The Miracle That is Technology

 

Hello readers! I Trust that you all had a magnificent Thanksgiving, and completely stuffed yourselves with all the high-calorie delicious food. Carpe diem right? But I digress.

With 10 years of babysitting under my belt I have acquired so many of the most hilarious and rewarding experiences with children. I have come to find that this generation is blessed and cursed to have the technology that they do.  They have HD TV, Wii, xbox, Kinect, and iPods, which let them take their music anywhere. On the one hand I say bravo! It’s  great that they have access to such advanced technology, and it allows them to get any kind of music or game to play almost instantly. But what is it doing to their imagination? I remember the days when mom would bring something home in a big box, and when it was empty,  I would just crawl on in with a box of crayons, and suddenly the box was a castle, a house, a fort, a kitchen, or whatever I wanted it to be! Games like the Wii are simulated to create pre-existing worlds that these kids play in. Even toys make the sound effects for them so the ever popular “Pew pew. Neeeeeeeaaah. Boom!” sounds no longer echo from play rooms.  In the case of music however, I think this new-found technology is a good thing. They constantly have access to it! It’s in their TV shows, toys, video games, CD players, but mostly the iPod which holds hundreds and thousands of songs!

This story is entirely devoted to the iPod, because without it, I would’ve not have survived this night. I had just started working for a new family with three kiddos. They were a well-off family, really nice people, and of course had the typical pool in the backyard, in-home movie theater(which took me months to figure out how to work), and flat screens everywhere. This was my first night on the job, and these kids gave me a run for my money. I was use to kids trying to push their luck and see where their boundaries were with me, but never like this. The youngest was by far my biggest challenge. At the time he was a year and a half, and barley speaking. But oooooooh how he loved to yell! Right in my face, for no apparent reason.

Nothing seemed to be working, he would just yell and scream if he didn’t get what he wanted, but he also couldn’t tell me what he wanted. It was a very frustrating process for the both of us. I remembered his dad saying something about “Taz” having and iPod, but I thought he was talking about some kind of toy. Nope. When “Taz” realized that screaming at me was not working, he ran over to an iPod doc, and low and behold there sat a beautiful iPod touch. I groaned with exasperation. How is it that an 18 month old had an iTouch, and I had the same iPod nano for the past 5 years? At any rate, I gave it to him and watched the magic unfold before me.  

His fingers flew across the apps  as he found the playlists, almost like he knew what he was looking for. Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the U.S.A.” came on and he immediately started dancing and clapping. Non only was he moving to the beat, but he knew every single word to that song, and articulated them well! Of course this made me laugh, but mostly relieved. I didn’t think much of it, because I figured it was a fluke that he found the song, and he probably just heard it playing from his mom’s iPod enough to know what the song was.  

After a couple of hours of peace I found his iPod laying around, so I picked it up and put it back to the main menu. A few minutes later he came toddling back in and gesturing towards the counter for it. I gave it to him more than willingly and again watched as his eyes flickered, and he made his way to the playlists. Another song started up, but he changed it almost instantly, again another song came on, and he changed it about 4 seconds into the song. This process continued until about 6 songs later Miley Cyrus once again began to blare through the speaker. The dancing, smiling, and clapping started up again. Taz had found the song again. 18 months old and he knew exactly how to navigate an iPod touch, what his favorite song sounded like, and every single word to that song. The mind of a child never ceases to amaze me.

Do you have any siblings, nieces, nephews, sons, daughters that have a favorite song?  What is it?

-Rosey