Texting – Walk the Talk

I got busted! With all my high and mighty talk about placing limits on my kids' texting habits, it appears I needed a reminder to follow my own rule.
We took our annual family trek to Frankenmuth, Michigan a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who've never heard of Frankenmuth, it's a super cool town known as "Michigan's Little Bavaria." It is also home to the uber-famous Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland, the world's largest Christmas store. Bronner's unabashedly proclaims "the joy of Christ's birth is celebrated all year at Bronner's - Enjoy CHRISTmas, It's HIS birthday; Enjoy Life, It's HIS way." The store provides customers with a phenomenal 5-1/2 football fields of dazzling Christmas magic.

Every year since our oldest daughter was two, we've had a family tradition of visiting Frankenmuth in early November. We have dinner together, enjoying traditional German cuisine at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant, then head over to Bronner's to shop. Each year, we allow the kids select one ornament of their very own. That way, by the time they leave home, they'll have several of their very own hand-selected ornaments to take with them for decorating their first Christmas trees. We always spend two to three hours in the store, just meandering through, exploring the miniature lighted villages, home décor, and ornaments of every theme you can possibly imagine.

But something happened during our visit this year that's never happened before. You see, last year we didn't have a cell phone family plan with unlimited texting.

This year, as we strolled along exclaiming over the glittering sites, every so often Ashleigh or Joshua would flip open their cell phone and whip off a quick text. After much grumbling, I finally told them to knock it off. "This is family time," I proclaimed, and they should simply hold off on texting their friends right now. They were actually really mature about it, agreeing with me and putting their phones away.

A short time later, while we were marveling over some Italian hand-painted mouth-blown glass ornaments, I heard telltale beeping coming from inside my purse. I unzipped it and checked. Ah, a message from my dear friend Susan, asking me a pertinent question about the upcoming city council vote. I quickly sent an answering text. A moment later, she texted back with a new question. I responded again. We went back and forth a few more times when I suddenly felt as if I was being watched. I glanced up to see Ashleigh and Joshua standing in front of me. Brows arched, arms folded across their chests.

"Ahem."

"What?" said I, still pathetically clueless.

"No texting during family time!" they said in unison.

Oops! Heh, heh. Need to follow my own rule, I guess.

I flipped my phone shut and was a good girl for the rest of the afternoon.


Cell phone image by: Alanairis
Bronner's image