Ramblings of a formerly text-challenged mom
I know I’m not the only one out there over 40 who started out text-challenged.
I steadfastly refused to text message my kids for months after they received their cell phones.
“Call me if you want to talk to me and I’ll do the same for you,” I told them in a no-nonsense manner.
That worked for all of two weeks.
One day I needed to talk to my 15-year-old son so I picked up the phone and called his cell. No answer. I tried three more times at different intervals over the next hour.
No answer.
With a huge sigh, I typed out my message. Actually, I wouldn’t call what I did typing. It was more like pitiful pecking.
How did they manage to have whole conversations with people by doing this? This is insane, I thought.
Finally, after many, many stops and starts, I was able to press the “send” button and get that message out.
Surprise! Within a minute, my son answered back.
“Mom, you’re texting now?”
“YES, BECAUSE YOU DID NOT ANSWER MY TELEPHONE CALL!!!!”
I yelled this out at my desk, causing folks sitting around me to stare for a minute. Feeling, much calmer, I pecked out a response: “Just answer my question and we’ll talk about the rest of this later.”
Well later that night, I found myself the center of attention at my house.
By the time I got there, my son had told my 13-year-old daughter all about my inaugural text message.
I thought she was a little too excited.
She was making plans to have these intense conversations via text.
That is so not happening, I told her. I’ll do it when it’s the only way I can get in touch with you. Period.
Since then, I’ve text messaged more than ever. Of course the kids have had some laughs at my expense.
For intstance, they received several run-on messages at first and had to show me how to put spaces between words. Then they think it’s hilarious that I don’t use their text jargon. They find it amusing that I actually text complete sentences.
Look, to do otherwise would be flat-out weird to me.
I told them that if they get a text from “mom” that is short and includes all their usual jargon, they’ll know it’s not me, but an imposter.
It will be someone else having a hard time getting ahold of them …
– Carla
Oklahoma County’s supernanny
She won’t pull up to your house in a way cute mini cooper and stay for a week to help you figure out how to keep your 2-year-old from banging his head on the wall. But Dr. Teresa Baird at the Oklahoma City-County Health Department does have no nonsense advice on how to tackle your child-raising issues. And most importantly she has perspective.
Sometimes when you’re in it up to your elbows, it’s hard to see the common sense solutions to your problems. My 3-year-old recently has been giving me fits. I’m almost certain that is an experience not unique to me.
Her teachers call her strong willed. I call her sassy. Except when the cashier at Target asks her what her name is and she crosses her arms and wrinkles her face, looks to the ground and growls, “I’m not talking to you, ” then I call her Satan. Not to her face of course, but later at night when I am telling my husband about our shopping adventure.
Truth be told, Cybil is probably a more accurate nickname. Because often she bounces right into public places smiling at people, introducing herself, and sharing wonderful information about her and her family. … Great 3-year-old stuff that often reveals more about me to perfect strangers than I am comfortable with.
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My little sheep are sleepy
My family’s schedule will have to adjust. Cade turned 3 on April 21, and that means he’s eligible to attend public schools. My husband and I found out Cade had Down syndrome within an hour of his birth, so each little step since then has been a learning experience for all of us.
Now, it’s how to get three children to three different schools in the morning and then get myself to work on time. I’m pretty cheery in the morning, but my two daughters, ages 13 and 9, get a little nauseated if they hurry too much. So, the challenge is how to juggle and enable them to help make this work.
OK. I’ve made my kids a little too helpless. I fix their bowls of cereal or toast or sliced banana … then I wake them up (one at a time), encourage them that it’s going to be a great day … and then they curl back up on the couch to take another nap. ugh.
I feel like a sheep herder, but my sheep have vertigo – they keep going in circles or lying down. Well, today I told them times are changing. We have to all get up at the same time, get ready and scurry on our way.
Cade was the first one ready to go today. - Linda
Show them the money?
My kids are a long ways from needing to know the ins and outs of interest rates and other financial rates. But this story about how little high school seniors know about the basics of personal finance has me wondering at what age parents should start teaching their children about basic spending and saving. How young is too young for an allowance? Should there be limits on how much can be saved and spent? I’d love to know what been there, done that parents chose to do and what they learned. –Christy
Ladybugs and other pressing life questions
Does a ladybug know it’s a ladybug? Do ants talk? Do ants talk to ladybugs?These were all the thoughts going through my 5-year-old daughter’s head when she was supposed to be practicing t-ball. But who can worry about not getting hit in the face with the ball when there’s a ladybug flitting around? It’s fitting, really, considering her team is called the ladybugs. To the first question, I had to answer that I have no idea. She didn’t even wait for answers to the other questions before launching into even more about ants, ladybugs and various other “icky creatures,” as she calls them these days. No doubt the questions won’t get any easier with age. If I don’t know the answers at age 5, what the heck am I going to do five or even 10 years from now?Last week, we were making our way through the nightmare known as the intersection at Pennsylvania Avenue and Memorial Road when she saw a panhandler holding a sign that read: “Family in need of help. God bless you.” And so it began. “What’s that sign say?” “Why is that woman holding the sign?” “Are we going to help her?” I won’t pretend I had the right answer or even anything close. I told her, of course, what the sign said. And explained that sometimes people don’t have enough money to buy all of the things they need to keep them safe and healthy. And to the last question, I told her that we try to help people when we can but that it’s not really safe to just roll down your window and start talking to strangers. Her attention quickly turned to something else. Mine didn’t. It feels somewhat hypocritical to work so hard at teaching children to care about others but then pass up such a visible opportunity. There are other opportunities we as a family don’t pass up. We’ve adopted families at Christmas and allowed her to participate in projects for the benefit of others. Truth is, she’s asking some important questions, even if she doesn’t know it yet. I’d be OK if she’d stick to questions with answers that are just a Google search away. –Christy
