Texting is not for teens. It’s for moms. Making an actual phone call is a Herculean effort. It’s not our fault, okay?
- Someone is always screaming, whether joyfully or angrily.
- It is perfectly acceptable to put the phone down while texting in order to change a poop. Not so for a phone call. (“Hold on, Doctor. I know your time is valuable and all, but can you just hang on a sec while I change this diaper?”)
- During nap time, if I answer the phone, someone WILL wake up. (This peculiarity of my children does not extend to nighttime sleeping, however.)
- After the kids go to bed, my arms are too tired to lift that phone and call anyone. Really.
- My brain is no longer capable of rational conversation. Short non-committal bursts of texting, however, are well within my brain power. (Sometimes I can even be witty.)
- My cell phone kind of acts like a walkie-talkie, in that it cuts out whenever anyone is making any noise whatsoever. Since three toddlers are 100% never ever silent, this means I can’t hear you and you can’t hear me. Well, we can hear each other, if you are interested in hearing every-other syllable. Cool.
- Kids are diabolical geniuses who will use the distraction of a phone call to execute their naughtiest plan. I think they plot things in their head and lie in wait until I dial a number. Phone calls are when they try to figure out if fleece jammies can soak up all the water in a toilet (they can), or when the oldest tries to see if he can “baptize the babies” (he can’t).
- Everything I would say (GET DOWN!) during a phone call (DON’T STRADDLE THE DOG!) is punctuated (DON’T EAT SHOES THAT JUST WALKED THROUGH THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE!) by parenting.
The only time I feel like making calls is at about 5:30 in the morning. Anyone up for a chat?
***
This post was originally written for Beyond Infertility, a website about parenting after infertility. I am a regular contributor to their site. You can find the original article here.
