Leilani started to play computer games recently: I had been sick with the worst cold I have ever had since I am an adult, almost 3 weeks of totally stuffy nose, throat and headache, cough… worst of all no energy to move, it made me tired to walk to the neighbors house and back, or even up the stairs. Andy watched Leilani most the time, and when it was my turn, I had no energy to chase her around, and no voice to read to her, so there was a lot of DVD watching and computer (practice) games. Click here and watch some fireworks, make the goldfish swim left and right and leap out his bowl, scratch the kitty – all teaching her to move the mouse pointer.
But as of today, her new favorite game called Kwala’s Birthday involves double clicking, drag and drop, and precise positioning:
She is working very focused, and the expression on her face shows it too.
Hard work. Notice the left hand gripping the keyboard shelf…
The game starts out with an empty room that needs some birthday decorations:
Curtains, tablecloth and wall border as well as the center cake are put in the right place with just a click, but all the other items have to be taken off the shelf and draged to exactly the right location:
After it’s all finished Leilani clicks on the blue phone and watches how Boowa and Kwala are praising her decorations. She also learned quickly how to click the “Start Over” button afterwards.
She got more and more coordinated – and more color coordinated too – the longer she played. Funny thing about the hovering blue bottle: I watched her place the bottle like a balloon above the table and told her to put it on the table – I thought she wouldn’t know how to grab it again with the mouse and did it for her. Leilani gave me a blank look, grabed the bottle one more time, put it exactly in the same spot where it had been before I interfered, took a second one off the virtual shelf, and placed it where I had put it before. She looked at me again, and smiled…
With movies and books Leilani is a lot more scared now, and also anticipates scary situations (Andy adds: because I think she understands the stories better now). I need to fast forward through a lot of scenes in Nemo (sometimes a minute before anything scary starts), and hold her during others. When we read Peter Pan for the first time recently we only got to the page where Tinkerbell tells Captain Hook where the hideout is, and the picture shows a frightened and surprised Wendy and the mean looking Pirates… Leilani said it was too scary and was very happy when we switched to Winnie the Pooh. Her new favorites are the Dr Seuss books, especially the Cat in the Hat Comes Back, and Hop on Pop (should I be worried about that last one). Cinderella is still going strong, and Arielle the mermaid is coming up… It’s funny, from Christmas until just a week ago she wanted to hear Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer over and over again, and also listened to the corresponding songs ad nauseam (mine not hers) – and from one day to the other it’s over (and no, we have not taken the Christmas tree down yet :-). Her new song of choice is “Haeschen in der Grube” about a sick bunny, that’s sitting and sleeping, and then the doctor gives it medicine and it gets healthy again.
Her cough is not 100% gone, but a lot better, so we let her in the ocean again. Her nose is still runny, but it doesn’t seen to bother her. She seems to be done with one molar, still 3 to go though. Maybe that’s what’s making her nose runny?
I had wanted to install new software called iLife ’08 on my Mac for a while, which would update iMovie, the movie making software I used on most my home movies. Having worked with Computers for a long time, I knew not to expect to be able to finish my started movie projects with the new version of iMovie, so I spend most of the last week’s sick time finishing up old, unfinished projects. It was fun and resulted in 2 new DVDs. Leilani got to watch lots of her old movies too. Once I upgraded I also found out that I had been right – the intro proudly announced it “can import movies that were made with older versions of iMovie” but much later and quieter said “it will delete all transitions and all music and all added sound,” in other words all the work of making a movie. I was pretty happy that I had the right foresight. So far the new software works great, only the new photo organizing software (iPhoto) does not live up to my expectations (but is still a lot better than the old version).
Yesterday I felt better and we went to Lydgate for a while, and today we discussed where we wanted to go swimming. Hanalei was mentioned among many other places, and Leilani told us she wanted to see the dragon. Then she started singing “Puff the magic dragon, lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Hanalei…” (I find it incredible that she can memorize words and sentences that she probably doesn’t understand—they must just be sounds to her). I showed her photos of the Hanalei mountain ridge that looks like a dragon – she said she wanted to see a REAL dragon and was disappointed that there was none. Then we read the surf report and told her about the big waves on the north shore, so we all agreed that Poipu would be the place to go.
We snorkeled while Leilani napped, and later she got to play in the sand and climbed on rocks and threw lots of coral pebbles in tidal puddles. We aso had a picnic at the beach (but forgot the camera in the car). Leilani told us she wanted to go surfing(on a body-board we found at Lydgate one time), but we told her she needs smaller waves to practice. She is pretty brave playing in the water and doesn’t mind the waves, but still does not put her head under water, and can’t really swim (she did float with her dolphin tube today for about a minute but was very tense about it eventhough I held her firmly the whole time).
In other news, the guy who broke my video camera still has not paid me, even though I have a judgement against him. I am pretty upset, and need to take him to court again I think for garnishment.
