Bow Blows His Nose

I was in the outer pen with Bow this afternoon, and he saw me texting. Observing what I was doing, he tried to select one of the letters in the touchscreen keyboard, too. I was of two minds about this. I really didn't want him butting into my conversation, on the one hand, but on the other hand, this is exactly the sort of behavior I want to foster in him, to prove that he is literate.

 As it happened, when I let him try, the letter he selected did not actually register. I'm not surprised, because it is taking a lot of practice for me to master this new form of communication, too. It's not as if I can type whatever I want to with no struggle, Half the time it wants to correct everything I type and turn it into something else. And the other half, I can't seem to hit the letter I meant to type, but miss and get an adjoining letter.

The odd thing is that this smartphone is so smart, that it is now learning to anticipate what I meant to say using  the Hebrew transliterations of EKTB EOBRI. This is good for ease of communication, but really bad for using a phone to prove that someone can spell -- someone like Bow.

So far, what Bow is really using his hands to do with the iPhone is to mime what he wants me to do with it, but then leave it up to me to actually press the key hard enough so it will register. So it turned out he really didn't want to text. He wanted me to go back to the main menu, and from there to the camera.  He pointed where he wanted me to press, and then I pressed. It's almost as if he is being a gentleman and asking me to do what he wants, but not demanding it. What Bow really wanted to do is take some more selfies.  And then he wanted to go back in, and he took my key and tried to turn it in the lock that leads to the inner pen, but he didn't try very hard, turning it back over to me, so I could open the door for him.

And then we were in the airlock, between the outside and the inside, and Bow decided it was a good time to take a few more selfies.

Then he took the kleenex that I had tucked into my shirt and started to use it to blow his nose.

He blew his nose very loudly. And then he gave me back the used tissue.

Bow knows what to do with an iPhone, a key and with facial tissue. But in many cases he would rather mime the usage that actually do it himself .