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December 26, 2009 –

So another holiday season passes, the kids are another year older, and unless you are Amish or live in a creepy, isolated community, like the one in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village”, it is likely that at least one technology-related gift made it’s way onto your child’s list this year; if not several. Thus was the case in our house. ¹

First off, I suppose it was a decent Christmas for me as well, since I was able to upgrade my own stone-aged 1st generation iPod Nano (whopping 2 GB of storage) to a much more technologically advanced model. It didn’t cost me a cent either, since my “new” iPod is actually Josh’s “old” iPod, his Christmas gift two years ago, a 3rd generation Nano with a colossal 8 GB—all mine! And Josh’s replacement? The iPod Touch, of course; the Alpha and Omega of MP3 players, serving up Internet connectivity and a dizzying array of little “apps” that make you wonder how you ever functioned properly without them. Oh, and it also plays music. Ben got one too, which at first blush seems excessive for an eleven year old, however in truth he’s probably one of the last kids in his 6th grade class to get one, so from that perspective his long, “app-less” suffering is finally over. Now I just need to get over the idea of the children tossing their electronic hand-me-downs to the adults in our household, and I’m ready to face this brave new world head-on.

While lamenting the simple days of our youth, long before YouTube, Twitter, before even computers in fact—where the most questionable thing we could ask for might actually be that Daisy Red Rider BB gun, I suppose the ever increasing popularity of these amazing electronic gadgets with our kids is better than such perilous counterparts, although the silly M-16 rifle app that Ben loaded within minutes of unpacking his Touch sounds as if it could actually put out more than just someone’s eye. His mother and I promptly ordered him to get rid of it, which he did, after which he promptly set about password protecting his iPod, which for me, typifies a danger far worse than a stray BB flying around your backyard: All these new portable devices are dependant upon the Internet to really make them go. They connect as quickly and easily as possible – no hassles, just a simple unsecured Wifi connection, and our little ones now have an ultra-portable means to unfettered access to the best and unfortunately the absolute worst Mankind can offer: The Internet. Just as I was finally getting the hang of the family PC with parental controls on it – now this!

But take heart, for I’m certain there are plenty of online resources available that will instruct the ranks of us concerned parents in the subtleties of iPod lock-down. I might get a chance to search them out, too, if I could only get some time on the computer, but since yesterday both boys have been clamoring for the computer so they can burn through their $100 in iTunes gift cards that accompanied their handhelds. At this rate I’ll be lucky if get in front of the thing by this spring.

Thank goodness we have a five year old in the mix to balance out the relentless advance of technology among the teens and tweens in our house. Although Noah’s older brothers have shown him how to play a mean Mario Cart and Kirby on the Wii console (last year’s gift), his first love is still Legos. My only issue is the inevitable Lego Diaspora—when the $120 sophisticated Lego action set you sprung for that took you a day to build ends up completely disassembled and in the generic Lego box in 2 weeks time. Seems like a waste of money to me, even though he will use all those cool proprietary Lego pieces to stimulate his imagination to even greater heights by creating new and original things, I’m still tempted to bust out the super glue next time I’m in a Lego set for more than a sawbuck, since the odds of these pieces ever finding their way back into their original configuration are completely nil.

In the car, to Grandmothers house we go, and both older boys have their heads down the entire ride, enthralled by their new iPods. Now is my chance to be Old School Guy:

“You know,” I say to the tops of their heads still looking down, “when your mother and I were kids, we didn’t have all of these devices, nothing even close. If we were lucky we had a good book, or we looked out the window at the scenery.”

(No response)

“Look at you two,” I continue to the void. “By the time you're ready to drive you won’t know how to get anywhere, since you’ve been staring at those little screens every time we go somewhere.”

“I don’t need to look up.” Ah hah, a response from Ben, although he’s still looking at the Touch screen. “I’ve already downloaded the GPS App. I know exactly where we are. And by the way, the cheapest gas is in Deep River today.”

Thanks Apple. Now I can’t even be crotchety!

¹ I may need to bring some of you up to speed here: While I’ve been including excerpts from They Call Me Wheels on this blog, those chapters focused on a time frame from a few years back. As of December 2009, Josh is now 15, Ben is 11, and Noah, our new arrival and the reason for the pregnancy test in the last chapter of Wheels, is now 5 – time flies…