio/video recorder working, get the lyrics and moves up on the screen (my computer does karaoke duty) and dance around my desk, sometimes perilously close to my brand new 24" iMac. (It goes to show that you don't need to know the words to sing a song.)

(If you can't see the video, and you want to, please click here to go to the original: http://www.doublekfarms.blogspot.com...it's worth it!)

The Apple of My Eye

As a part-time web designer, I, of course, work on a Mac. The iMac from about 2005 that I have (a dinosaur in computer time) died a slow and painful death about a month ago. All was backed up by Hubby on his server in the basement, once again making me really feel for people who don't have a computer genius in the house.

After combing craigslist for nearly new Macs, and with a birthday coming up, we decided I could splurge on a brand new iMac. I ordered the 24-inch screen, 4 gigs of memory (I'm a memory hog when I work), loads of other things that don't matter as much, and got a free printer thrown in with the deal. Oh, joy!

This was September 26th.

I calculated the arrival to be on September 30th. Instead of a delivery, I received the first of many phone calls from Kevin at MacMall.

"I'm sorry, but we are out of iMacs and Mac Minis because Apple is rumored to be announcing upgrades of these computers."

A bit of clarification -- unlike most companies which continue to produce an item and simply add a new item to their inventory, Apple stops manufacturing the model that it is planning to unveil in a new and improved version. Those models disappear from Apple stores and, unfortunately, from Kevin at MacMall. Then, everyone speculates about when Apple will roll out the newbies. So, I got caught up in the vortex of swirling anticipation that Steve Jobs creates every time he has a new release. After all, the new one is reported to be totally awesome and less expensive. All I have to do is be a little patient.

"Apple usually rolls out a new version of a model every 203 days. It's been 227 days for the iMac and the last upgrade didn't do much to improve, so, they must be coming out with something soon."

This is the kind of hard-hitting, reliable intel you can get from the myriad Mac Rumor sites.

"They always announce a new release on Tuesdays."

"No, this year, it's going to be on Wednesday, October 7th."

October 7th came and went very quietly.

"Now they're saying October 9th."

Also quiet.

"Well, let's go back to the Tuesday idea -- October 13th."

Nothing.

After much discussion with Kevin (who has Mac colleagues, another dependable source of information), and dovetailing with the Tuesday idea, we decide that it must be October 20th. Another reason that it's got to be this time is that Microsoft is releasing a new version of it's operating system this week and Apple wants to steal their thunder.

Guess what happened yesterday, October 19th? Our friendly UPS driver delivered an "old" iMac to my house.

Hmm...I am both excited and angry. I was waiting patiently! What are they doing sending me the computer I ordered?

I call Kevin.

Me: "How can this be? I thought there weren't any more 'old' iMacs."

Kevin: "Don't open it" he says conspiratorily. "They're going to announce tomorrow."

So, today is D-Day, or, should I say "A-Day".

Think of me when they make the announcement on the news, or don't.