Long Shrift

a flair for drama

We heard a story about a friend of ours who was almost born in a car on the way to the hospital. The next day, we were sharing the story with Quinn, who had a lot of questions, like what kind of car it was. Then he asked if she was born 'the stomach way,' like he was. We said no.

He paused. "So she was born..." He started gesturing with his hands, pantomiming something coming up from his throat and spewing out of his mouth, as if explosively vomiting.

We looked on, horrified. "What are you doing?"

"So she was born... the horrible way?"

----

I walked into the living room to discover that Quinn had pulled up the sofa cushions and leaned them against the back of the sofa, making a small triangular cave for himself. It was fairly easy to deduce that he had taken a flashlight and a pitch pipe in there with him. As a parent, you don't get a lot of opportunities to observe your child surreptitiously, and I just listened, smiling, as he sang and played under there.

After a couple of minutes, he called out: "Can I have some water?"

I decide I'm going to give him a little surprise, and I creep over to the side of the sofa and sit down on the floor. When he pokes his head out, I'll be right there to scare the crap out of him. He keeps on talking to himself - he apparently has some Star Wars action figures under there as well.

A few minutes pass. The action figures are working out a plan to attack the enemy base. It sounds intricate. I study the blemishes in the hardwood floor.

A few more minutes pass. He's taken to playing the pitch pipe, and it sounds like he's trying to make sounds by blowing with his nose. Note to self: find some other way to tune the guitar. I'm contemplating the hinges on the door to the office, wondering how to get paint off them.

Finally, after almost twenty minutes, Quinn finally decides to stick his head out from under the cushions, and I peek my head over the arm of the sofa and thoroughly startle him. We have a good laugh, during which I point out that he could easily have gotten his own water instead of calling for me to get it.

"I had a Plan B," he says.

"Oh? What was that about?"

"Well, I figured I was going to run out of water soon, so I was going to make myself cry so I could drink my tears." He pauses. "What's so funny?"

gaming the system

I recently got myself a new Android phone, which meant that I now had an old phone without an apparent use. In the past, I've donated old phones, but given my old phone's less-than-stellar antenna, I figured I'd just be handing over a headache. There are certainly some good uses for old phones; I had been thinking that I'd use it as a remote for our Blu-Ray player, since that would make it easier for inputting text - like, if you wanted to search Netflix or Hulu. But we don't use the Blu-Ray much, and I'm lazy, so the phone was languishing in a drawer.

A while back, I downloaded a light saber app for my son Quinn, the Star Wars devotee. For a 7-year-old, this is highly entertaining - you can pick different colored light sabers, and even play a Star Wars theme for background. One downside is that the app drains the battery quickly. More concerning is that to use the best effect - the sounds the light saber makes when in motion - means that a 7-year-old hand is tenuously holding an expensive smart phone while whipping it around wildly.

It dawned on me that I could set up a couple of apps on the old phone for Quinn to use. It can no longer make traditional calls, but it's got wifi, so wiping and re-downloading a few apps was easy. But this created a couple of challenges: first, that Quinn was now using some very noisy apps more than ever. The bigger issue is that now we've essentially given the boy a gaming system, something we said we'd never do.

I don't have a problem with giving a kid a Nintendo DS or what have you - I think they can help a child pass the time with something that is more interactive than a TV, and they can be slightly educational. My problem is that I think a kid's use of a portable game system can get out of control. I shake my head when we're out to dinner, and the kids at the next table are staring at GameBoys instead of talking to their parents. If we're taking a long drive somewhere, the kid could be looking out the window, or reading a book. As parents, we don't feel guilty if we sometimes need to distract the kid for a little while and take a few moments for ourselves.

But I think that these initial intentions collapse over time. When you got your first credit card, did you tell yourself it would only be for emergencies? Back when cell phones were more of a luxury than a necessity, we envisioned using them only if being pursued by a masked serial killer through a darkened parking structure (forgetting that cell phones are prone to battery and signal failures in such situations). So right now, the boy gets to use the old cell phone now and then, when he wants to play with the app that makes sounds like Star Wars blasters. And he will have the same 'screen time' restrictions that we have with the TV. But eventually... is he playing Angry Birds for hours straight when we take that road trip to the Grand Canyon? Is the only limiting feature going to become the pitiful battery life that the old phone has?

I don't know exactly how this is going to play out (honestly, no pun intended).