Hiccups NewsOK.com Blogging Community

I was about to pull out of my driveway and head to work when I glanced at my cell phone.

I had seven voicemails! Who could have called me so many times?

I listened to the first message, and it was my youngest daughter, Kaci, distraught and crying. You can never understand her on the phone when she’s upset, but I knew it was her. What could be wrong? So, I listened to the next message. Again, her crying, never staying on the phone more than a couple of seconds.

As I quickly headed to her school, my mind began to imagine the problem. Had someone hurt her? Had the teacher addressed her harshly? … Still, the next two voicemails were even shorter, some with only whines.

I was about in tears when I pulled into the school parking lot. I rushed to the office. “I have to talk to my daughter,” I said with urgency. “She called me on the phone distraught.”

One of the women in the school office told me Kaci was in the gym, so we quickly walked to her P.E. class. (Had she broken her arm? Was she hurt?)

When we arrived at the gym, I saw my little 10-year-old swinging a racquet and playing with the other children. She looked fine, so I was puzzled. I motioned for her to come to the door.

When she was asked if she had called me that morning, she said, “No.” …. But she had called two weeks ago.  And then I remembered getting a phone call on our home phone weeks earlier. She had been upset because she had thought an envelope with money for school pictures was missing … It wasn’t. It was in her notebook. So, she quickly recovered from her tears.

Or so I thought. I didn’t realize she had tried calling my cell phone several times. Aren’t cell phones grand? I’m not sure if anyone else’s phone does this, but sometimes I don’t get a message alerting me to voicemails. Then, one day I’ll get one that seems to push all the voicemails forward at once.

So, I left her school that morning, relieved but mentally shaken.    

When I retold this story to my family, my oldest daughter reminded me of a time last year when my worry took me a little over the top, too.

I showed up at her middle school with two pairs of pants and a sandwich.

Why?

I thought she had ripped her pants (I had seen a dark spot on her jeans when she boarded the bus, so I thought they were torn.) And news reports of tainted peanut butter panicked me because I had packed her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Well, the rip turned out to be a sticker on her jeans. But I still made her switch out the sandwiches.

My children might laugh at me for my antics, but it’s just my nature. I will always worry about my kids. — Linda Lynn

Researchers are sharing another round of information that might make some of us a little hesitant about encouraging our young kids to use cell phones.

According to a story by The Associated Press, the head of a prominent cancer research institute is cautioning people to limit cell phone use because of the possible cancer risk, especially to children whose brains are still developing. 

I’m sure my family would go through cell phone withdrawal if we had to do without the cell phones simply because it is a way for us to stay connected when we are physically apart.

But cancer is, well, cancer.

I think I can go back to using the land line for most of my calls. I could also do some more letter writing or I could catch up on my e-mail correspondence now that I think about it.

The same goes for my kids. I know they can survive without a cell phone if their very survival was at stake.  

I’m sure I won’t be the only parent on the look out for more information on this topic.

Carla Hinton

Anyone who knows me know that I am a picture-taking fanatic.  I always have my camcorder and digital camera with me wherever my son and I go.  I take a bunch of pictures, upload them to my computer, then transfer a copy to my online photo albums to share them.

So I end up with a copy on my camera (which I am always afraid to erase for some reason), a copy on my computer, a copy online, a backup copy on CD and then eventually I order prints of all of them and if they’re lucky, someday they might make it into an actual photo album.

Does this sound a bit obsessive-compulsive to you?  It does to me.  But how do I break this habit? I always feel a tinge of guilt if a weekend goes by and I never get to organizing all those hundreds of photos, putting dates on them, putting them in albums.  Then buying more albums.  Then buying things to scrapbook with, but never getting around to doing it. 

If I take less pictures, I may miss out on something remarkable and kick myself later.   But if I’m constantly behind the lens of a camera, I feel I’m missing out on the actual experience.  Which of the evils is worse?

After a good bout of guilt over a under-productive picture-sorting weekend,  I always think to myself  ”if I had spent all those hours organizing pictures all weekend, I would have missed out on capturing new memories.”  So the guilt subsides, but the pictures multiply. 

It’s a neverending dilemma.

Any suggestions?  I would love to hear some.

-Erica Smith

esmith@oklahoman.com 

After the Hollywood Video store near our house went out of business last year, my family quit renting so many movies (Redbox is now our closest outlet and has very limited stock.) But we began buying the movies we knew the kids would watch over and over.

This has worked pretty well. We now have dozens of both classic and recent movies aimed at the under-12 set. A few are regretful purchases (Mimzy and The Wild didn’t inspire repeat viewings) but most will be great to hang onto until whatever new technology completely overtakes DVD. (I’ve only recently completed my long good-bye to the VCR.)

Occasionally, we go to a REAL MOVIE THEATRE and experience the big screen, buttered popcorn and all. This is a rather expensive way to spend every weekend for a family of four.

Last week, I took my 5-year-old to see Kung Fu Panda — how could we not after all the McDonald’s toys? — and she became restless within 30 minutes of its start. The popcorn and my pleading convinced her to stick with it through the end. I liked the movie and thought the animation was well done. Will we buy this movie when it comes out on DVD? Probably not.

This weekend I really want to go see Wall-E, Pixar’s newest animated feature. It’s gotten spectacular reviews from adults and children alike. I’ll take my 5-year-old and her sister, 10. I’m already planning to totally love the movie and think my girls will too. And yes, I already plan to buy it on DVD, I’m that convinced it’ll be a classic.

Maybe it’s because Wall-E is like my outdated VCR. Still functional, but not very sleek and swift. 

Susan Simpson 

My son just got a dirt bike. He’s 15.

Apparently, my husband and I lost our minds at the exact same moment. I knew we were slowly driving each other crazy over the years, but I never thought we’d simultaneously snap.

Because of our mental lapses, our son now has a shiny new dirt bike. Well, it was shiny for the trip home and for a brief time in the garage. Then, he rode it. Now, it has a nice scrape along the side, and both signal lights have been demolished. Oh, and he’s proudly sporting a skinned elbow and knee.

We live in the country which gives my son plenty of grass to ride on, and for that, I’m grateful. Of course, when he crashed the first time, he was turning around on the concrete driveway. Funny how that works.

I had a flashback to my own childhood as I watched him tearing across the yard a few days ago. I was raised on a farm and we were around dangerous equipment all the time. I was a kid when seatbelts didn’t exist unless you had one of those “fancy” cars, and even then they were usually buckled and stuffed between the seat cushions. We rode in backs of pickup trucks and sitting on sides of a tractor. We stood on the running board of the big grain trucks as we bumped and jostled our way down to the grain bins or out to the cattle pasture. When the family drove to the swimming hole (yes, that’s what we called it), my dad would put a board across the bed of his truck for kids to sit on. And, the day it hailed on us … well, we just held up the big towel Mom threw back there for us to use as shelter.

Which makes me wonder? How did we survive?

Believe me, I’m not advocating riding in a car with no seat belt or putting kids in the back of a truck. It’s a different time. Things are faster and there are more cars on the roads. The world seems more stressed. The only road rage I ever knew about in my childhood was when you were driving down a dirt road and the car coming toward you didn’t ease over enough and give you both room to pass. And, even then, the road rage manifested itself with only a curt nod to the other person … no smile, no howdy.

Believe me, I’m as cautious as the next parent. When my son was growing up, I dutifully put him in a car seat. I walked him to school to protect him from strangers and I didn’t turn him loose to play in the neighborhood sight unseen. I don’t believe it takes a village to raise a child, I believe it takes parents.

But, now he’s a teenager and has a dirt bike. There’s no car seat on that thing. He is required to wear a helmet, not only be me, but by state law. Thank goodness.

Like it or not, I see that he’s growing up. He’s taller than my husband, wears a bigger shoe, and he’s shaving. I can’t always protect him. He has to be given responsibility to make wise decisions. All I can do is keep medical supplies handy … and pray.

Any parents out there who’ve been down the dirt bike trail with their kids? I could use some advice.

- Guest contributor, Judy Hooper, The Oklahoman

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