Texting: Make Mine Unlimited

This is the September edition of the print version of After the Bubbly, an award winning family humor column. If you’d like to see it in a local publication, let me know and I’ll do my best to get it there!

A lot of things are different for our kids than they were for us. We didn’t have home theaters, decent video games, or twenty-four-seven kids’ TV shows. But it’s really the phones and the privacy they offer that change everything. Before my son started middle school I had made up my mind that I was not going to get him a phone.

“You’ll change your tune,” a friend told me. “What if he misses the bus?” she questioned. I rolled my eyes.

Cut to Christmas and my son tearing open a phone while his little sister calculates the number of months she has to wait for hers under the big-brother-broke-them-in algorithm. I’m still not convinced he needs a phone, but he wanted one and it was Christmas. Maybe I’m just jealous. Having a personal phone—not to mention a modest texting allowance—in the 6^th grade? I never had it so good.

Back in the olden days we didn’t even have cordless phones. They were all attached to a wall, either in your home or in public. You carried a quarter for a payphone and everyone could see you cry when your mom forgot to pick you up from soccer practice. When you got sick at school you had to use the office phone with its rotary dial and square buttons across the bottom. If you missed the bus you didn’t call anyone; you walked home. To have a private conversation at home you stretched the phone cord down that hall, pinching it in your bedroom door, then prayed your mom wouldn’t detach it from the wall while you were asking your BFF if she wanted to “go with” the new boy (who was named Curt or Tyler or Rob). Those deliriously fortunate enough to have a phone in their rooms knew their parents were listening in from the kitchen anyway.

Today’s kids don’t have to worry about parents overhearing conversations, partly because phones are rarely used for speaking to one another anymore. The important information—what band is cool, whose house they’re sleeping over at, and which color Converse to wear tomorrow—is all relayed via text. It goes without saying that back in the olden days we didn’t have our own secret language that our parents couldn’t figure out. We had to be clever and make plans while they weren’t listening or watching. (Whatever, Dad – no, you did NOT know we were “sneaking” out the sliding glass door.) Now kids speak in an ever-evolving code of letters and symbols—ikr? It’s a miracle our thumbs didn’t fall off–like the vestigial tail–from lack of use.

Popular as texting has become, I still thought my 11-year-old son was too young for it. I figured he just used the phone as a status symbol and to call me on the [many] days I forgot it was my turn at carpool. I didn’t realize he was using the text function at all until I started using it on my own phone. When my texts racked up I worried about the potential overage costs so I logged into my wireless account. While I was slightly under my plan limit of two hundred texts, my son was up to eight hundred twenty—two weeks into the billing cycle. I immediately called my provider to request unlimited texting.

I sensed a golden opportunity. His excess was just what I needed to institute the partial pay policy I should have started when we gave him the phone. I confronted him with the facts.

“But, Mom,” he almost cried, “it’s not like you can just end a conversation.”

Awww… proof that my baby boy is not yet a man.

I told him that instead of making him pay for the overage, he was going to chip in ten dollars a month toward his phone bill.

“But then I’ll have less money,” he whined.

I didn’t laugh. I did however take my platinum opportunity to ask for his phone– and read his texts. If I were a terrible person I would transcribe them here. Because they would make you laugh and reminisce over everything that was good and true and hasn’t changed about the summer before 7th grade. But I won’t. Because I am a good mother and because I’m beyond grateful for what I read there, in his private conversations with friends, both boys and girls. For now, for today–though he doesn’t realize it–my baby is as innocent as the day I brought him home wrapped in flannel and smelling like spit up. If only there were an unlimited plan for that.

Some of My Best Friends Are Mormons

The other day we were driving through the University of Arkansas when this bike came out of nowhere and it seemed would end up under my car. My son whipped his head around to get a better look.

“Mom! That was one of those Mormons.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because. He was riding a bike and wearing a white shirt. AND he had a backpack.”

“Lots of students ride bikes and wear backpacks.”

“But the white shirt, Mom. I’m telling you he was Mormon.”

“They don’t bike that fast. Besides, he was alone. No way.”

“Mormon.”

Little sister from the back seat: “What’s a Norman?”

Possible Signs of the End Times

My children have been acting strange lately. I don’t know whether to be ecstatic or terrified. Over the past week one or both have done the following:

- cleaned the playroom (not as the result of a threat)

- mowed the lawn as promised, remembering to sweep up afterward

- put laundry away in appropriate drawers

- generally displayed a helpful attitude in all domestic matters

You might want to start stocking up on dry goods, and psalms.

Talking to Boys

When did talking to boys become so difficult? My son and his friend attended engineering camp at the University of Arkansas this week. (We’ll save the geektacular jokes for another post.) It’s a cool opportunity and I’m curious what they do all day, and being on the pick-up end of the carpool, you’d think I would be able to extract some decent information.

So, what’d you do today?

We did some stuff and then we had a lecture.

What kind of stuff?

Engineering, mostly.

And what was the lecture about?

Our schedule.

What about your schedule?

The things on it.

And those things are?

You know, the details.

And what would those details be?

About the stuff on our schedule.

Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to understand. So what is on your schedule?

Mom – WHY do you ask so many questions?

We’ve Made it Past the Fourth of July

It’s really summer now – we’re deep into the heat of sunburn, the thick of the humidity. And what does that mean for parents everywhere? In my experience we fall out into two camps.

Parent A:  I can’t believe summer vacation is half over already! I’m starting to miss them just thinking of school starting again. It really is true – they grow up so fast. Treasure every moment!

Parent B: I cant’ believe I haven’t been institutionalized already. Actually, that might be a welcome rest. Only six weeks to go. I will make it. I will, right?

Which parent are you? On a given day?

Conservationist Rednecks in Training

My children care about the Earth. And they have lived in Arkansas for most of their lives. Hence the following exchange:

“Hey, Mom, did you know we saved three gallons of water today?”
“How did you do that?”
“We peed in the yard.”

Maternal pride swells.

My Ten Pound Baby Is Not

My daughter turned ten last week. She wanted to see her birth certificate so we got out the baby book. There on the first page a blatant error stood out. Her birth announcement read 8 pounds 14 ounces. Shocked that I would make such a mistake I searched for other documentation. The hospital record of birth, her crib identification card, and in the doula’s notes all confirmed her actual birth weight: 8 pounds 14 1/2 ounces. Damn. My second baby, the one who had to be pried out of me under anesthesia, the one with the Apgar score of 1, the one who nearly killed us both was a TEN pound baby. Ten.

Okay, so maybe I exaggerated a tiny bit. But when you have a baby that weighs in a 9 pound 14 1/2 ounces, you are allowed to round up. It’s an ounce and a half for goodness sake. And that’s just what I did, from day one she was a 10 pound baby. I told everyone, have been telling everyone for the last decade that I birthed a ten pound baby. It indicates my kick-ass-ness as a mother and underscores her tomboyish toughness. But she wasn’t just under 10 pounds; she was just under 9 pounds. The fact would not reconcile with my myth.

“I don’t care what it says,” my husband told her. “You’ll always be a ten pounder to me.”

That’s our story and we’re sticking with it.

I’ll Take Unlimited Texting Please

Recently I’ve discovered the joy of texting. In a world of ever faster, it really is faster. I’m tardy to the party, what’s referred to in marketing circles as a “late adopter.” I need but another form of instant feedback like I need another little black dress. However, I can think of nothing more fun. So as my texts racked up I worried about the potential overage costs. When I logged into my wireless account I found that while I was slightly under my plan limit of 200 texts, my son was up to 820. This was three weeks into the billing cycle.

I sensed a golden opportunity. His excess was just what I needed to institute the partial pay policy I should have started when we got him the phone for Christmas. I confronted him with the facts and told him that instead of making him pay for the overage, he was going to chip in $10 a month toward his phone bill. I swear he almost cried.

“What is wrong? You don’t want to pay?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because then I’ll have less money.”

I didn’t laugh. I did however take my platinum opportunity to ask for his phone– and read his texts. If I were a terrible person I would transcribe them here. Because they would make you laugh and reminisce over everything that was good and true and hasn’t changed about the summer before 7th grade. But I won’t. Because I am a good mother and because I am deliriously grateful about what I read there, in his private conversations with friends, both boys and girls. For now, for today–though he doesn’t realize it–my baby is as innocent as the day I brought him home wrapped in flannel and smelling like spit up. If only there were an unlimited plan for that.

Breaking Up Is Always Hard to Do

I took my son and a friend to the pool the other day, where they ran into the friend’s ex – AND her family. Apparently it was a pretty bad break up. While these 12-year-olds managed to avoid court, there was some lengthy arbitration over the custody of the silly bands.

Field Day Debrief

School’s out, but somewhere at this moment a group of women sit scheming new ways to make next year’s Field Day even better than this year’s celebration extraordinaire. These dedicated souls have been crossed trained on the Candy Walk and the Sponge Race; they have screened the best DJs; they have scoured the internet for more inventive crafts; and they have negotiated the best price on sugar sand and plastic tubes. They know when to put more kernels in the popper, understand the MIT developed matrix scheduling of class rotations, and know just how long it takes to inflate a bouncy slide. Quiet as its kept, I hear next year we may even have misting stations to keep the spoiled little snots more comfortable.

I say we go old school. Toss them in the playground with a rope and a hose (sunscreen optional), blast some music we can all agree on (can you say Guitar Hero?), and cordon off the grown-ups in a beer garden. I’ll chair.

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