For clarification on the first revelation: I love kids. I love being the parent of my kids and get along with other kids as well. However, my kids are 10 and 13 and as such I’m done with the infant to toddler phase. My niece is a new Mom and is well equipped to handle all that comes with a 1 year old. I was too, but it’s easy to forget the effort raising a toddler: Diapers, annoying cartoons and toddler songs, safety outlet covers. My niece is in a world I was in a mere 10 years ago, but my world changed as my kids grew. I have not owned a safety cover for my electrical outlets in 5 years, and those annoying cartoons? Not anymore – my kids would rather watch Discovery channel or CSI.

Still, I was happy to celebrate the occasion and so I made the trek to the local store to pick out a toy for my darling little great-Niece. That brings me to revelation #2 and let me be clear on this point: I was not prepared for the toddler isle at Toys-R-Us. The first thing that confused me was that everything – I mean everything – seemed to be electronic. Second, it occurred to me that most toys in the 12-18 mo range were marketed as ‘educational’. Really? She’s turning one, not trying to decode human DNA. Plus, I had the ‘Cool Aunt’ reputation to uphold and I didn’t want to get her an educational toy! That’s what Grandma gets! What I wanted to get was something that was fun and could either make noise (but not too annoying for my Niece) or something that didn’t involve batteries.

My search was difficult. All the top toys had something to do with education: Fisher Price apparently has cornered the market with their “educational” toys. There is the “Laugh and Learn musical table”, “Laugh and Learn – Say Please tea set”. A ‘say please’ tea set? Can’t you just get the kid some plastic cups from the pantry and have a party? Now the tea set has to teach you to say please? And don’t even get me started about ‘Leap Frog’. I don’t think there’s a fun bone in that company! Of course all of those were quickly counted out because it was educational and included batteries.

I finally ended up with an old favorite: Sit and Spin. It met all my criteria. It was not educational, and did not require batteries. It didn’t make noise but I will assume the noise will come from my Great-Niece squealing in delight rather than the toy itself. Hopefully, I will be able to see my Great-Niece spinning to her hearts content – which is either until she passes out, falls off, or throws up. Good times for all and there’s not an ounce of education or electronics involved. It’s a toy and its fun. It’s perfect!

Happy birthday Kaylee – enjoy the toy, or at least the box it came in.

Don’t get me wrong:  they absolutely love going to the lake – they love going out on the boat, hiking the trails, and hanging out with family.  The hurdle they will have to overcome is that they will have to live without their precious media outlets.  My daughter will have to live without texting and my son without video games.  They quickly adapt (takes approximately one day), but just like an addict they go through ‘technology withdrawals’.

An article in the New York Times indicated that teenagers send and receive an average of 2,272 texts per month – almost 80 messages a day!  Combine this with Facebook and/or Twitter posts, internet searches, Television, and video games, our kids are saturated in media daily basis.  It is part of their lifestyle and their daily routine, and it is no wonder that when they are told to unplug (typically due to being grounded and losing their phone privileges) a protest is likely.

What I find really interesting is their lack of ability to truly articulate their feelings when they do lose their texting privileges. Even with the constant communication they do, they are unable to formulate a compelling argument on why they should be allowed to continue texting! I believe that it’s because they don’t have as much practice in verbal communication as I did at their age.  After all, texting typically occurs in short 180 character messages. They rarely call a friend on the phone and instead rely on the written (texting) for their comment/question.  Their messages are shorter and perhaps even more thought through. Having an actual conversation involves verbalizing your feelings immediately rather than taking a few minutes longer on how to respond to a text received – There is no backspace or edit capabilities in a verbal conversation. It makes me wonder what impact this type of messaging will have on our kids when they enter into the working world?

I think this trip is exactly what the doctor ordered.  Each year we are brought closer and have great memories of the annual lake trip.  And sure enough when we come down from the mountain the phones will come out and the texting will begin again – until next year’s trip when we do it all over again.

We were reminded of Jean-Christophe Laurence’s video of children from a school in Montreal, Canada attempting to discern the purpose of several bits of 80s technology (originally posted November 23, 2010 at cyberpresse.ca).

We had not given it much thought, but it IS understandable how the busy signal may be on the same path to extinction as floppy disks, Atari cartridges, and cassette tapes. When you consider that nearly every cell phone and most land lines now have call waiting, perhaps it is should be more surprising that 2 of the 11 children HAD heard a busy signal.

Have your children ever heard a busy signal before? What was their reaction?

Please share your thoughts and experiences below.