Last weekend I spent a considerable number of hours with the grandbrats. The kids were moving to a new house and needed some free babytending. My three-and-a-half year old grandson Preston is a lively little lad. I don’t like parking him in front of the teevee for entertainment, but Nana’s house doesn’t have a lot of activities for little kids. After building blocks and coloring and digging holes in the backyard we were running out of things to do. Suddenly inspiration hit! “Wonder what’s on the internet for little kids?” I thought.

Isn’t the ‘net cool? I sat down, typed http://www.bobthebuilder.com into the browser and lo and behold up popped the website with a games section. I’m still using my graphite iBook with no mouse, just a trackpad, so we spent the first go around with me moving the mouse and him doing the clicking. We built a house and colored it. We laid pipe. We put Bob The Builder’s tools away. The games were age appropriate and instructional and fun.

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Growing up, Mickey Mouse was always the friendly little guy with all his friends in the comic books I read avidly. Up until I discovered Science Fiction, anyway. Harmless mouse. Harmless and happy cartoon characters (except maybe Donald Duck). I learned to read from those guys, and their book friends Dick and Jane. Childhood memories glow with a particular warmth, don’t they?

Even when I was grown, with kids of my own, like everyone else, I took my family to Disneyland, to ride the rides, see the shows, and to take pictures of my kids hugging that friendly mouse. We all bought and wore those mouse ears. Didn’t you?

All this was not that long ago, as I think about it. Sure, the year’s fly by, and the kids are grown now, with kids of their own. My grandkids all know about Mickey Mouse, and a few of his friends, but no one reads those comics anymore, and my grandkids will likely never get to Disneyland. They prefer Magic Mountain with the world’s biggest rides and roller coasters, or Waterworld. More likely, they get their thrills on their PCs and their game machines of choice.

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