Anyway, once I had removed all of the apps from mine and Jason had added bunch of new ones to his, we happily settled in to phonehood, and Jason handed down his formerly cutting edge (formerly as in 5 years ago) Palm Pre to Charlie. Now, anything of Daddy's is a treasure to our little man, but one that makes ridiculous amounts of noise and sports a Gamecocks "skin" is even better.
Over the weeks Jason and I have amused ourselves watching Charlie have imaginary conversations with Grandpa and PaPa, call in late to meetings, and send urgent text messages, thinking, "Oh, how cute!" and assuming in the back of our minds that the fun would wear off and the phone would end up under the sofa or inside the train for the next few years. We were wrong.
Charlie is heart-broken when his "Gamecock Phone" loses it's charge, and the fact that I personally don't keep tabs on the thing 24x7 can ruin his day. Still, we played along until this weekend -- Saturday morning to be exact.
As I was flipping the French Toast, I asked Charlie to run upstairs and tell Daddy that breakfast was almost ready. He responded with, "I don't have time right now. I'm playing a game."
Excuuuuse Me??!?!?!?! And he wasn't kidding. When I reassured him that I was serious and not in the mood to wait until his "game" ended...tears ensued...followed by being grounded from his phone. Yes, you heard me -- I had to ground my 2 year old from a mobile phone, that doesn't even make calls!
Did I mention that Jason showed Charlie how to access Angry Birds by himself? And yes, I see his point when he talks about dexterity, hand-eye coordination, technology awareness, etc -- all pre-requisites for preschool in this day and age. But come on!
So, now we have Phone Rules in our house...for our TWO YEAR OLD!
1 - The phone is a reward. You may only play with it when you are being good.
2 - Mommy and Daddy's requests and commands take precedence over the phone. Immediately.
3 - The phone does not go outside.
4 - The phone does not go near the kitchen table.
5 - The phone does not go in the bathroom.
6 - The phone is put away at dinnertime until the next day.
7 - Mommy and Daddy can take the phone away at any time for any reason.
And yes, we actually had to share rules 3 through 6 with Miss Jennifer, Charlie's babysitter, on Saturday night. I never dreamed that I would be talking about screen time in the same breath as overnight diapers...This is nuts.
But I guess we're hopeful that the rules will at least help us keep our little addict under control and prevent Angry Birds from turning us into very Angry Parents.
Our little addict settling for Mommy's phone en route to TX, when I forgot his!
