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Thursday, July 31, 2014

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 .

4 comments:

  1. I like the quality of the photos with the iphone. Maybe one day, but I found it would raise my Verizon rate. I am looking towards the day when my contract ends with Verizon and I can use an iphone.

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    1. Thanks, Julia. I like the quality of the photos, too, but not how long it takes to upload them. I have had to change my way of doing things, because some videos of two or three minutes now take hours to upload. I have some rabbit videos that I simply haven't been able to find the time to load.

      I am not a Luddite, and I do eventually embrace new technological developments, but there is always a price. I sometimes think that we are pursuing progress for its own sake, when what we should ask is: is this making life any easier? If not, scrap it.

      I was perfectly happy with my less clear photos so long as that was the best I could do, and they took less time to load and less space to store. When will we declare that our current standard is good enough and leave people time to master and enjoy what we already have?

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  2. I LOVE the picture of you and Bow smiling for the selfie! At least, he looks like he is smiling. Haha! What a happy picture! It's interesting that he is so curious about seeing his self portraits.

    That is very cool that he knows how to use a tissue too. Most kids don't even know the proper use of a tissue.

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    1. Thanks, Kathy. Bow does love to see pictures of himself and he will actually pose for the camera.

      Bow has always known how to blow his nose from an early age. I guess it comes from my wiping his nose for him when he had a cold and was just a baby.

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