The cellphone - a Mother's best friend!

I love that my kids have cell phones. I love I can reach them whenever I need (or want) to, and I love they check in when their plans change. Cell phones ease my obsessive worrying and often brighten up a bad day with just a simple text from any one of them.

That said – Alex is by far the most responsible of my three children when it comes to updating me about her activities. One might say she is overly responsible – but I still love it. Alex will call me when any part of her day changes, particularly relative to basketball practice. This has been helpful lately; the schedule I was given seems to be fairly flexible.

For instance, Alex called me yesterday morning to let me know she had a C team game that afternoon. This was not on the schedule, but thanks to the cell phone I was able to go. However, once again I was disappointed, Alex sat on the bench, the consequences of missing practice the previous day.

There is something going on with Alex and basketball I can not figure out. I have talked to her coaches and am not getting too far. Last year’s philosophy about including Alex and giving her a few breaks is not being practiced this year. This is really upsetting me, but as our school pow wow is next week I will wait and talk to the big guns. Personally, I think she might be having an issue with some of the kids, but she is not sharing. Perhaps it is time for the old “take her out to dinner” bribe.

Back to the phones - each of my kids has a different ring tone - something that reminds me of them. Alex’s is "Does anyone really know what time it is". Whenever I hear this ring tone I smile. Our conversations are very predictable, just like Alex, and they always go like this:

Me – “Hi, Sweetheart”

A – “Hi Mom, this is Alex” (sometimes she even includes her last name)

Me – “I know who you are”

A – “Oops” (with her adorable giggle)

Me – “What’s up?”

A – “I got to tell you something” (yes, her grammar is not correct – part of her speech goals – or will be when I am done)

Me – “What’s that?” (maybe my sentence is not correct either?)

She then fills me in on the information she wants to share. She always has the details, the time and my take-away correct.

Alex has last word disease, which runs rampant in my family. Our conversation always ends like this:

A – “Bye Mom, I love you”

As I hang up from these calls, my heart smiles and I know there is much happiness in my life. What else could a mother ask for?