A week or so ago I told you about the iMac we took in. I’d described it as another one of the original Bondi Blue models, to go along with the other two we have already (one that works, and another that’s fried, but we keep for parts). Cheryl brought it home after getting in late that night and we put it on the only horizontal space available: the desk in Adam’s room.

Adam woke the next morning with eyes wide enough to drive a small car through.

We opened up the blinds in his room and my eyes got wider too. This wasn’t just another Bondi Blue iMac, it was yet another piece of Apple lore to add to my collection: one of the five fruity color iMacs… in this case lime.

My son was already excited, and my yep of glee pushed him right over the edge. He took a few excited leaps on his bed before we could restrain him, visions of our last ER visit still fresh in our minds.

Since that morning I’ve had to take the power cord away, to keep him from powering the thing up constantly. Even with a password required at start-up, he still got a kick out of turning it on, hearing the Mac OS 9 start-up chime, and shutting it down. Without a password required, he quickly figured out how to turn it on and launch one of the old educational games we installed from when Beth was his age (we woke up one morning to the sounds of “Jump Start Preschool” not long ago).

Now both of our kids have computers, and whenever we allow them access to the power cord (such as this morning), the house descends into almost total silence.

Silence is a troubling thing in a house with two small kids, no matter what they’re up to.