New computer for Madison

Madison's new computer arrived on Friday, with great fanfare and a flourish by the UPS guy. She was really excited when she saw the UPS guy lugging this big box up the front lawn: This was to replace the computer she'd been using, a Win 98 clunker from the early Axton days that died recently. I had gotten a great deal at Dell, and they delivered it within 4 days.

Saturday morning, I set it up. There's nothing, to a geek like me, like fiddling with all of the wires on a new PC while your husband feeds the kids breakfast. It's just heaven. I even got to go to Circuit City because I'd forgotten to order one of those newfangled printer cables...of course I ended up buying a print server there too, to make it easier, and some new computer games for the kids...

As soon as I got it out of the box, I learned the reasons behind Madison's excitement at seeing it on Friday. It wasn't the computer, of course, it was the BOX. She spent much of Saturday, while I fiddled around getting her stuff set up, playing "Girl-in-the-Box." (It's just like a giant jack-in-the-box but with a 6-year-old instead of Jack in there, and you have to knock instead of crank. The Girl-in-the-Box pops out with different pronouncements depending on how many times you knock.)

At Circuit City, I got Madison a Nancy Drew computer game, and although it's for 10-and-up, she spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday obsessed with it. It's one of those search-for-clues-to-solve-the-mystery games, and darned if there isn't any answer book! Or answers on the internet! It's humbling, I tell you. I'm only slightly better at it than her, and I really want to figure out how to get open the antique box. Her "three special keys" alone don't seem to do it.