Never Thought THIS Day Would Come

My sisters and I got "the email" from my mom the other day. The one we never thought we'd read. "Soooo, now I have a smart phone...they say. What I have learned so far...a smart phone is ONLY as smart as the user."

Earth shattering doesn't even BEGIN to cover this news.

My mother. The one whose phone mantra for lo these many years has been a firm I just need a phone. I don't need it to do my dishes...took possession of a smart phone?

I can't. It's too much.

We asked her what kind of smart phone, and she said {AND I QUOTE} "Does iPhone make sense? It says that on the holder it came in."

I knew right then...this could be interesting.

That evening, Ryan gathered the first documented proof of this newfangled contraption:

Life as we knew it: over.

Watch out, world. Mama's texting.

I was actually ridiculously proud of her; she'd somehow mastered this art with virtually no instruction. I exchanged a few messages with her myself, and a few texts in, I received a good night. I called.

"Mom, you can't just GOOD NIGHT me in the middle of a conversation!"

She said, "I typed something and lost it and didn't want to retype it. So I quit." Ohhhh Mom.

Tuesday night she and Dad came over, armed with a Frosty for Ryan and me...and the four of us settled in at the dining room table. They say all the family bonding happens at the dining room table. And indeed it did. Mama went to smart phone school.

I taught the first class. {Excuse the nose. It's becoming its own appendage. My ponytail picture days are numbered.}

I taught her a few things, and then I turned the reins over to Professor Ryan:

{Do you like how we all got the red and black memo? As though we KNEW it would be photo-shoot worthy!!!}

I have to say this before I tell a story on her. She was at our house for about three hours and in that time, she worked SO HARD. You know what it's like when you're trying to learn something brand new and your brain isn't used to bending that way? It wears a person out. But she trucked on, never asked for a break, and worked so hard to learn. I was so proud of her!!

But.

This story is too good to pass up.

So we were teaching her to answer calls. If you have an iPhone, you know that the screen looks different depending on if you're answering a call from a blank, inactive screen or if you're active on a page. So we were practicing it both ways.

She had the phone on the table in front of her and I called her. She figured out how to answer and then stared at the phone on the table and said, "But didn't I hang up on you? I can't hear anything."

I said, "Well, a key component to this process is to PICK UP THE PHONE AND PUT IT BY YOUR EAR!!!!"

My dad found that pretty funny. {My dad doesn't do cell phones. He just sat patiently while she learned and randomly snickered at the funny parts.}

But a few moments later, when she hit the same problem with answering the phone, I looked at Dad and said, "What should she do at this juncture?" He very slowly held his hand up to his ear.  :) He knew. What do we call that? Learning by osmosis?

We could tell she was reaching her saturation point, so we started to wind down. She put her hands on her head and said, "This is so hard."

Ryan didn't miss a beat and said, "So was first grade, but I made it through." {He was in Mom's first grade class.}

Winning line of the night.

So that's how Mama came to have a smart phone. And a tutoring session.

And she took a picture. AND she figured out how to text it to me.

She sent it three times, actually. Two of them accompanied by the message, "I can't do it." HA!

Proud of you, Mom. Hang in there. You'll get it. And I'll get lots of pictures.