Tag Archives: parenting

How Addicted Are You —to Your Smart Phone?

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IMG_1784Let’s begin with denial, I am not addicted to my smart phone and other electronic devices. Now for a little reality check.

I am enjoying a wonderful week off from work and am spending it at home. Just relaxing, doing a little cooking, a little cleaning, you know. Yes I did bring my laptop home with me just in case I wanted to start revising one of our student handbooks, yes on my own time. Haven’t done it yet, but I still could. Trying to relax and reboot.

So I’m up at 6:30 a.m. and out onto the covered patio I go with my big cup of coffee and my two dogs. It’s raining here this morning and it is nice and cool outside. No better time to relax and reboot. I get about three sips of hot coffee in me and it happens, I reach for the smart phone. Hey I wonder how long it’s going to rain today, let’s check. Oh and while I have my phone in my hand, let’s see how many emails I got. Well it couldn’t hurt to check in and see what has been posted on Facebook. Wonder if my daughter has played her turn in Hanging with Friends or Matching with Friends. Before you know it, 30 minutes has gone by and what have I been doing? Exactly, messing with my smart phone. I think I may have an addiction problem, but I know I’m not alone.

Next time you go into a restaurant for a nice dinner, look around. How many people do you see looking at their phones and not at each other? A few months ago Keith and I had a date night. We went to our favorite restaurant in town, Café Alley. We ordered and were sipping on our wine when it happened. Keith was looking at his phone, checking the weather and playing a word with someone in “Words with Friends. I gently nudged Keith and said, “you know, if this was one of our first date, I be pretty ticked right now. You are looking at your phone and not at me.” We both chuckled. While I was right, this wasn’t our first date and I check my phone when we are on date nights together too. Good think we are both addicted huh?

Monday I had to take a quick trip to urgent care to get something for a sinus infection. While I’m sitting in the waiting room waiting, a young mother comes in with two rowdy boys about ages 9 and 11. She is the sick one but had to bring them with her. I watched her interaction with them. They were rambunctious boys, as most are at that age. She spoke harshly at them several times but ultimately, she disappeared into her cell phone and just let them run wild. She had zoned out with them and they knew it. How sad I thought. Her message was loud and clear, I prefer to spend time with my phone instead of visiting with the two of you.

On a recent family vacation to Destin, Florida, we all discovered that cell service there is the worst we have ever encountered. Getting a call in or out on our cell phones was next to impossible. Checking our email or Facebook next to impossible. Even when we signed onto the resorts Wi-Fi, it was awful. Is Florida trying to tell us something? Hey people, you are on vacation. Put away your electronic devices and enjoy the beautiful waters of the Florida panhandle.

Then there is text messaging. I was introduced to this new fangled technology years ago when my daughter’s cell phone bill arrived with a $110 charge for text messages. WHAT! We didn’t have a text message plan and each message cost 10 cents. OMG. I got the girl a text messaging plan. But why would anyone need to send a text message? This was the dumbest thing I ever heard of. Famous last words. I love this feature. I may need information from you, but don’t need to have a long conversation. Hey, what time do you need me to pick you up? Want to do lunch next week? What time will you be here? Did you pick up the dry cleaning? I am working late. Can we go out to dinner later? Let’s catch a movie tomorrow….. The options are endless. It is even a great way to let you hubby, significant other or children even know you love them and are thinking of them. You can send these cute little emoticons with hearts, kisses, flowers….. You know I’m addicted right? Here’s a quick public service announcement: DON’T TEXT AND DRIVE.

So the next time you are at the airport, at a restaurant, at the doctor’s office, in the checkout line at Wal-Mart or on a family vacation, look around. How many people do you see engaged with their phones and not with each other? They are addicted too.

My First Father’s Day Without Him

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DaddyToday is Father’s Day and it marks the first Father’s Day without my dad. It also reminds me that I have now lost both of my parents and at a much younger age than I had expected. As an only child, this past 10 months since my dad’s passing has been difficult. When my mom died four years ago, I really didn’t go through very much of the grieving process, I had to pick up the pieces and take care of my dad. That’s what I promised my mom in her final hours of life that she didn’t need to worry about daddy, I would take care of him. I really had no idea what a job that would be, but I knew my mother well enough to know she needed to hear that, even if it was sub-consciously. Now that they are both gone, I have been grieving for the loss of both of them.

I had very different relationships with each of them. As a child, I was a daddy’s girl. My father could do no wrong and I always wanted to be with him wherever he was. I followed along behind him at work at the bowling alley for many years. He picked me up every day after school and it was off to Mac’s for a cherry icee and an Archie comic book. When I couldn’t spend the night away from home without crying, he was the one who would pick me up at 10 p.m. and bring me home. When he went to a football game, I went to a football game.  When he went to a Golden Gloves boxing match, I went to a boxing match. Sometimes, I even went fishing with him, although I always felt bad for the fish and was worried about snakes. When he took up golf, I went with him many times and drove the golf cart and I always unloaded the golf cart from the trailer when he returned home.  Of course he would let me take the olf cart for a spin around the block, with all the neighborhood kids on board. When I was in the 4th grade, he would put me on his lap and let me drive the car down the country roads on the way to my grandparents.  By the time I was in the sixth grade, he would just move over and let me drive.  The man never said no to me and he never disciplined me. He didn’t have to. All he had to do was say, “well I guess you don’t want to … the next time I go”. That always straightened me right up because I never wanted him to leave me behind. When it was time for him to come home from work, I always knew the route he took home. I would walk down to the end of the block and sit on the corner just to ride in the car with him that half a block to our house. I still remember the time I was in second grade and we had a tornado scare at school. The sirens were blowing and we all had to get in the hall and assume the position. When it was over, all the parents had to come into the school and get us. I still remember seeing him come through my classroom door and just falling apart. My hero had come to get me. In the summer, he would come pick me and my friend up at and take us to the community pool for an afternoon of swimming, he would take me and friends to Lake Murray to ride horses and he would buy me whatever I wanted, within reason. I never got a pony (ha ha ha), but I did go through two mini bikes and three cars. As a teenager, I spent most of my weekends with him at the bowling alley. I always regarded my father as a handsome man and I can remember vividly getting so upset when other women were a little too friendly and flirty with him. How dare them, don’t they know he is married and to my mom? I remember asking my mom about it once. She wasn’t worried, my dad was devoted to her.

They were great role models to have. They never fought and really never argued. I don’t know if that never happened or just not in front of me. In daddy’s much later years after mom was gone, he took great pride in that and would always say, “How many times did you ever see me and your mom argue?” Growing up with them, that is what I expected a marriage to look like. I found out pretty quickly that not all marriages looked that way and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make mine look that way. In 1981 my dad and I were waiting to walk down the isle and he decided he needed to give me some advice. “Always keep your house neat and clean.” Really dad?

My parents were wonderful people and I had a great childhood. They were with me through a difficult divorce and subsequent difficult marriage. When I moved back to Oklahoma in 1991 a broken woman with two small children, there they were with open arms. They never asked questions, they were just there to support me. I am very grateful that they didn’t ask too many questions, because quite frankly, it was just too embarrassing to talk in depth about some of the things I had allowed to happen. You see, I didn’t want to worry them. I didn’t want them to know just how bad things were at times.   Secretly, I think they may have known.

Now my dad had three of us to spoil, me and my two children. My daughter was nine when we moved back and she slipped right into my old role with him and he loved it and she loved it. He was more of a dad to her than she had ever had and I was thrilled. My son, not quite three, got to grow up spending lots of time with his grandparents.

As my dad got older, I began to notice that some of his jokes that used to be funny to me, were just not that funny anymore. He would say things that quite frankly were terribly embarrassing and would infuriate me. Before my mom died, she said to me one day, “I’m worried about your dad. He seems to not be able to remember things very well.” My response to her was that he was fine, just stressed worrying about her. Truthfully, I think maybe she was right and he was in the early stages of dementia.

After my mom passed in 2009, I really began to see the difficulty he was having. Even though I knew this was an illness and something that he could not help, I could not accept it. Why was my dad acting this way, why was he saying these things and did I really know him at all? It’s hard when your hero is falling apart and you can’t fix it. I tried and tried. I answered the same questions over and over and over, each time getting so mad because he kept asking me the same thing. His embarrassing and hurtful comments about people he would see in restaurants got so bad that I stopped going out to eat with him. I felt bad for him, for me and I certainly didn’t want those around him to be hurt.

About two years ago, I began to notice that he was either having very vivid dreams or he was hallucinating. He would tell me that he had seen mom that she had been there in the house with him. People were also visiting him right out of the TV. He could no longer remember if he had taken his medicines or what they were for, even with home healthcare coming in. Even though I lived right next door, he let me know how lonely he was, but he would never take the initiative to do anything about it. He was just closing up in a shell. We finally talked him into moving into an assisted living and that helped for a while, but his dementia continued to spiral. His hallucinations were getting much worse and he no longer understood why my mom had left him. I would get call after call asking where his wife was. He no longer referred to her as “mom”, but his “wife”. Sometimes, I wasn’t even sure he understood who I was. I found myself being so angry every day. I was ashamed of how I felt but didn’t know what to do. I felt like I was trapped in a bubble and couldn’t get out. A couple of wonderful people gave me a copy of a book on Alzheimer’s to read with some great insights and tips on how to deal with a loved one who is suffering with losing their minds. It was eye opening and it allowed me to put on my big girl panties and respond differently. I began to feel my anger diminish and just be replaced with acceptance and heartbreak. A few short months later, his confusion ended and he was reunited with his beloved wife in a place where there is no more confusion, just love.

So today, as I work through my first father’s day without my father, I am flooded with all the wonderful memories of a man who stole my heart and showed me unconditional love; a man who taught me many things and the man who made me who I am today. Thanks Daddy, I love you.

Stay At Home Moms – Hardest Job in the World

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Water Trees

I have just returned from spending four full days of witnessing the hardest job in the world, that of a stay-at-home mom.  I have always wondered what it would have been like if I could have stayed home and taken care of my kids as they grew up, instead of sending them to day care while I worked a full-time job.  My circumstances never afforded me that opportunity, but yet I have always dreamed of it.  I’m thinking now that maybe God knew what he was doing when that was not an opportunity for me.  I am pretty sure that during that time of my life, it would have been a disaster.

My daughter and her husband have made the decision for my daughter to be a stay at home mom.  She loves it 95% of the time and that is what she wants to do.  Well let me tell you, I am exhausted just watching the activities in that house for the last four days.  First off, a stay at home mom IS NEVER OFF THE CLOCK.  From before the first child opens their eyes in the morning until the last dish is put in the dishwasher well after they have gone to bed, she is NEVER off duty.  Now some might say that a mother working outside the home has it just as hard and I would agree, but it’s a different kind of hard.  I was one of those mothers working outside the home.  I still had to come home and cook dinner, wash clothes, clean the house, bathe kids and get them to bed every night, in addition to working a full-time job.  I remember being stressed about it because I had NO help, just me, all me, all the time.  Let me be clear, BOTH circumstances are difficult and we all just do the best we can because we love our children more than life itself and they are our priorities for many years.

In looking at my experience and my daughter’s experience, the main difference I see immediately is that while I was at work for 8 hours, I got to talk to other adults.  My daughter does not, unless she calls me on the phone or gets a call from her husband.  While I was not at home, the house did not get any dirtier, no additional dishes got dirty and the same clothes that were dirty when I left the house that morning would still be dirty when I got home.  My weekends were when I “tried” to get caught up.  At my daughter’s house, you cannot keep up with the dishes.  By the time you get the breakfast dishes done, it’s time for lunch, and then before you know it, it’s time for dinner.  Toys are played with all day all over the house.  By the time you get some of the things back where they belong, they start pulling it all out again.  Sometimes she just waits until the end of the day when she can just do it one time, but that leaves her house looking like a bomb went off all day, which she doesn’t like.    My conversations at work could be, what did you do this weekend, did you see that movie Friday night, and what do you think about this or that.  Every conversation my daughter has throughout the day is trying to get children to eat, be quiet, pick up their things, play nicely, quit running, quit yelling,  let’s change your diaper, do you need to pee, where are your clothes, did you brush your teeth, let’s get dressed, let’s take a bath, let’s read a book, why are you crying …..  So I know when she calls me while I’m at work during the day, I know she is just needing to hear the sound of a friendly voice and the voice of another adult.

On a good day she tries to be showered and ready to go by the time they get up.  Now what I mean by a good day would be if she has had maybe 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep where she can physically crawl out of bed and make it to the shower.  Most days I think she would think she had died and gone to heaven if she was to get 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep, let alone 7 or God forbid 8.   You know what happens to a stay at home mom when she does not get enough sleep?  One of her eyes twitches for days, her eyes are hollow and have dark circles under them, her eyes have no spark, she has less patience and many days are ended with a pretty significant headache.  I do not know how she functions in such a sleep deprivation mode.  The four days I was there, she was like a walking zombie, but she just chugs right along.  She is a trooper.  She is literally, SUPER MOM.

Bedtime is a very difficult process.  Molly goes down most nights without a hitch.  She is the second child and most of us have learned what to do and what not to do by this point.  My daughter is no exception.  Molly is gathered up with all her blankets, sleeping buddies, she waves goodbye, gives goodnight kisses and to bed she goes.   Miracle child.  Then there’s Max, the first child.  Max is almost 5 ½ and will not go to bed without a major conflict.  I notice that about an hour before bedtime it is as if he has been wound up like a toy doll and is just bouncing off the walls.  He knows bed time is coming and he doesn’t want any part of it.  He is so tired by bedtime that he is uncontrollable with many emotions that come into play.  All children go through the process of not wanting to go to bed; my son was the same when he was Max’s age and they do finally grow out of it, thanks be to God.  If I had a dollar for every time Max got out of bed while I was there, I probably could have paid for my airline ticket out there.  Now you can play his game and keep sending him back to bed, which is done with lots of tears and sometimes loud outbursts, which now become a problem because you don’t want him to wake Molly.   So if you are as tired as my daughter usually is and on the brink of physical collapse, after about the tenth time he has gotten out of bed, you just give in and go lay in his bed with him until he falls asleep, which is just what he wants.  Game, set, and match goes to Max.

So here’s to my daughter and all stay-at-home moms out there, you are all awesome!  You are doing an amazing job and you all have more courage and tenacity than I ever had.  To my daughter, you are an amazing mom, an inspiration to me and I’m very proud of you.  Hang in there, it will get better.