Call Me Maybe?

The other day, my daughter texted me while I had four of my kiddos at a special event.   MOM!  All caps made me concerned.   "MOM!"  Why wouldn't she explain why she did that?  Why did she feel the need to spell it twice?  "What's going on?" I typed.   The response came after a few minutes.

"My stomach hurts."

I typed back..."Have some ginger ale.  Put on comfortable clothes. Rest."

She sent back, "Please get ginger ale."
I didn't answer.
"MOM!"
"MOM!"
"Yes?"
"Are you going to get ginger ale?"

"Yes. Go lie down."  I brought home ginger ale.  She'd fallen asleep and felt fine when I got home.

On following day, a different child chose to use the wonders of modern technology to let me know of all the wrong doing she felt another child had done which had gone unreported, complete with emojii's about a circumstance which took place a week prior.

I wrote back, there's a sell by date for tattling, and for all of the reported offenses, that date expired.  I don't think she appreciated my Solomonistic ruling.

Techology designed to make life easier has made it easier for my kids to let me know, "How may I serve."  However, the connection is a little too good. I may want a less effective network for peace o f mind or peace from mine.  I may need to switch from my carrier to a carrier pidgeon.

My older son mastered the art of texting a grocery list to me in little bits, while I'm at the store.
"Are you at the store?"
"Yes."

"Good.  Can you get...
Eggs?
Milk?
Beets?
Protein shakes?
Apples...
Kale...

Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it.  No.
"Why not?"
"It's yucky."
"It's healthy."
"This is not a wish list of what you want to eat for the next week."

Chocolate milk?
No.
"Why not?  It's yummy.  Or I'll take kale."

I typed back, this is a five items or less request line.  I thought myself clever until the others gamed the system..

So I got a new text message from a different child.

Salt and Vinegar chips?
Salami?
French bread?
Cookies and Cream Ice Cream?
Cinnamon Toast Crunch...she stopped at five.

They handed the phone to the youngest.

"Raisins?
clementines?
Apple juice?
Please?"

They're working the room, she used please in a text.

From a third party in the car, who just remembered what she needs in terms of school supplies...
Three types of high lighters, graph paper, a pocket folder and don't forget to get bottled water.

I get a message from  home from the oldest who heard I'm at the store and did a quick survey to see what we might need.

"Dear Mom,

Don't forget, we need Pull ups and napkins.
We're out of cascade and down to our last roll.
of paper towels.  And what's for dinner? If you get ground beef, I'll grill burgers."

At this point, I'm reduced to text messaging, and send back "K" without even giving a period.

He types back, "It's wierd when you don't use a full sentence."

I'd gone to the store for bananas, diet coke and foil.  The text messages distract me into remembering, we should get butter too.  But my grocery list which was a mere 3-4, is now clocking out at twenty-seven.

Standing in line to check out, I get a text from a child unaware of all the prior messages.  "How much longer until you come home? I'm hungry."

Dial 144 for Misinformation

For Easter, I purchased a landline phone as a present for my husband. The kids saw me assemble the thing and place it on their father's desk. They gave the machine a wide birth, and the first time one of them had to answer it, one would have thought they picked up a poison adder.

"Hello?" My son said, his voice quaking as he held the cradle a foot from his ear. "I can't hear." His sister came by and overheard her dad's voice coming out of the mouth...piece. "Is that you DAD?" she shouted.

Empowered with new knowledge, my son began shouting at the phone as well. A second sister entered the room, attracted by the shouting. "Can I have a turn?" Their father tried to explain to anyone who might possibly hear him, "You don't have to scream. Just talk in your normal voice with the phone next to your ear and mouth."

The gaggle of children began telling their father about their day, "I'm going on a field trip!..I am too! NO You're NOT! YES I AM! I got an A. Did you pick up the X-box? CAN WE HAVE PIZZA FOR DINNER? "PIZZA!" "PIZZA!" "PIZZA!" "PIZZA!" The chorus swelled.


From the phone I heard their dad comment, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” Spousal code for me to interrupt the party line.
"Hello love."
"Hey Sher."
The kids filed out of the room during our brief conversation, for fear they might hear adult stuff like the word love.

"That was...loud."
"Yes."
"I don't think they know how to operate the retro phone."
"Why don't you test that theory. Tell them, I'm happy to get pizza if they call and order it."

I summoned the troops and gave them the conditions of the test. I also collected the smart phones from the two teenagers, and turned off the computer. I wrote down the number for the pizza place and left the room.

Twenty minutes later, I found the teens in the kitchen, boiling water for pasta.
After I learned why, I phoned my husband, "Just come straight home."
"They couldn't figure it out?"
"They could push the buttons."
"Then what was the problem?"
"They couldn't figure out how to hang up."

Imagine if I'd made them use the phone book.

Over at Aleteia

I am over at Aleteia today! It's the height of irony for me to get an email that my piece on the internet has gone live which I read on my phone when the essential issue of the piece is what? Put down that phone/computer/tv and be present to each other.

Small Successes Thursday Test

This is a test for a project I've been invited to take on.  If you would care to participate to verify this thing works, play along and use Mr. Linky below after you've listed three successes over at your blog.  I'll click on your link from Mr. Linky below and verify that I have in fact done this correctly.  It will count as my fourth success if it does.  If not, well I still have Wednesday to work out the bugs.

Hello!  Welcome to everyone visiting from Family & Faith Live!  My name is Sherry and I've agreed to host Small Successes Thursday.   This is the new spot for anyone grappling with the meaning of life or cleaning of laundry. No promises on my take being the last word on either subject.




It's important for moms to recognize that all the small successes in our days can add up to one big triumph. So on Thursday of each week, we do exactly that.

To participate, just write up a list of 3 of your recent Small Successes and post it on your blog along with the Small Successes button. I'm working on creating a button for you to access with the appropriate non tech looking user friendly link.  But in the meantime, email me and I will email back the code for the button on my blog.  (I adjusted the button to lead back here on my blog only but can't figure out how to post that info without granting access to rework my blog).  You are not required to use the button, but please do link back to the main post here. Then you can add your blog here using the Mr. Linky form (please link to the individual blog post, not the home page of your blog).


If you don't have a blog, you can share your Small Successes in the comments. To get us started, I will share my small successes for this week:

1. I mailed a birthday card to my niece who turns two this Friday.  Normally I'm notoriously tardy about these sorts of things so this is progress.





2. The quest for order in the home continues undeterred by my brood's capacity for chaos. This week we cleaned out two bins of junk.





3. I got a haircut without engaging in martyr type practicality where I wouldn't go until some one else needed it more.





Now it's your turn. Please tell us all about the ways you got it right this week!  Mr. Fred and It Works! are obviously me.

Primitive Mom vs. Smart Phone

Somewhere back in my DNA, a cro-magnum strain remains and every so often reasserts itself.  As a tween, I held onto disco longer than was wise, then latched onto the equally poorly executed Valley Girl/prep styles after they had grown long in the tooth.  Usually I begin liking a trendy television show in its last season, only after all water cooler opportunities for discussion have long since passed.  I am one of those lost souls who perpetually lives in the world of the jumped shark but at the time thinks that "Joanie Loves Chachi is as good as what came before.  

This slowness to spot what everyone else sees and loves is most obvious in the worlds of fashion and technology, where newness is everything.  For example, I didn't realize shoe laces had gone out of style until I made my annual pilgrimage to the mall to acquire new sneakers.  In the discount rack, laced shoes were everywhere, unlovingly dumped into a large bin labled "All Sales Final." I asked why the large shedding of inventory.

"No one buys laces anymore." the clerk explained and I wondered if I needed to stock up and place said laced based footwear in the garage next to my horde of incandescent light bulbs. There weren't any lace shoes my size so I tried on the new fangled sneakers. Cro Magnum Me said they just felt wierd so I left without buying any even though I know opportunities to shop come few and far between.  


Part of it is my temperment, and part of it has been born of repeated experiences of frustration.  I don't trust the new to be better than the old, only more of a hassle to get the job done.  I know how the old works.  New machinery and appliances tend to thwart me even after I've read the directions until I feel Cave Man type desires to use an old fashioned club to whatever is the problem.  Thus it was with great hesitation that I allowed a charity to cart away the old TV I'd stored in the garage for a few years.  It still worked provided you wired it up in the back, but it had knobs for "on" and "volume" and "vert."  I told myself "Getting rid of the old tv would help limit access to screens for my family."  It did. 
For me.

With the new TV, I remain a complete ignoramus.  I keep hoping one of my kids will make a poster Rosetta stone so that when they leave home, I'll be able to do more than dust the televison until they come back for Christmas.  So far, I'm stuck relying on my toddlers. While I still don't know why it takes three remotes to make the machine play a VCR tape of Bambi, my five year old can operate the television, hook up the Nintendo and watch Blue Ray special features and find the Easter eggs if given full reign. Fortunately Mom still knows the most important thing, how to turn it off Cro-magnum style. Hulk Mom no like 24-7 tv, Hulk mom smash! (I pull the plugs).  The day they invent wi-fi energy, I'm in trouble.   

Now the new thing is a Smart Phone.  With it, I could have a calendar, a phone and address book, a GPS and a computer.  I could access the internet, keep my mom updated on my status with Facebook, twitter, pay bills, answer emails and download all the books I've been meaning to read but haven't. The Luddite genes have been roused!  They don't want a Smart phone, they like their dumb one thank you very much or at least one that I could out think.   But, my son pointed out, I could look up how to program the VCR, and watch every episode of Happy Days from when it was good; there's even a app that would allow me to purchase laced sneakers online with a touch of my finger, provided I learned how to operate it.  It would eliminate about 12 to 2700 lbs. of what I carry around in my daily bag for errands purposes. 

With it, I would lose my ability to over schedule, forget, get lost or fall behind. All actual errors with regards to errands would be due to sloth or my own idiocy.  This is presuming my purchasing of such an item would not sound the death knell for this fad, sending it the way of Beta, laser discs and leg warmers.  

Except I learned yesterday that leg warmers are coming back.  My daughter bought some.
She Hulk Mom will have to think on this....

If I Ran the World You Would Read My Blog

Last week, I saw a fascinating program on the Narcissism Explosion. The professor revealed that the federal government had crafted via the advice of expert psychologists, a narcissism index.

At first, I thought it was a put on. So, using the Internet, I went to find the test itself to discover if I could know, to what extent I was living in the rosy colored world of self aggrandisement. I concede the irony of not being able to find the index, despite many google searches. One would think at least some of the Narcissists would want this known for things like parties, "Hello, my Narcissism Index rating is 125...what's yours?"

The thing is, the lecture indicated that our society is setting up to create a whole world of people staring into the mirror with absolute adulation. My space and twitter, hey, I just had a flash of brilliance...read all about it...did you read it yet? Why the hell not?

Youtube and ahem, bloggers....my thoughts, my life, my stories, my take on things, ought to be noticed, and not just noticed, acclaimed. Cue meme...did I tell you about me? What haven't I told you about me that is alarmingly interesting, at least to me?

Reality television, in which we discover the complete loveless intimacy of the external world. The broken, raw, fragile, frustrated, irritated isolated selfs that put themselves in this position can only win by not being destroyed in the process of establishing a false intimacy with however many viewers are watching. (See Jon and Kate for how not to, or the Balloon Boy Parents). Susan Boyle was amazing because she was real. It's odd, but we forget that we want that reality. If you watch American Idol, you see real people become whittled down and blown dry until they are polished stone, archetypes of their actual selves once we get to the last two.

With our current culture, we are becoming a world of personal islands. The absolute customization of our entire world through Ipod and TiVo, individual cell phones for everyone in the family, and a tv in every room is rapidly creating a world where no one actually has to share/sacrifice, such that each person can get into the family car for a trip and never have to interact with anyone except to ask for additional batteries. So what do we do with all this stuff, all these opportunities to ignore the very real presence of others via the wonders of technology?

Well, for starters, we could turn it off and actually write a letter, phone a friend or wow, actually talk to each other.

Well, except for, you should read my blog. Oh...and comment....because...well it's me.

Merry Christmas

This is last year's photo.

I'll be uploading this year's as soon as I figure out how to download it from our new camera.

We close every Christmas Eve with my husband reading "A Night before Christmas" and then carolling his children, closing with "Silent Night."

May all of you have a blessed Christmas.