Gathering Around the Glow of the XO

This computer was a gift to the boys from my Aunt Gee-Gee. It's rightful heir was the little tyke staring intently at the screen, but his parents deemed his attention span too short for that sort of thing and so it was offered to my three. It's an educational computer that uses all open-source software. Max has discovered a few of its limits, but I'm encouraging him to google all he can on the computer to see if he can eventually get a few of the websites he likes to work. We think we downloaded a version of flashplayer but we don't know how to get it installed and working. It's Linus-based operating system is foreign to us.

So I suggested that for now we just use it as it was intended--instead of trying to make it like a computer he already knew--to just accept it as an entirely new kind of computer. And we are making ground that way. He has already composed a few melodies using its music-making software, and the twins have spent literally hours video-taping themselves with its built in camera (sorry, we don't know how to send these anywhere else, or even what kind of format they're saved in). Ben and Milo have sore abdominal muscles from laughing hysterically at themselves. Milo has also used the music software.

We do know there is a way to upload the word processing files to a site that will save them in a format that his teacher can receive. We will master this when the need arises. Many thanks to Aunt Gee-Gee for her generosity and to Cousin A, who took the picture and thought of suggesting my kids as a recipient.

Today we had a quiet Sunday. Ben, Milo, and I headed off to church and left the coughing and hacking Max and the confuzzled and snot-ridden Chris at home. They looked very handsome in their new white shirts and ties. Hopefully by next Sunday I'll have their new pants hemmed and they'll look snazzy indeed. I realized as I got them dressed that I'd forgotten about their church shoes. I probably won't get that fixed until Easter now.

By dinner time Chris had showered and shaved and taken dayquil, so since it was our turn to feed the missionaries, he went and got them and managed to stay upright and conscious for the whole time they were here. Right now he's on the couch attempting to read the human resources manual of his new company, but I'm guessing he'll be reading it again tomorrow.

I'm grateful for two more days of Christmas vacation. I really like having the kids around and I've really liked the opportunity to sleep in, nap, and go to bed early, LOL. I tend to be sort of chronically sleep deprived and I can say I have definitely NOT been sleep deprived this week. What's the opposite of sleep deprivation? Sleep abundance? I wish you could store extra sleep for use later. I'd feel much better if I could know the extra sleep could be stashed away for future use.