Miss Mechanical

I had been looking for something to help organize our new computer center for awhile now, and I finally found a printer stand with a couple of drawers and places for paper. It's a cheapo thing, but just the size that I had wanted. It was cheap, probably, because it came completely disassembled with mostly useless instructions - the 4 images that showed the assembly were ok, but the diagrams showing how to differentiate the parts were way off scale and not accurate in description. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at figuring out this kind of puzzle, and after sorting out 21 pieces of similar looking bits of unmarked wood, and 45+ screws of three different sizes - I sat down on the floor to put the thing together.

Then Honor walked up and wanted a turn. Hmm? Well, I asked her to go get another set of screwdrivers, and with Dora the Explorer forgotten on the DVD, we got to work. First she used the little screwdriver to attach the back of the box. These were actually quite hard to do, but she started all 10 of these incredibly tiny screws and did a good job getting them part way in. All I had to do was tighten them down.
Then, as I figured out the drawers and got those started, Honor took the ratchet driver and put the two top pieces on.
It's two-handed work for a little girl...
but look at that concentration!
Ta-daa! Didn't we do a nice job? After I put the stand in place, Honor put things away properly in the drawers. No more desk clutter!
And if you notice, both computers are now loaded with Age of Mythology. Brian is still in love with this game, and now wants to figure out how to play multi-player. In order to find an opponent, Brian has resorted to teaching his little sister how to play. It's kind of neat to listen to them work together. Honor's reading is not quite up to this level of game play, but there is a lot that she can do from memory, and what she needs to read, she can ask... if it encourages her to work on her reading more, what's there to complain about?? Except, maybe, the fact that she's learning to pronounce things as her brother pronounces them... and he sometimes gets his pronunciations from his reading, and not asking! The kids, and a friend - another of Brian's AOM recruits - were discussing various strategies, as well as strengths and weaknesses of a number of God characters in the game this weekend. They were great with the actual gods' names - Ouranos, Chronos, Gaia, etc., as well as the names of the mythological creatures, like Pheonix, Centaur, etc. but when describing these gods and other characters, they weren't sure how to pronounce simple words, like minor. They kept using a Spanish 'en-yay' for the 'n'. We thought it might be 'minion'.. but that wasn't it either, they don't think. I'm still not sure what word they had, but who cares? Now we have a 7yo AND a 5yo (actually, we have 2 7yos, if you count in the friend) debating Greek, Norse and Egyptian mythological characters. Sure, it's in context of a computer game, and this isn't new with Brian, so why should I still be so tickled over the whole idea? Well, picture the two of them at the desk... Brian patiently explaining to Honor - her little legs dangling from the computer chair, toes not reaching the ground - how to build resources and other needed items in the game. It's too cute!

And now, the game area is much neater, thanks to my helper. I used to love to help my dad work on things when I was young, and it seems Honor has that same need to get in there, grab some tools, and figure things out too. She did a great job. As Brian, and then her Daddy, each arrived home at different times, she ran to greet them at the door so she could drag them over to see our work. She was very proud of the work she did - and so am I.