Small Change

Prior to Lisa’s death, we didn’t use cell phones very much. Lisa had one and only turned it on when she wanted to talk to me. She would immediately turn it off after the call. That drove me nuts since I would tend to remember something I needed to tell her after the call was over and her phone was off. Abby had gotten one just a year or so prior and was supposed to use it only when needed. Otherwise she was supposed to use the house phone. Matt didn’t even have a phone yet. Of course, after his moms accident, the first things I did was get him a phone so that he could be in touch with me at any time he needed or wanted to be. As for myself, I leapt from keeping a cell phone in my brief case to having it with me and turned on 24-7. I literally have not turned my phone of for two years now. I suppose that’s a small indicator of how our lives have changed and what life is now like without Lisa. Maybe in the not to distant future I will feel comfortable enough to turn my cell phone off at night.

In my lifetime we have gone from one corded phone in the house to a cordless phone in every room and a cell phone in every pocket. There are so many distraction for kids these days it’s a wonder they even know what the outside of a home looks like. There are countless ways for them communicate with each other including but not limited to cell phone, e-mail, Facebook, my space, twitter, texting etc… I have been forced to become the communication Nazi since every time Matt sits down to do homework I constantly hear his phone vibrate. He lacks the self control to keep it in his pocket so I have been forced to put some controls on it. I have started forcing him leave his phone on the kitchen desk whenever he starts working on homework. I just hope I don't have to also unplug his television, confiscate his I-pod touch (it has wireless capabilities) and turn off the computer in the study. The only saving grace is that kids these days are oblivious to the fact we have a home phone. Of course if they did realize there was a phone in the kitchen they would not be able to use it since they would have to get the needed phone number from their cell phone. You have to laugh at them…