Brilliant!

Let's face it, we all think our kids are particularly brilliant.  We are mesmerized by all that they can do at such a young age.  

Sometimes it is justified,  other times there are external forces at play...

This is one of those times where the real brilliance lies about 70 miles west of us in a little place called Cupertino which is the home to Apple.

Annika likes to play on my iPhone and Kara's iPad.  My mom will bring her iPad over and play different games with her.  When Annika was a little over a year she could already swipe through pictures on my phone.  Pretty cool.  A few weeks ago Annika picked up my phone off the counter and was sitting for about 5 minutes before she came to me to get help on a menu for a game.  It dawned on me that she now knew how to slide to unlock my phone and start her own games.  

She now knows how to find her games, and if she gets somewhere she doesn't know, she hits the bottom button and tries again.  She knows not to go to my email or phone.  She even taught herself to cancel out of the prompt at the start of Talking Tom to purchase other apps.  She will spend time looking at pictures on my Mobile Me photo gallery (again, with no one's help), and has even found the iPod feature and listened to music, even going as far to scroll through songs until she finds one she likes (she will stop, start nodding her head, and say "got it" (I can't make this up)).

Kara and I talked about these things and finally came to the realization that while of course we think our child is a genius, the real acclaim goes to Mr. Steve Jobs and his brilliant team at Apple who has created a set of devices so intuitive that a 2 year old can easily enjoy herself without much effort.  

Today we reached a tipping point.  I grabbed my phone this morning to find my daughter had texted my brother in law last night (see pic below).  While the first four lines are gibberish, I am happy to announce my daughter's first written/ typed word was "Tree."  

Whether the auto fill in feature made this possible or she merely walked her fingers down the keyboard we will never know... the parent in me wants to believe it was her genius... the realist in me believes it was Apple being Apple... deep down, I know the truth... 

Annika is a genius!

(please note the sarcasm above)