Just a phone?

It is hard to believe that when we were born, we didn't even have cordless phones. We didn't have home computers (well, maybe a few of us did). We didn't have the Internet (remember dialing up at 14.4 kbps??). We didn't even have cable.

Now we have cell phones that we can carry around everywhere. Cordless phones, the "cool gadgets" of yesterday, are outdated. We don't even have a home phone at our house, we use our cell phones instead. What's more, these small gadgets that are our main phones, are also our computers. I can blog from mine, view and update Facebook, shop eBay, play card games, and basically do almost everything I want to do without touching our home PC. And, now, we can watch movies and stream video on these "phones." I recently learned that I can watch NFL football games on the iPhone (according to DirecTV, but I have still got to get it set up!).

All this in a package the size of a deck of cards. To us adults, this is still pretty cool. And high-tech. What's so amazing is that for our kids, this is "normal." Run-of-the-mill. Standard. Nothing to be surprised by. In fact, it's totally expected. Can you imagine what they would think by our homes in the early 1980's? It would be, so, gasp, BORING!

What has prompted all these deep thoughts, you might ask? See below...

Nate was able to pick up the iPhone interface faster than most adults. Here he is playing Tom's Tiger Woods golf game. And he is making par! The first time he ever has played the game, and he is better at it than we are.

Three boys, one tractor

Is this heaven? No, but it's close!

(Tom is borrowing a tractor for the weekend to work on our non-existent yard. The boys are beside themselves with excitement.)

portrait

Today Nate drew a picture of me. And he wrote his name, although he ran out of room and had to put the "t-e" above the "N-a".

Secret Park

Today while Nate was at preschool Nile and I went for a 6 mile run along the Hennepin Canal. 2.9 miles outside of town, in the middle of practically nowhere, we found a "mini-park" with a park bench in someone's memory and some kind of marker for the canal. Nile loved sitting on the canal marker...?

School days...

So...last year I didn't even think to bring the camera to Nate's first day of preschool. As the only mom who didn't bring a camera, I was not going to make the same mistake again. Here it is, the standard "first-day-of-school" picture: Nate outside church, right before school.



After spending an hour with their teacher while we parents signed a bunch of legal forms...they performed a song for us. ("If You're Happy and you Know It"). Nate is wearing a dark blue shirt on the right side of the class. For those of you who aren't familiar with the stories from last year, this short video marks a HUGE improvement over last year. Last year Nate refused to sing, do any actions, or pretty much anything during their few "performances." So seeing him participate made me so happy!




After the performance each child got a t-shirt. This, to Nate, was the best part of the day: "I won a prize!"


So far we're off to a great school year. Let's hope it continues!