The similarities between a toddler and a computer

I love my children.  I also love to work on my computer.  As a stay at home dad who needs to work or play on the computer I experience both of these loves daily.   I’ve learned that there are a couple similarities between my computer and my children including vaporware, expansion slot and more.

At some point they’ll both stop responding to basic commands

More than once a week my computer will just stop.  It probably happens to you too, the computer just stops responding to basic commands and freezes.  The computer will come back in a little while; it’s simply in a quiet place, looking over a field of diodes, circuits and wires.

Toddler Mojo was toiling around the house and he just stopped listening.    I asked him to do something simple like stop playing with the plugs in the electrical outlets.  “No”, I said.  He just looked at me sheepishly and went to another outlet.  “NO, I said, just a bit louder.  He then ran to another outlet with his arms flailing in the air as he yelled something.

Shortly after that the toddler was put down for a nap so he could reboot.

Drag and drop

Drag and drop with the mouse is engrained with our common sense.  Move the file to where you want it, easy peasy.

To a toddler drag and drop means take anything that’s in its rightful place and put it anywhere else.  Ever the entrepreneur, they’ve expounded on the term by throwing the object.  “Why is there a Lego block in the sink? “ is an example of this expansion.

This action figure does not go in the refrigerator and why are the Sesame Street characters all lined up like A Chorus Line?  In the later, Elmo and his friends were all in separate locations, but the 2-year old toddler mind felt like producing an off-off Broadway play.

Expansion slot

They both have an expansion slot.  In the computer it’s used to make room for new capabilities.  In the toddler it’s the diaper which expands many times daily.  This expansion will make them cry, grimace or stick their hands in the diaper to see what they’re capable of.

Vaporware:

Vaporware is a computer term for hardware or software that is announced, but somehow never released.

Your toddler’s vaporware is evident and occurs daily.

Memory

Your computer should have lots of memory.

Your toddler will have little to no memory.

Byte

Your computer will have some byte.

Your toddler should not bite.    Thankfully Toddler Mojo doesn’t bite us, although he did chew on some of the aforementioned Sesame Street characters, but they probably deserved it.