Day 183: Conversations With Calen

So we're at dinner and Calen is playing with a "computer" he drew on a sheet of paper. I told him to leave his computer alone and eat his spaghetti. 

So he hit the X button on it ("because it turns the screen off, he says") and flips the paper over to the blank side. "See? The screen is off."

This sparked me trying to explain to the kids that when I was a kid, there weren't any cell phones (that weren't gigantic bricks). This was hard for them to understand, so here's how the conversation went. 

Me: "When I was a kid, there weren't any cell phones at all."

Calen: "Because you didn't have a job and couldn't buy one?.....Well, I guess you still don't have a job. You're just a...normal person that's just here." 

*Thanks? I guess? Be sure to tell your wife that in 20 years at the end of the day after taking care of kids all day and see what happens. I'm not responsible for injury or death.*

Me: "No the reason I didn't have one is not because I didn't have a job, it's because they didn't exist."

Confused looks from both boys as spaghetti noodles hang out of their mouths. So I tried to explain it further.

Me: "Like, someone hadn't invented them yet."

Suddenly, Calen's eyeballs get humongous and he sits up straight.

"Wait, where you a kid with the cowboys?!"

And there you have it. Today's second graders think that cell phones were invented in the Wild West, and I'm old enough to have lived to see it. 

Calen's computer. Complete with Lego ninja game. That he's winning, of course.

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