Like most men with a good idea, it started with my wife.

Like most men with a good idea, it started with my wife.

I was trying to pitch the idea of upgrading of Kindle to a Kindle Fire and not having much luck. So I went another angle. I tried the selling point of full color picture books that we can read to our now 8-week-old daughter.

And then she dropped a bomb. She said, under no circumstances, will our child use a kindle, iPad, Leapster or any other electronic device until she was older. . .

I'm an IT guy. I have been an IT guy for the past 9 years and in that 9 years I have seen the field of technology become more user friendly and plentiful. I live by my phone, by the Internet, and by whatever the Google commands. Technology is all around us and, as a person who derives great pleasure from helping people understand and use technology to improve their life, I have fully embraced that.

So now my wife tells me I can't raise our daughter with technology in her face and at her disposal . . . and the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. Why?

One word . . . Construx.

Construx was a plastic Lego-like set that used little blue connectors so you could build large objects. It's how I spent most of my childhood, pre-Atari 2600. But I think building plastic car frames and braces I could fit my  hands into helped my mind develop into what it is today. I'm no genius, far from it, but I will say I have a knack for troubleshooting and finding creative solutions to problems, something every IT guy needs to do.

What does this have to do with reading? Well, I've said before that I want to make sure reading is a common part of life while Emma is growing up, and I also think that it is important for her to learn that it is OK to be disconnected every once and a while and go off the grid a little.

That's extremely hard for me to do but I'm going to have to figure it out. Besides, after working with computer issues, software problems, and connection errors all day I think some off-grid time would be good for me. Off the grid, sitting with my family, reading. Sounds just about right to me.