I remember when my oldest daughter, Briyana, was on the Cross Country team at school. It was back in 2008 and she was in the 2nd grade. They practiced after school and we had to pick her up no later than 3:30pm. Being a professional mom (I was still the office manager and accountant at the time) time often got away from me and before I would realize how late in the afternoon it was, my phone would be ringing and it would be her coach, reminding me that my 8 year old was waiting for me by the sidewalk in front of the school.
Oops.
It seemed like nothing I did helped me remember. I felt so horrible every time she called me… I mean, what kind of mother totally forgets her own kid? I tried setting up email reminders and pop-up tasks in the calendar on my computer, but it seemed that when it came time to remind me, that happened to always be the time I wasn’t at the computer. I tried writing it on my wall calendar, but since no matter how much I begged it to, it would never scream at me and I still would forget. Each week, the call from the coach came and each week, I felt terrible as I rushed out the door to pick up my baby girl… always the last one standing on the sidewalk.
Poor thing.
Finally, I realized I had a wonderful tool I hadn’t even attempted to utilize: My touchscreen Windows mobile HTC smartphone! I already used it for budgeting with the Microsoft Money app, viewing, creating and editing documents with Acrobat, Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, sending and receiving emails with Outlook, and even calculating tips when we went out to eat. Why hadn’t I thought about using its calendar to give me an audible reminder to pick her up? Um, DUH! Unfortunately, she still got dismissed from the Cross Country team because even though my smartphone was wonderfully reliable, it just couldn’t scream out loud to me when I silenced it by putting it on Meeting mode. So, alas… its quiet little beep went unnoticed.
Sometimes Mommy brain simply overpowers all else.
I no longer own a smartphone as mine got broken after I quit my job to stay home with my kids and as luck would have it, I hadn’t gotten insurance on my personal account. I sometimes reminisce on how much easier my HTC made my life and I gaze in amazement as new smartphones roll out ever so often, such as the sexy new Palm Pre on the ever-powerful Verizon Network. *ahem* “Can you hear me now?” One day… I will have my love again :) haha
Disclosure:
This post was sponsored by Verizon and JuiceBoxJungle who asked me to talk about how my life as a parent has been affected by a smartphone.
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