Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Raising Engineers


Ok. I was raised by an engineer (dad), married an engineer (b) and have somehow spawned an engineer daughter (chloe). EEEK! It is a complication only because my brain is sooo the opposite. I cant even tell you how many hours my dad would spend trying to get me to learn how things worked... the plant he works at, etc.. Even math is a horrible subject for me. So linear, so unfriendly. Don't misundestand. I love Chloe lots and lots and lots, but I can't follow that side of the road. However, I can certainly recognize it.

Background to this story- Chloe teethed on floppy disks, cds and watched her daddy do computer stuff for hours and hours. She can recognize the hard drive, mouse, web address bar, etc.. She helps B take apart cpu's and laptops and put them back together. She understands a lot, needles to say due to her upbringing. *smile* So, what happened this morning was none other than a continuation of it, but it somehow surprised Brian, upset him, and made him proud all at the same time.

Here goes:
Im half conscious and hear:
*knock knock knock*
me:
who is it?
Chloe: Eva, NO! Dont do it!"
Eva: Yes.
*whack followed by the sound of my second daughter letting out a piercing scream*
Me: GIRLS!
*no answer*
Me: BRIAN! Something is going on out there! Chloe just hit Eva!
( To my defense for not doing something, I was feeding Gabe at the time)

As
Brian ushered the girls back to their room to finish sleeping for the night (for a second time), I hear: sudden Chloe screaming
I see: Bran return to our room with his laptop, writing tablet, mouse and keyboard.
Me: Should I ask what happened?

What happened was Chloe, not feeling well and not able to sleep, wanted to watch a movie in her room like I do when I'm not feeling well. So, she took Brians laptop from the kitchen-all hooked up and turned off- and relocated the whole schpeal into her room. Apparently, she had done all this in desire of watching a Jesus movie. Ironic. But, it was too scratched and wouldn't play (so she had it turned on, logged in, and inserted CDs into the DVD ROM), and had put in Pocahontas to watch it instead when Eva went to tattle on her. Interesting.

What's hilarious about this? I can hardly be very angry. She's doing what comes to her naturally, what makes sense, and fixing her own problems. What's bad about that in and of itself? She's being just like her daddy. And he, when he was little was just like this: taking apart his moms computer while she was at work. His defense to that? I was not 4. I was 12. And I'm stilll smiling because what does this event tell me? My daughter pays excellent attention when she wants, and she knows Jesus brings her mind and body peace when she listens to stories or music about him. What's not to be proud about?

After recounting the tale to me Brian says, "I bet that will make the blog, won't it?"

Yes.... it did. *smile*

3 comments:

Nichole Christensen said...

I love those comments from husbands... "I bet this will make the blog" or "Uh oh.. Here's another blog story" are the best. I love that she was trying to watch a movie about Jesus. She is so adorable!

Unknown said...

I love these sorts of things - where you can see how much they're learning and everything, even if they're not applying it quite how you'd like, LOL... what a smart little cutie! :-)

Mom Richter said...

Way to go Chloe! Brian remember what Grandma Shiple used to say "what goes around comes around!". And Brian the only reason why you were 12 and not 4 is because we didn't have the computer when you were 4! But if my memory serves me right you took apart lots of other things to see how they worked when you were younger than 12!