Ohmystinkinheck

For the past week Kenny has been asking his Daddy when he can help him break apart an old computer we’re ready to retire. In fact, it has been the first thing he asks his Daddy when he rises, the first thing he asks his Daddy when he gets home from work, and the last thing he asks his Daddy when he’s tucked into bed at night.

In the meantime, Jeff gave him a few tools to use and a couple of computer speakers to sate this dire need he has to dismantle something…anything.

I remember when I was 8 or 9 my dad gave me an old typewriter to dismantle; he wanted the parts. I remember it being a fun job - taking apart something I otherwise would not have been allowed to touch, much less take apart. I also enjoyed organizing the different screws and such in separate glass baby food jars used to organize odds and ends above Dad’s work bench in the garage.

When I see Kenny ‘working’ out in the garage I see more than just the desire to organize odds and ends in baby food jars though. To him it is a built-in desire to know more; a need to understand how something came together by seeing how it comes apart. He wants to know how things work. He asks Jeff questions I wouldn’t have even thought about at his age. He notices things I don’t even notice now.

He is observant.
He is intelligent.
He is a lot like his Daddy.

But he’s still a boy - and as much as he wants to take that computer apart piece by piece, what he desires MOST is to be the first to shatter the glass in the computer’s monitor and make a big mess.

He wasn’t too excited to discover that we were keeping the monitor, but quickly got over it.

And then it was back to the same question, “Daddy, when are we gonna take apart that computer?”

Did I mention he was persistent too?

16 Responses to “Dismantle”

1. bethany actually

   I don’t remember ever having that need to take things apart like that. Know what I did for fun when I was Kenny’s age? I used to get that perforated dot-matrix printer paper, the kind with green and white stripes, and write numbers. I would start with 1 and go as high as I could.

   I was a strange child.

2. Janera

   I love that about kids, especially it seems that boys just love to destroy, er, take apart things. My boys are big now, but they still enjoy doing things like this. Very cute. And kewl.

   btw, I would like to invite you and your readers over to my place for a giveaway. Everyone’s welcome!

3. MidlifeSlices™

   I always wanted to take apart old watches therefore I stopped getting any kind of watch as a present because I’d forget they weren’t old and soon they’d be in a million tiny watch pieces. Life was so simple then. sigh….

4. naomi

   i’m pretty sure you know it’s not a good idea to let him break the monitor.

   years ago i went with my dad when he took the old black and white tv to the dump. he had dismantled and scavenged as many parts as he could but the picture tube was useless. in order to make sure that no dump employees were inadvertently injured by the tube breaking he broke off the end and thus released the vacuum seal. it was weird to see what the influx of air did to the front of the tube. it was like blowing dust off a glass table top after years of accumulation.

5. LaurenC

   My brother and I used to ‘dismantle’ little motorised cars once they had stopped working properly. Then we used to delight in hooking the still working motors up to batteries and making fans with straws and all sorts of other things that needed motors.

   I am a dork, because I still like to take things apart.

6. mamalang

   Monster recently got his own tool box as well. He helped Daddy build a bird house. Now any time we try to do any sort of work involving a screwdriver or drill, he’s there with his tools.

   And while all the reasons you’ve mentioned are valid, I bet the desire to “be like daddy” is also pretty high on that list as well.

7. katef

   You know it is a really great activity for kids - taking stuff apart. Especially fiddly things like electrical appliances. They learn so many different things. We used to do this all the time when I was teaching preschool - we had a constant supply of old computers and radios and all the kids loved it!

8. Angela Tippets

   I have two older brothers that were very rough and tough. I learned to keep up with them. I could climb any tree and enjoyed being out in the garage. I especially loved taking stuff apart to see how things worked, and I could hammer nails into boards for HOURS! Maybe I should have been the girl with a power saw instead of a teacher. Yep, I kind of miss those days :)

9. Mandy

   That is awesome!

10. Shannon

    He sounds like my boys, all three of my boys and the 35 year old is the worst. Our 36″ TV recently went out and they took it outside and the three of them broke the whole thing down and studied it! Crazy boys! I hope he had fun!

11. Stefani

    Oh yes, I have a couple of those.
    And it darn near killed us all once :-)
    http://blueyonder.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/i-am-lucy.html

12. Octamom

    It is so great to allow kids the ability to hone that natural curiosity and get into the ‘nuts and bolts’ of stuff–what a great experience for your son!

13. marigold

    Ooooh, when I was 9 there was a museum in Portland (where we lived at the time) called OMSI (it’s still there, I’m sure). They had a kids section and there was a car engine on a table with several tools chained to the table. I took apart so much of that engine and stuck all the miscellaneous bolts and screws and washers in my pockets (which was allowed!) to take home. It’s one of my fondest memories. And it makes me wonder if I wouldn’t have made more money as a car mechanic than a legal secretary!

14. mary

    Juuust like my younger brother was: taking things apart, putting them back together (often as something completely different)…over & over & over again.

15. Lanna

    Get thee to a few yard sales and snag some broken junk for Kenny to take apart. MIL did that for hubby when he was about first grade aged, and ended up with a few remote control vehicles, an electric train set, and something else that hubby went and fixed. She also got him a broken toaster, broken phone and something else just to take apart for the fun of that. Hubby’s now a mechanical engineer. ;)

16. Donna

    Gosh, he’s like my oldest boy. He’s been like that his whole life. I say “whole life” because at 23 years old, he’s STILL like that. All the way down to smashing in the computer monitor (which he did about six months ago). Only now that he’s older, he takes photos of said busted monitor screen and Photoshops them to be these awesome “works of art”.
    Boys.