I caved. The mobile phone company that we hate (I won't tell you their name, but their initials are AT & T) called and offered me the opportunity to add a line for only $9! Somehow, I became convinced that I was THE only one in the whole wide world who was being made this offer. Technically, we didn’t NEED this line. The Dad had a phone. I had a phone. All babysitters who agreed to come around (again) had a phone. Why would we need a phone?
Then, I realized that Daughter 1 would soon be
starting middle school and she’d be doing after school stuff with her friends and she’d be walking to school (having never walked to school before!) and she would need a cell phone so I could know her every movement, right?Not that I'm a helicoptor mom... but I'm not exactly free-range, either!
starting middle school and she’d be doing after school stuff with her friends and she’d be walking to school (having never walked to school before!) and she would need a cell phone so I could know her every movement, right?
So, with only my eldest baby’s safety and welfare in mind, I added a line. I called it the “home phone” and not “Daughter 1’s phone” and for the most part, things were in check… things like Daughter 1’s ego and attitude.
Sadly, I slipped. I ran to Hellmarts to get a loaf of bread and said to Daughter 1, “Your phone’s charged, right?”
 |
| Pray for us, my friends! |
And she said, “Right.” And I fretted all the way there and home that she actually paid attention to me and heard me say the magical word, YOUR.
The fretting was not in vain, my friends, because by the time I pulled into the driveway 15 minutes later, Daughter 1 had downloaded a Selena Gomez song for her ringtone and had curled her own hair in order to make a cute “wallpaper.”
“Momma! Look!” She exclaimed as she showed me how she had tricked out “her” phone while I was gone. She had even assigned pictures to phone numbers so that the person’s picture popped up when that person called ya! Clearly, she had outclassed me in the phone department!
I had to snap out of the awe I was in over her technical abilities and back into momma-hood and quick! I needed to reign in her excitement over phone ownership.
“Honey,” I said, very calmly and cool-y all the while preparing for the hurricane that was sure to hit my house when I broke the news to her. “That is the house phone and not your phone.”
“But, Momma,” she said just as calmly and cool-y, “When you left you said ‘your’ phone. And I’ve been thinking. I’m almost in middle school and I’ll need a phone so that I can tell you where I’ll be all the time and so that you can keep tabs on me and,” she paused before she went in for the kill, “You won’t have to give up your helicopter mom status just quite yet.” OK – so she didn’t say that last part exactly like that, but it was certainly implied!
Dang it all! She had somehow tapped into my mind and was using it against me!
“OK! OK!” I conceded. “Eventually, the ‘house’ phone will become ‘your’ phone. In the meantime, this doesn’t mean that you get to become a texting fool and you don’t get to call everyone you know just to chat, clear?”
And with that, she launched into her best teenager impression, squealing and jumping and hugging me all the while promising to make her bed every day and give me a foot rub every weekend.
For the rest of that day, Daughter 1 was a very conscientious phone owner. First, she called a friend of hers to see if she could spend the night. (She could.) Then she texted her aunt to tell her about her blister. (Aunt didn’t quite understand, but was cool about it texting back, “K”.) Finally, she just sat and played with it, adding pictures of Bo the dumb dog and our pool and Selena Gomez (taken from the TV while epidsode #241 was playing for the 4,298th time).
The next morning, I woke up at an ungodly hour – 9:42 am – to a phone call. Clearly it was not anyone I knew because everyone I knew wouldn’t think of calling me before 10:30 am … and only then in the event of an emergency!
“Momma,” the sweet little voice on the other end spoke when I answered, “Ummm… I was wondering if you would take us to the donut shop for breakfast.”
“Who is this?” I said, not quite fully awake and completely confused.
“Me, Momma! Daughter 1!”
“Where are you?” I asked, trying to make sense of it all.
“In the living room.”
“Wait. You are in the living room calling me very early in the morning to see if I would take you to get donuts?” I shrieked into the phone.
“Yes. Is that OK?”
“Honey,” I sighed. “This is really not a reason to call, especially when you’re in the living room and I’m in the bedroom and it’s so flippin’ early in the morning!”
“Gotcha, Momma. Sorry.”
I returned my phone to the nightstand and stretched. Then closed my eyes. Then yawned. Then...
Bing. Bing. Bing. I had a text: “Momma can u take us to donuts”
Man! I’m so glad she doesn’t OFFICIALLY have her own phone!
