How The Google Made Me Smile Today

Posted On October 30, 2008

Boy #2’s new favorite pastime? Google Images. He can spend hours Googling all of his “favorite things” (“strict safe search” on of course), which include Pokemon, Star Wars, soccer, and the drums, just to name a few.

He’s now moved from simply searching to now printing out these images and creating his own posters to hang on his wall—or just leave lying around the house. Yesterday we came home to find a small mountain of printer paper on the floor, each with only a small rectangle cut out in about the top 1/15th of the page. (This morning I taught him the technique of COPY and PASTE into Word. Imagine—10 images and only 1 sheet of paper used!)

He’s now moved beyond Googling images for himself, however, and has thoughtfully included our “favorite things” into his searches. Yesterday, he proudly presented Husband with a colorful and meticulously cut-out clip art image of the arithmetic operation symbols. You know—the plus, minus, times, and divided by signs. How apropos considering his dad teaches math and all.

And then he handed me my Google gift. What did he choose, I wondered? A book? Scrapbooking supplies? A laptop?

Instead, he handed me this photo, neatly trimmed around the edges.

“Oh,” I said. “Is this a living room?” I quickly tried to rattle my brain to make the connection. I like living rooms, I guess. I certainly don’t have anything against them! I’m not sure a living room would be the first thing to come to mind when I think of my favorite things, but . . .

“No,” he said. “I typed in ‘a clean house.’ “

And sure enough, he did. I had to try it out myself when I got on my computer later in the morning. Googling “a clean house” and clicking on “images” took me to the same serene living room photo that he gifted me—second on the list.

I don’t know why, but this just warmed my heart. First of all, the fact that he wanted to give us “our favorite things,” and second, the thought of him coming up with “a clean house” as MY favorite thing. And third, the irony that if you Googled “hovel,” “pigsty” or “scary home with apple cores left on the floor, dirty laundry piled two feet high, and toilet paper found everywhere BUT the bathrooms,” an image of my ACTUAL house would come up.

Now—how to make Boy #2’s image my reality???