Our technically savvy toddlers

I am the most technically incompetent person you might ever come across.

It's the truth.

This blog is the most advanced technical thing I have ever done and even then - I am at a loss for how to do simple things like blogrolling or adding picture links to my sidebar. I have gone through 5 "test blogs" and have irrevocably destroyed all of them. If one day Amazing Trips is gone, chances are - I inadvertently deleted it.

I balk at the idea of getting TiVo, because I doubt my ability to grasp the concept of recording television - when I can't even figure out how to set the clock on our VCR. Speaking of televisions, whenever I get a hold of our remote control - which is linked to our stereo - I have this horrible tendency to start pushing buttons. The more flustered I get - the more buttons I push. It drives Charlie absolutely mental. For the past two months, we've been *enjoying* closed caption subtitles at the bottom of our screen, because neither of us the time to figure out how to get rid of them.

The alarm clock in our bedroom? I'm ashamed to admit that the "off" function completely eludes me. Maybe it's because it's relatively new and I rarely use it ... but on those oddball occasions when I need to wake up before the three alarm clocks I rely on that sleep in the room next to us ... I am jolted out of a deep sleep and frantically yell for Charlie to "PLEASE, MAKE IT STOP!!!" when instead of hitting the snooze button, I crank the volume up to 50.

My mother can attest to the fact that just a few years ago, I wiped out her entire hard drive when she asked me to help *organize* some files. Fortunately, she attends church with a computer guru who was able to recover what I thought had been lost, forever. It only required 2-hours and reinstalling Windows.

I suppose it would help if I just sat down with the instruction manual before I tried "trouble-shooting" stuff on my own, but whenever I open instruction manuals, I immediately fall in to a coma. It's absolutely pathetic.

Today, I was at a very important and somewhat tense business meeting. While I was there, with 10 very important people sitting around a big table, someone's cell phone started to ring. My first thought was "Oh oh ... someone forgot to turn off their phone." But when no one acknowledged the obnoxious ringing, my second thought was "How rude!"

It was just about that time, that my boss leaned over to me and said "Uh, Jen. I think that's your cell phone ringing." I laughed and said "Oh no ... that's not my ring tone." And my boss with urgency in his voice said "Jen, that is your cell phone. It's ringing in your bag at this very moment." Reaching down to show my boss that he was WRONG and I was RIGHT, I pulled out my cell phone and was horrified to see that it was lighting up like a Christmas tree and emitting this horribly high pitched ring.

Profusely apologizing to the group of very important people, I successfully silenced my phone. But before I had the opportunity to turn the darn thing off, I was flabbergasted to hear it start singing "Hey little dolphin, would you like to come and swim with me? Hey, hey, little dolphin, swimming in the deep blue sea!"

While I sat there staring at my phone - and all the important people in the room sat there staring at my phone, I stuttered "I, I, I don't get it. That's the Baby Einstein DVD I let my children watch. How in the world did that get on my phone?"

And just then ... I heard one of my children say "Helwow? Helwow? Zeebelazeedaazzeemee Weeeee!! Oh oh!" followed by a very familiar voice saying "Holy sh*t! How did you get that?!?" There was some fumbling, some crying and the phone went silent. The very important people at the table who moments earlier looked irritated and then befuddled, burst out laughing. It's nice to see that I can bring comic relief to tense situations.

Our children love to play with the telephone. Although we have several little toy phones for them to play with - a real phone is the best prize ever ... topped only by a real cell phone. When we replaced our home phones, we removed the batteries, and gave the kids our old phones to play with. Sometimes, the only way we can corral them in to their strollers, is if we let them "talk on the phone" during our evening walk.

Unless my cell phone is turned off or locked - I don't allow the children to play with a real phone, because I have heard stories of toddlers that in the course of smashing every button (much like how I work our remote control), place a call to 911 and moments later an ambulance, fire engine and three police cars are sitting in the driveway.

My kids know that I don't want them playing with a real phone, because whenever they get their little paws on one ... they run away from me as fast as they can. What my experience today has taught me is that they are apparently getting very sneaky.

It turns out that one, perhaps more, of my 23-month toddlers hijacked my phone. They managed to change the ring tone, and then succeeded in recording a message so whenever I miss a call, I am reminded that I must stop swearing.

I have NO idea how they did this. I couldn't replicate it if I tried. I have absolutely no clue how to get rid of the high-pitched ring tone, nor how to delete the voice recording. Tomorrow, I plan to call Verizon and see if they can walk me through it. And then, I hope that my 23-month old children will show me how to set the clock on the VCR, turn off my alarm, and maybe figure out how to set the date on my digital watch. It's been stuck on "January 1, 2002" for almost 5 years.