Adam - I'm Sorry About Your Cell Phone Minutes

The phone that I currently own is primarily used for personal calls and business calls and frequent gravity checks performed by my children. It's also proved to be a good distraction method with my children. They enjoy playing with my phone so much, that it's good collateral during negotiations that have reached a standstill.  

They frequently call people by accident and send the same pic to unsuspecting recipients. Fortunately, it's just a low resolution picture of the inside of my car taken by the same kids spamming my friends and coworkers. My friend Adam is at the top of my contacts list and must be completely desensitized to calls from my phone. (Adam - if you are reading this, you could pick up every now and then in case it really is me). They also create new contacts such as "ZAAAAAQ9I" and "5555H". As long as the corresponding phone numbers never start with 911, I think we're safe.

I was determined to use the To Do List feature.  This was my own way of convincing myself that I didn't need a Blackberry or IPhone. Who needs one of those, when I have a TO DO LIST? My phone is pretty old school.  Blue tooth? Nah. If anything, it's got Broken Tooth. So naturally, the first thing on the To Do List was to "Buy a Blackberry or IPhone". At least I was organized about it.

I've had this phone for a year now and my use of the To Do List has tapered off.  In fact, I stopped looking at it several months ago. One day recently, I realized that I hadn't checked my list in awhile. I flipped open my phone and navigated to my list. I was horrified to find that I had one unfinished task labeled high priority (in addition to buying a much cooler phone)! How could this have happened? I know that I'm somewhat scatter brained, but I rarely let such important things slip. The task even has an exclamation point next to it, which clearly indicates the level of excitement one must exhibit when performing such a high priority task. Either that or my phone is being passive aggressive in it's efforts to alert me to this task.  

Now, I would write more but I have a very important task to complete.  But first, I must figure out what "NMMNMNMMMO" is and get it done ASAP.

Digits For Your Digits

Abacus, Foot Massager, or Children's Toy?  Yes.  

It's versatile, especially when using it to do arithmetic with your feet.  

Stressed about counting? Treat yourself to a foot massage.  

Lose track of how many minutes you have been hiding from the kids to indulge in a foot massage? The answer is at your toetips.

For the smart kids in the house, prepare for countless hours of toe math relaxation.  For the rest of them, it's just plain fun to spin and slide those suckers.

Belushi and Akroyd's Kids Would Be Proud

My son (age 3 and 6/12ths) is obsessed with letters, which some of my readers might recall from a previous story.  So, I wasn't surprised when I picked him up the other night and he was cheerily singing the letter 'w'.

"w w w!"

"w w w!"

"w w w!"

He sang this over and over again, three w's in rapid succession until we pulled in the driveway when I asked, "why do you like w so much today?"

He smiled and responded, "pbskids."  

There was a brief pause and then he smiled again and said, "dot org!"

It then occurred to me that he's been watching too much television lately.  At least the "tell your parents about this" advertising is working well.  

When we unloaded the car and got settled in the house, he was still singing his new song.   But, he was now singing the blues. Literally.

With harmonica in hand, the song went like this:

"w w w"

(harmonica riff)

"pbskids"

(harmonica riff)

"dot"

(harmonica riff)

(harmonica riff)

"org..."

(harmonica riff)

(harmonica riff)

(harmonica riff)

He then spiraled out of control into the livingroom while playing the harmonica wildly.

Singing the blues for public television.  Even kids are sensitive to the impact of the economic downturn on non-profits.