6/19/05 - Technologically Advanced

We have officially sunk to the lowest depths of parenthood. We've given our one-year-old son a cell phone. As a former swim coach I used to see my 10-year-old swimmers calling friends and parents on their cell phones and I would think indignantly, "What is this world coming to?" Remember the days of patiently waiting at the front desk so that you could very politely ask "May I please use your phone to call my mom?" and all the time that feeling of utter dread - What if they say NO??? Will I ever get home? Will I have to SLEEP here?? In the cell phone era that's all moot.

But we didn't really get Joshua his own phone. What really happened is that Tim has had an ancient and broken (but still operable) cell phone for quite a while now, and we finally decided to bite the bullet and get him a new one. (And it's a great Father's Day gift, as well - bonus!) So Joshua inherited the old one, and I have NEVER seen him so attached to anything in his short little life. Ever! He doesn't let go of it, and to pry it from his chubby little hands just to do something like - gasp - feed him dinner, or bathe him, or anything else so horrible is pure agony.
And part of me wonders . . . do I spend so much time on the phone that he's put such importance on it as well? In his one year of life all he's watched me do is talk on the phone? No books, no playing, no snacks, just phone. Mostly, though, I know that's not true, and he's just got a weird attachment to a neat new toy. It's just my paranoid side coming out. My first-child-have-to-do-everything-right-or-I'm-a-horrible-mom side. I'm working on it.

More importantly, we're celebrating Father's Day today!! The day where my loving and amazing husband finally gets some recognition for all of the sleepless nights, poopy diapers and spit-up caked shirts. A day devoted solely to him and his heroic father self, and I'm so excited for him. Maybe it's because I'm reliving Mother's Day, remembering the flowers, gift and card (I got a bamboo cutting board, which may not sound very exciting, but I'd been eyeing it at the health food store for quite a while). I know that Mother's Day tends to be the big one - gifts, dinner, etc. I think Father's Day gets overlooked a little. Fathers play much more of a role in the home than they used to, so in my book their day needs to be big too . . . or maybe I'm just overly emotional about it because it's Tim first one.

So what did we wake up to? Joshua calling "Didduh, dadada, didduh?" It would have been sweet and prosaic, but no. Instead he woke up, said good morning to Tigger, and promptly demanded to be held and played with. Like it was HIS special day! Of course, without Joshua there would be no Father's Day (or Mother's Day) for us at all, so I guess every day kind of is his special day.
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