So last Friday night, I decided to have a nice bonfire in the back yard and a few marshmallows. There was a time this would have brought all the kids running. Not so much anymore, my big guys were at their dad's. My son was watching some sports something or other w/ his dad...so it was just me and baby girl(she's 8..almost 9), OH! and our retarded, marshmallow, loving dog. We didn't mind, it was nice. So we sat and enjoyed the fire for a while chatted a bit, roasted some marshmallows, tossed a few to the dog. Then as I was mellowing out, she was getting bored. I could tell cause she was getting wiggly. It was fairly dark, and the fire was nice, the neighborhood was quiet. I was content to just sit there and watch the logs burn. Finally she asked me, "Mom..can I play w/ your phone?" I figured, what the heck, I don't let her use it very often, no big deal, so I handed it to her. She says, "Ya got any games on this thing?". It's fairly new and I don't really like games, so no I don't have any games. Then she decided to go on Twitter and figured that out. She was off in phone la la land, happily amusing herself quietly beside me. I enjoyed the fire, she enjoyed the company and the electronics and we coexisted. I sat there thinking to myself, "I never would have pictured this when I was a kid" Really, sitting in my back yard letting my 9 yr old play w/ a cell phone that was smaller than my hand, fits in my pocket, doesn't require a "BAG" to carry it around because it weighs 12 pounds, didn't cost me $4000, AND has the internet w/o being plugged in. WOW! Culture shock. When I was her age I would have just been content to sit and watch the fire. Things were simpler, slower...we didn't have to go go go all the time. Maybe it was just because I was a kid, maybe it still felt hectic to my Mom, I don't know. We didn't have all day kids programming, if you missed cartoons when they were on, you missed them, we didn't have DVR's, hell we didn't even have cable cause we lived to far out of town. We lived on a lake, we had bikes, my girlfriend had horses, we were busy having fun, being kids. Life is so much different for kids now. They'll never have to open an encyclopedia or a dictionary, you can find all that online. You never have to miss your favorite show, and heck if by some chance you did, they'll rerun it so many times you'll be sick of it. You don't have to worry about talking on the phone somewhere the cord doesn't reach (we still have a land line, but cordless phones of course). One of the BIGGEST things when I was a kid was to have a phone in your room, hell now ya just walk it right in there, no big deal. Ours even work outside. You don't have to leave your house to rent a movie, you don't have to rent a VCR to watch it LOL (ever do that? we did!). No one cares about going to the arcade, cause you just play video games at your house. You don't need to ask for directions to anywhere just look it up on your phone, and it will take you there. SO many more things, it's just amazing how fast it all changes. You know when your a kid and your parents or other adults say things like, "In a flash you'll be a grown up, time goes by so fast" and you laugh it off, SURE I will.. It's so true. You blink and the week is over, blink again and it's been a year. My oldest son turned 18 in July, the middle one is 15, the youngest son is 10 almost 11, and baby girl will be 9, another year of school starts on Tuesday, where did the time go? Tonight, if it's not raining, you'll find me sitting by the fire, trying to hold on to one more night while time flies by.
