disconnected

I have to confess, that I am very attached to my android smartphone and laptop. In fact, I started this blog post on my trusty phone. I use my phone to communicate with teachers, therapists, and other work I need to take care of for the kids or myself. I shop for diapers, clothing and food on my laptop. I keep my to-do lists on it and keep track of  meetings with apps. But I would be lying if I said I only use my phone to help me be more efficient.
I also text my friends to check in on them and share my day and sometimes waste time on facebook and reading blogs I like. And some days I could do a better job of leaving the phone in my purse and being more present with my kids. Which is why vacation is always nice. 
I have my phone with me, but the service is not great. I also do not take it along most of the time when we go out to the pool or to other activities. At night I do not spend as much time on the computer as I do at home, although I do try to keep up with emails...because somehow the work never stops fully.
Still, it is nice to take a little "communication break" while we are here. The truth is, though, that I would not want it to be this way all the time.
A friend of mine is away for the summer in a place where she has very limited phone and internet access. She feels cut off from the world but not in a good way. She feels lonely and abandoned. Because, for many, mothers of young children, our days often seem long and isolated. We are home or at the park with our kids. Nobody know that we have just changed the 10th diaper of the day or cleaned yet another apple juice spill. And while, it is not earth shattering, it is nice to sometimes be able to share the little things with someone to feel less like it is us alone in the big bad world. As pathetic as it may sound, it is so validating to have someone else empathize and even just say "poor you, I hope your day gets better/ he starts sleeping/ he stops having accidents every 20 minutes."
That, I think, is often the appeal of mom-blogs and list-serves/websites for mothers. We want to share. Even if we cannot always physically get together with our friends for coffee, we connect over the internet or through texting and sharing random pictures of our hilarious children. To know there are others like us, doing the same work, which is sometimes amazing and sometimes amazingly frustrating.
So while I am enjoying this little break from reality, once we get back from summer and head back into a more scheduled/routine life, I will definitely be using my phone again. I will try to be mindful not to obsess and to be in the moment as well, but I will be texting and blogging and sharing on facebook to make me feel a little more connected to others like me.
Plus, then I would not be able to share cute pictures like this...AY eating his first ice cream that Y so graciously shared with him :)

What are your thoughts on social media?

Call vs Don't Call

This past Sunday, with all the Purim craziness going on, I still managed to read an interesting article in the NY Times whose headline caught my eye.In  Don't Call Me, I Won't Call You, the writer posits that telephones are slowly becoming obsolete.
While everyone has a cell phone, they are mostly used for texting and emails. Nowadays we make plans, catch up and communicate via facebook, twitter or email, but rarely over the phone. People interviewed in  the article claim that phones are obtrusive, a person calls and expects to be responded to right away, whether or not you are busy. Email, on the other hand, can be answered at your leisure.
I will definitely agree that often, a quick email can be a lot more efficient than playing phone tag with someone or finding a time that works for everyone. But that is only true for business issues or other areas that require lots of planning and hammering out details.
If you really want to have a relationship with someone, you need to speak. Ideally, face to face, but if not then definitely over the phone.
 Living far away from family, the phone is a great way to keep up with my them.  I speak to some of them on a weekly basis, while others sometimes forget to call for months on end (um...you know who you are), but the bottom line is that in order to maintain a relationship, you need to talk!
One of my closest friends lives an hour drive away. Sometimes it feels like she might as well be living in a different country because we never see each other. We do make a point of checking in with each other by phone almost daily, to have serious talks or just vent about our childrens' newest shenanigans. It's our way of connecting and sharing.
Most importantly, though, I use the phone to speak with my husband. When we first met, we lived in different countries, actually on different continents. We dated long distance and tried to see each other as often as possible, but the phone was really what kept our relationship going. This was in the pre-historic days before skype, when you actually still had to buy phone cards and punch in access codes. We spoke for hours on end, minimally for two hours every other day. We also set some records, like the night we spent over five hours speaking. Do not ask me, what we discussed for so long, but it was just one of the many conversations that brought us closer.
Now that we have been married for seven years (Happy Anniversary to us by the way) and live in the same house, communication is obviously a lot easier :) But I still like to speak on the phone at least once, because he is often out for a large part of the day and especially when he is traveling. A quick "Hello/ I am thinking about you/ how was your day so far?" What some psychologists like to call "mindfulness".
That is really what speaking to someone on the phone is about on some level. I am thinking about you and wondering how you are, so I pick up the phone to reach out and connect with you. And last I checked, genuine connection is not becoming obsolete, hopefully not for a long time.