Obsession is Nine-Tenths the Law

For the past few months Noelle has been talking about cell phones whereby 'talking' I mean 'obsessed' with them. At least once a day she'll ask why she might need one, what she would do with one and is it fun having one. The answers are usually when she gets to middle school and is involved in activities (drama club, basketball, school projects, etc.) that we can't get to in the middle of the day, you can't use them in school but yes, you can stay in contact with your friends (and us) and yes, it's a lot of fun but personal responsibility, don't ignore the real world, blah blah blah. She's not asking- precisely - but it's clear it's on her mind. (Okay, who in the world would give a second grader a smartphone? I mean really, what would possess someone to do that?) I've resigned myself to fielding these questions for the next four years but framing it as teaching good citizenship (and reining my own use in because she'll learn it from watching me.)

Well, last weekend Dylan and I decided it was time to upgrade our phones. We each had an iPhone 4, the cheapest available two and a half years ago, and they were struggling with only 8 GB of memory, we couldn't update operating systems and half the functions didn't work. (Clearly we are not early adopters. Get off mah lawn and all that.) Knowing that we keep our stuff for a long (long) time, I researched the various options and costs, settling on an iPhone 6 with 64GB. (Thanks to it being President's Day weekend, we walked out with an even better deal than I imagined. Thanks Verizon!) So here we are, each with a new iPhone 6 in hand...and two iPhone 4s. Strangely, they didn't take them as a trade in (HAHAHAHAHAHA) so now what? If you guessed 'taking all messaging/calling features and apps but music, YouTube and games off the phones and giving them to the kids for their own systems', take a bow. They're still connected to the WiFi at home but have no access to the app store (not that they know the password to authorize any purchase. Hell, I'm not even sure I remember any more.) Of course there are limits on the use but yeah, my kids now have their own phone. I should probably delete some songs though as the explicit version of 'Payphone' isn't really something she should be listening to. Responsible parenting and all.

Can you guess who asked this morning if she could tell her friends that she has an iPhone now? Well done, me. Very well done indeed.

Headdesk.