Techno-dependency

As much as I resist it, I’m like most red-blooded Americans in that I rely WAY too heavily on technology.  When I was little, we didn’t even have a TV until I was four, and I swore that when I had children, I would limit the amount of TV my kids watched and video games they played to a bare minimum.  Instead, we would spend our days baking cookies and painting and going for nature walks and doing all the things that “good moms” do with their kids. 

For the most part, I’m proud to say I have stuck to my guns, but regardless of how little exposure my kids have to brain-numbing activities (I’m not completely knocking the brain-numbers--I certainly participate in lots of them), Will and Ben can operate my phone better than I can, play their own movies and video games, and practically set the DVR to record their favorite programs.  I’ve come to terms with the fact that this is the world my children live in, and I’m beginning to embrace it for what it is.

The thing that I have come to depend on the most is surprisingly (to me) the DVD player in the car.  We spend a lot of time on cross-country road trips (thanks to the AF’s training schedule), and sometimes the only way to get where we’re going without someone falling apart is to watch Toy Story 3 nine times.

Last Christmas, my mom bought a dual screen DVD player for the boys which was great because Ben was starting to be interested in what was happening on the screen.  As someone who has struggled with neck and back pain since childhood, I felt guilty about him having to crane his neck to see, and if I switched it to the other side of the car, I had to listen to Will complain about how he couldn’t see/his neck hurt.  With dual screens, everyone was happy.

Until the day that the second screen stopped working.  Kaput.

We went several weeks with one screen because I was too busy (re:wouldn’t think about it until 1:00 in the morning) to call the company to have the broken one fixed.  When I did finally call (because I was having nightmares about our upcoming Christmas trip home), the nice tech guy and I decided it would be best to try replacing the cable that connects to the two screens first to see if that was the problem.

I didn’t have high hopes because it couldn’t possibly be that easy, right?  I sent him a check for $11.90 to cover the cost of the cable plus shipping and handling, and two days later, we had a cable.  When I got in the car, I was prepared for disappointment (it’s been one of those Murphy’s Law months), and when I plugged in the cable...VOILA!  Two working screens!  TWO WORKING SCREENS!

IT WAS A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!!

I joke, but it was literally the only thing that went right that day, and I was so excited, that  I pulled out my cell phone to call my mom to tell her the good news.  Of course, the whole reason we were getting in the car in the first place was to drive to the Sprint store to get a new phone because I’d dropped mine in the toilet the night before.

What are you gonna do?

I, for one, am going to be thankful today that we can watch Imagination Movers eighteen times on the way to OK later this week without anyone getting a pinched nerve.