iAlone

You'll never believe it, but I've been working on this post on and off since Ben was napping this morning. Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. Maybe you'll have the great fortune of meeting our dear Frankie* up there.

Being blessed with creative friends means that almost everyone I know (myself included) skews Apple. Just last week, even my 72-year-old father—who worked as an engineer at IBM longer than I have been alive—switched to an iPhone. Not only am I one of the few without an iPhone, now that there isn't an employer paying for my data plan, I don't even own a smartphone. I just have your basic, run-of-the-mill mobile phone.

Crazy enough, all this connectivity is relatively recent, and smartphones in particular didn't enter our lives until about a decade ago. Even the pinnacle of mobility, the iPhone, has only been in our hot little paws since 2007. It seems like it's been around far longer than that. Am I the only one having technological amnesia, or do others out there have a hard time remembering life before iPhone? Perhaps owing to our rapt attention towards all things Apple, these amazing advances just run together now.

Depending on where the moon is in its orbit, I'll admit I'm prone to some occasional theatrics while conversing with DH. However, I don't think I'm being dramatic when I say (and I often say): our parents never had cellphones! and they were fine! and we turned out fine! (Ok, maybe I am a little bit dramatic). The fact of the matter is, the world is moving quicker than I care to keep up. There are days that DH and I fantasize about living somewhere really remote, far from cellphone signals and wireless internet, in hopes that Ben won't demand an iPad at age three. We quickly follow that up with visions of our degenerate child, unable to keep up or perform in life due to our hobbit life, and we know that somehow we must find a balance between the two extremes. In our pre-Ben days, I marveled at the druglike effects that a smartphone and its myriad offerings could have on a baby. I thought to myself, my baby won't need an iPhone. 

Life with baby: precious snuggles, giggles, and other general heartmelt. Life with baby, also: sudden onset of attention redirect disorder (difficulty paying attention to anything other than baby when in baby's presence, especially heightened once baby is mobile), much left unfinished (even sentences), and resorting to measures you thought you were above (particularly while sweating, flustered, looking around apologetically due to the tempest brewing in your stroller).

I've been rethinking a lot of ideas I had about parenting before becoming a parent. Funny how baby, your baby, arrives just in time to set you straight. I'm not above anything anymore, especially when it comes to buying a few minutes of calm. Which is not to say that I'm getting an iPhone. Not yet, anyway.

*We miss you, Frankie.