After about half an hour, he re-appeared and informed me "Your keyboard is on the way. It's attached to a new laptop."
He knows I hate that thing - bad video card, lousy memory, and the keyboard - and apparently had found a good deal.
So today, the new laptop arrived in the mail.
I should be thrilled. I really should. I feel guilty that I'm not. But all I can think about is what a flipping pain in the ass it is to change everything over to the new computer. Mind you, this is with most of the files on a 500 gig external hard drive and 'moving' that is a matter of unplugging it from one computer and plugging it into the other.
The husbeast, of course, is geeking out all over it and has apparently gone off and bought himself another - at a very good deal - to replace his own laptop.
So I get my dream, to beat the old computer to death with a ten pound sledge hammer. I'm sure I'll take photos and post them.
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Still knitting on assorted little things I want done before I leave for Florida, I think Sunday will be the day. Pretty sure. (I'm not big on schedules. I'm sure no one noticed.) One more baby booty to sew up, some more wet blocking to do, and it's all in the mail. Yay.
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There have been several studies showing that children who grow up with books in the house are smarter. (I wonder about cause and effect in these studies. A whole lot.) The newest claims (I'm not convinced) are that for every five books the kid's IQ goes up ten points or something.
So I guess I'm raising Einstein. The hair's right, anyway.
14 comments:
I'm about to have a niece born any day now into a house without books and my heart breaks for her.
I will totally agree that kids in houses with books are generally smarter (and more imaginative, too), but I also question the "10 points per 5 books" thing. If it were true, my IQ would be totally off the chart. :) While I am reasonably smart, I am not MENSA material.
Yeah, we're out of bookshelf space for the kid books. Again.
When I was getting my second degree about ten years ago I wrote an article for the school newspaper on a program by the ed dept for students to read to preschoolers. Anyway, the professor running the program said there are actually kids who get to kindergarten who have no idea which way to hold a book because they haven't been exposed to them. I can't even imagine.
And when we were looking at houses, I always marveled at the ones with no books in sight. What on EARTH must those people be like??
I simply can't imagine a house or life without books on shelves, stacked on the floor, sliding off tables. I've even had a writing teacher say that I must have read to my children a lot when I was dramatically telling a story. She confessed that she hadn't read to her kids. What did she think writing was for if not to read to people?
Suddenly the Goob looks like a kid instead of a baby. Too soon. Of course my baby is 27.
We've never had enough bookshelf space in our house - ever. No matter how tight money was, the kids always had books. I believe it makes a huge difference.
I'm with you on the laptop changeover. The last new one I got took me nearly 2 months to change over to just because it is such a pain. Hope you quickly get to enjoying the new one!
I totally get that 'I don't want better, I want normal' thing... is it really age?
Yeah... if my kids were that much smarter for every ten books, I'd be raising scary geniuses. Ladybug ran into a door tonight because we all made a scary noise in the living room, so I don't think that's happening.
I'm totally with you on the moving stuff to a new computer... my new one arrived today and it's not *too* bad... But I'm very appreciative that the old thing only had 40 gigs of memory!
*chuckles* when I was growing up, I flatly refused to leave the house without a book. Like so many others, I should be a genius with all the books I grew up with but I'm certainly not up to that level. Maybe they should put a theoretical limit on how high being raised with books can improve a child's intellect?
I'm with you - I don't like changing stuff.
If books alone raise the IQ, maybe that's why I'm living with a kid who reads faster than I do!
(There are very few adults who read as fast as I do, so it rocked me back when we were reading together and he was turning the pages before I was done.)
I didn't get a new computer, just updated the software and that was traumatic enough. Getting used to new sucks.
I have always wondered what people who don't read do with their time? I always had a book (or two or three) and we are always short of shelf space. Thank goodness the library has a book sale for us to donate to, although we bring home as many books as we donate....
I don't have any shelf space left either. and I'm sure books around = smarter kids. I'm not sure its a quantifiable amount though. If it were 10 points per 5 books, I suspect we'd all be geniuses...
I don't think it's an osmotic effect. I think you have to actually take the books down and read to the kid. And the kid has to see you read for your own pleasure. Books in the house are great. Why not buy the ones I've written about a knitting sorceress? (Shameless self advertising is mandatory for self-published authors )
If that ratio is true, we have over 1000 cook books (the rest we don't bother to count, we just regard them as household insulation) and my boys should be brilliant or at least great chefs.
verification? traporia - the place we put the books that don't fit a category.
But I don't see any yarn.
Oh well -- my mom didn't have any yarn lying around -- she was a tomboy -- but we did have books. And library cards. And a dad whose Sunday treat was taking us to the best newsstand in town and letting us buy anything we wanted to read until the tab hit $20. This was the 70's, y'all.
Everyone reads today, and the kids are surrounded by books.
Still -- I can't help but think that a bit of yarn -- and sporting equipment -- help boost the IQ as well!
Would that mean that if you grow up with a lot of pianos around you'll learn to read music?
I worry about those studies too ...
In any case, I'm sure you're raising an Einstein because you appreciate that teaching her how to think, and part of intelligent thinking is to question stupid 'studies'.
I think it's teaching the love of reading that's important, not the number of books. But you can't love reading and not have a lot of books, can you?
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