Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Reading and Fixing

Obviously Lilly is a smart little cookie. But sometimes she surprises even me.

She watches Baby Signing Time videos occasionally to learn signs, which are taught with catchy little songs. When she flips through her dvd book, she points to the Elmo ones and signs or says "Elmo" and then points to the Baby Signing Time dvds and signs or says "Baby" and/or "Time." There is no picture on the Signing Time dvd, just the words, but I figured she's seen it enough so she knows what her favorite dvd's look like.

Well yesterday she accidentally ran into the bike that she's getting for Christmas (not the kind with pedals, but the kind where they scoot around with their feet), which I had forgotten to hide, and she was so excited, signing and saying bike. Then she looked at the tag, which said "Baby Factory" (the NZ store that's like a tiny version of Babies R US) and signed "Baby." Seriously? She can sight read the word "Baby"?

I was kind of shocked, but she kept pointing to the tag and signing it, so I guess maybe she can read, at least that one word. Crazy huh?! Guess we're doing something, right, but wish I knew what it was so we could keep doing it!

In other news, we had a major catastrophe yesterday. Lilly's favorite thing in the whole world, her portable dvd player, died. It's not just a dvd player to her - it's her security blanket, the thing that makes her happier than anything else in her life, including her parents. It doesn't even have to be on, she just wants it near her (although obviously she prefers it on). We got it for the move over, since it has a 12 hour battery (and the flight is 12 hours, so it was for the "just in case she's so crazy that we need to entertain her the entire time" scenario). And while she has a Baby (Cabbage Patch) that she loves, and toys she prefers, this dvd player wins the contest hands down as being her favorite thing ever - she even waves "bye bye" to it when we turn it off.

Anyways, when I picked her up from school yesterday, we had to run some errands on the way home, so I brought it along for a nice surprise in the car. When we got back in the car from picking up milk, she sat in her seat, expectantly waiting for it to turn on. But all we got was an "Error Ho3" across the screen. I kept turning it off and on, with no success. Luckily she was eating a Gingerbread man and was slightly distracted, but was really annoyed when I put it away and got in the front seat. I mean, while she doesn't usually have it in the car, if it IS in fact in the car it should be on and entertaining her, correct? (In her mind, at least.) But I turned on the High School Musical 3 soundtrack and she survived the ride home.

I was seriously worried though. What would we do without this thing in her life? I mean, she *named* him. She calls him LaLa. We can't survive a long drive or plane ride without him. Plus, he's irreplaceable, at least, for now. You see, US dvd players have a region code of 1, and they will only play US dvd's with that code. The dvd players in NZ have a region code of 4, and will only play NZ/Australia dvds. So, if we got a new dvd player in NZ, it wouldn't play all her dvd's that we brought from the US. Plus, it would be twice as expensive, because everything costs more here. So I had to figure out a way to fix it.

Once Jon got home, I took apart the entire dvd player, and with the help of a few websites dedicated to fixing these things, figured out that the motor was stuck and I just had jiggle a few things before it was actually working again. Of course, I had to take it apart and put it back together (including unscrewing and rescrewing the 13 screws) about 5 times in order to finally get it to work. But wow, I can't believe I could actually fix something electronic!

So, it was a good day for Lilly and her mommy. Lilly can read (1 word) and her mommy is applying for jobs at the Sesame Street Fix-It Shop. How hard can it be to fix a toaster, anyhow?

3 comments:

Robyn said...

You performed surgery on LaLa! Well done. I'm very impressed.

Heather said...

What a brilliant girl! (but we already knew that...right?)And you! I am just impressed with the Shermans today.

Anonymous said...

And I didn't have to walk you through it (like the garbage disposal)!! Tristan is my fix-it boy, and you can be my fix-it girl. Love you,
Dad