Ars Brevis

This warm September afternoon, Joy was playing on the computer.  She's come a long way from the "click and pull" revelation of January-before-last, to the point that she navigates all over the place, very competently.  Sometimes she even likes the navigating better than the content at any given page!

I was working on my laptop nearby, but not quite paying enough attention to notice that there was some ball-point pen usage going on in addition to the computer games.  When it was time to go upstairs, suddenly I noticed that Joy had scribbled all over one of her shorts-clad legs.

Since I haven't been in blogging mode and don't post much about Joy on Facebook, taking a photo didn't cross my mind.  Instead my thoughts went immediately to strategies for cleaning up, given that I hadn't planned a bath for this evening.  I was inordinately proud at my success in making clean-up an interactive game on the couch, scrubbing with a wipe and then waiting for Joy to prompt me to scrub again.

It wasn't till the pen-marks were all gone that it hit me.

Could I remember one single time where Joy had picked up a pen and drawn something, ANYTHING, on her own with no prompting from a parent or sister or anyone?

No, I couldn't.  Not other than iPad drawing games.  I asked JoyDad, he couldn't either.

Her very first unprompted pen-and-ink drawing... and I had effaced it almost immediately, with not so much as a photo for the record.

Art is fleeting.

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(As I'm typing this, I look up at the computer where she's game-playing again... and it's a "Peg & Cat" drawing program.)

Iconic Video

Long time no post -- life is busy, mostly in good ways.  Joy is ten years old now, and almost done with her third grade year.

I've been posting FB-sized bits and pieces on the Elvis Sightings Facebook page, but every once in a while a tidbit comes up that just cries out for a blog post.

Like Joy's video choice-making.

Two years ago, I posted about how Joy was making video choices via the ProLoQuo program on her iPad.  We'd taken photos of a bunch of her video boxes to put into the program, and she could choose by tapping the resulting photo icons.

Well, we've moved to the point where she's got a little more direct independence than that.  She now has access to the video shelves directly, so she can look at all the videos and pick one off the shelf.  She still has to bring it to another family member to get it started, but the intermediate ProLoQuo step has disappeared (and she can now verbalize "I want vid-ee-oh PLEASE!")

Even back when she was choosing with ProLoQuo, though, she'd inspect the video box, flipping it to the back cover to inspect the little stills on the back -- most of the video-box-backs have two or three screenshots like the white-bordered ones below.

Then after examining to her satisfaction, she'd give one of the screenshots a decisive finger-bop before handing the box over to get her video.

I don't know why it took me till now to figure out...

that she's generalizing the ProLoQuo/PECs icon selection to the physical video box!

Tap an icon to choose.

What a clever, clever young lady.