Duhdee and I are both big fans of computers so it’s probably no surprise that Monkey is as well. One of Monkey’s favorite activities is to surf YouTube.
I’ve created a favorites page for him with about 15 videos of trains, airplanes and snowmobiles. Initially, he relied on us to launch Firefox, navigate to the page and to press play on each video. We’d back up and start new videos upon request. It was a bit of a PITA but he loved the videos so it was fine.
Now, just a few months later, he can launch Firefox on his own. He knows how to open the page with his favorites and he can use the mouse to play videos, enlarge them to full screen, back up, etc. all on his own. He’s even expanded his selection of videos. He used to be pretty much obsessed with one or two that he would watch over and over but now he’s even branched away from his favorites. He uses the “related” videos along the the right side of the page to find other videos he wants to watch!
AND, he just recently demonstrated an interest in typing. He loves to sit on Duhdee’s lap and watch him type. Duhdee is a web developer and he provides user support for one of his sites on a message board. Apparently Monkey has been watching him post responses very carefully because 4 days ago while he was watching a video he scrolled down the page to the comments section. He then clicked in the text box, typed a bunch of random letters and then hit SUBMIT. OMG. Thankfully YouTube requests that you confirm your comment by typing in your e-mail address and password and he hasn’t yet mastered that skill. We really have to keep a close on him now though since OTHER sites (like the web support one Duhdee uses) do not.
If you ever notice a post or comment that looks like “vvvvvbbbnbnmm mvnnvvvv” please know it’s Monkey and he’s once again way ahead of us and not either me or Duhdee posting while intoxicated.