Erin likes spending time doing her own thing. In the winter, when the rest of the house is cold, she likes to do it in our common space, but she would happily lie undisturbed on the couch in the corner of the living room reading and computering for hours and hours. If I try to draw her out, I'm not welcome. She will shut Noah and Sophie down just as quickly. But this little one, Fiona, can get right into Erin's private bubble. And pretty soon what might otherwise be a surly withdrawn teen becomes a giggling tickling manic sister to a four-year-old.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Inside her bubble
Erin likes spending time doing her own thing. In the winter, when the rest of the house is cold, she likes to do it in our common space, but she would happily lie undisturbed on the couch in the corner of the living room reading and computering for hours and hours. If I try to draw her out, I'm not welcome. She will shut Noah and Sophie down just as quickly. But this little one, Fiona, can get right into Erin's private bubble. And pretty soon what might otherwise be a surly withdrawn teen becomes a giggling tickling manic sister to a four-year-old.
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It looks like great fun, too!
ReplyDeleteWe have the same experience with our 14 year old. His 22 year old sister can enter his private "bubble" easily and gracefully, whereas he shuts us out of it with one-word answers to questions, and sighs that indicate that we are interrupting important ponderings.
I love watching special relationships like that developing between sibs.
ReplyDeleteYou have several computers around the house then?
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, yes, we have several computers. The dad-guy has two in his desk/office area, a laptop and a desktop, both ostensibly for medical use though even he will admit he uses them for other things as well. There's one "Kids' Computer" which the children share. With four kids who do all their learning in a home-based situation, two of whom are part of an on-line homeschooling program, one of whom is passionate about programming, we're pretty reliant on computers for them. The one computer often isn't enough for them. Then I have my own computer, which I use for this blog, for music arranging, accounting, tax prep, homeschool reporting for my middle two kids, and for web-design and web-publishing work I do for various non-profit groups. It's not fast or flashy, but it does what I need and sometimes I let a kid on it to do something specific that's educational. And then we have the hand-me-down laptop that you see Erin using. It's pretty old and doesn't run much, but it does have a web-browser and a network card, so it's good for Erin's writing (she often writes for 6 or more hours a day) and as our travel computer when we're in Calgary or on holiday. So all told there are five computers in our house, though two of them are Chuck's and aren't used by anyone else. There are two decent ones and a clunker between me and the four kids.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand we have one very small television screen and no video game systems.