40 is the New 30; or, I Must Need an iPhone

Today I got an iPhone.

I used to wonder how our parents managed to keep tabs on us kids, know when to pick us up, tell us it was time to come home, etc., without cell phones.

I got my first cell phone 13 years ago when my older son was 4 months old. It was a big, gray flip-phone with an antenna I had to pull out. And it was just a phone. No screens, no cameras, no calendars or calculators. Just a telephone to use if our old car broke down somewhere while I was out alone with the baby.

By the time my son went to Mother's-Day-Out, I was required to leave a phone number where I could be reached at any time in case of emergency. I had to either provide them with a cell phone number or stay home  for the duration of my day out. Since that was not an option, I replaced my gargantuan gray with a sleeker model that was about the size of a PayDay bar.

Over the past several months I have noticed my question about how our parents did it without cell phones morphing into a question of how they did it without fully synced calendars, e-mail accounts, and global positioning systems.

I have never been one to keep a calendar and we are not an overly busy family. Mark only travels a total of about 2.5 months out of the year. I don't travel. The boys are limited to one extra-curricular activity at a time in addition to their karate class.

And yet as they get older I find it harder and harder to be the CHO (Chief Household Operator) without 3G making it possible for me to see everyone's Google Calendar from anywhere in the world. Between orthodontist appointments, eye glasses, tonsillectomies, choir concerts, field trips, youth group stuff, and sleep overs, I can no longer keep it all straight like I once did. And I haven't even mentioned the things that Mark and I do!

Of course I considered the possibility that my aging brain is the problem, not my lack of an iPhone. But since 40 is the new 30 I promptly disregarded that thought.

And I got an iPhone.