Owen was sitting on Tom’s lap watching him play a game on his phone…so of course Katie had to get up there, too. 🙂
Category Archives: iPhone/iPad
It’s times like this Owen doesn’t love his sister.
Aaaand we’ve reached the stage where Owen cannot play with the iPad without Katie getting right up in his business.
And of course she screeches if she doesn’t get her way. So we all enjoy that.
Tonight’s Skype
Katie crawls up…
…and over Tom.
While Owen is off wandering.
I wanna do it, too!
Katie HAS to be next to Owen or seeing what he’s doing… Tom took these while I was out getting my hair done.
Owen’s new favorite show
He LOVES Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood-–an animated spin off, I guess you’d say, of Mr. Rogers. I knew about the show but hadn’t gotten around to recording it for him…but he managed to find it himself on the PBS app on the iPad! This is him singing the Good Morning song (eventually).
These are definitely our kids.
Both enjoying the iPad together…
I love that Tom can still make me laugh.
I’m coming to get you!
Moments like these are when I’m really glad I have my phone on me.
Wavy Tube Man Ice Cream
After driving by Wavy Tube Man (at the local ice cream place) many, many times, Owen finally got to stop and meet him. Of course, he’s loud…so this was as close as he got. 🙂
Then he had some ice cream.
And Katie loved Tom’s shake.
She LOVES ice cream! (And she ate rolls, green beans, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, and roasted chicken for dinner so she deserves a little treat!)
And the poster I created on my phone just playing around:
Introduction to the iPad
Making pretty music… I love that she quickly figures out which side makes the music.
I want the iPad, too!
Owen’s first swear word!
We were sitting around this morning before we headed to the airport, and Owen was playing on the iPad. I wasn’t really paying close attention to him but my ears suddenly perked up when I swear I heard him say dammit. I brushed it off as just not hearing him correctly (it was almost a whisper) but a minute or so later he said it again!
“Dammit. I can’t get /whatever/.”
I turned to look at Linda and said “Ah, his first swear word.” And she agreed that’s what she thought he had said before.
I am not 100% sure where he picked it up, though I’m pretty sure it was me—as I’ve been known to let it slip now and again. And at least he used it correctly!
Happy 4th Birthday, Owen!
Fun with leftover Lego parts!
Balloon fight with Grannie Lin!
Posing with his presents—and in his birthday shirt—for another birthday picture!
Katie in her new party dress…with Grannie (and a gift from Grannie):
And trying to peek around me to watch TV like Owen does:
Owen’s finished (lame) Lego cakes:
The appetizer set up:
Attempting to Skype with Gramma Jean/Grandpa David and Grandma Marsha/Uncle Rob (it didn’t work too well—our network couldn’t handle it):
Most of the attendees:
Singing Happy Birthday:
Really excited about his new Xbox Sesame Street game from Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob:
And the guitar I found on clearance for $3 (and took the batteries out ahead of time!):
He did pretty well opening presents…except he really loved the first things he opened (Lego Cars and a Ninja Lego) so he wanted to stop right then and play but we made him keep going. 🙂 We did stop about halfway through, though, because he was losing interest and really wanted to play. Which was just fine.
One last attempt at a good Katie pic:
Our attempted family photo:
And just for comparison…last year’s photo:
Owen feet
I looked over and this was what I saw.
Owen playing on the iPad, quite obviously relaxed. 🙂
The one night I don’t turn my phone off…
So last night I didn’t mute my phone like I’ve done pretty much every night ever…figuring I really don’t need to because I have DND (Do Not Disturb) on, which silences incoming phone calls unless someone A) is in your favorites or B) calls three times.
So what happens? Some unknown asshole texts me twice at 12:45am asking “who is this?” and then—since I obviously didn’t answer—calls me twice at 1-EFFING-am. Seriously? Who does that? And at 1am? And DND let it through because apparently 2 texts + 2 phone calls = 3 phone calls…??
I’m not mad at DND (though I am surprised) but I am so pissed I was woken up by some inconsiderate douchebag. I was tempted to call them back at 6a and hopefully wake them up. So after having just finally fallen asleep around 12:30, I was wide awake again. 👿
Oh, and I have ZERO idea who it is. It’s a North Carolina cell number I’ve never called or texted. And though their number was blocked when they called…it came through on the texts, so Tom called at 7:30 and got some chick’s voicemail, saying something to the effect of “If you’re Tim or someone I don’t know, forget about me calling back.” So obviously she’s having issues with a guy named Tim. And I’m sure she thought I was involved.
So since Tom refused to keep calling back, this is the texting conversation we had:
There should be something more painful you can do to stupid people like this.
What a brilliant mom.
No, not me. 🙂
Mom Has Son Sign 18-point Agreement For iPhone
Dear Gregory
Merry Christmas! You are now the proud owner of an iPhone. Hot Damn! You are a good & responsible 13 year old boy and you deserve this gift. But with the acceptance of this present comes rules and regulations. Please read through the following contract. I hope that you understand it is my job to raise you into a well rounded, healthy young man that can function in the world and coexist with technology, not be ruled by it. Failure to comply with the following list will result in termination of your iPhone ownership.
I love you madly & look forward to sharing several million text messages with you in the days to come.
- It is my phone. I bought it. I pay for it. I am loaning it to you. Aren’t I the greatest?
- I will always know the password.
- If it rings, answer it. It is a phone. Say hello, use your manners. Do not ever ignore a phone call if the screen reads “Mom” or “Dad”. Not ever.
- Hand the phone to one of your parents promptly at 7:30pm every school night & every weekend night at 9:00pm. It will be shut off for the night and turned on again at 7:30am. If you would not make a call to someone’s land line, wherein their parents may answer first, then do not call or text. Listen to those instincts and respect other families like we would like to be respected.
- It does not go to school with you. Have a conversation with the people you text in person. It’s a life skill. *Half days, field trips and after school activities will require special consideration.
- If it falls into the toilet, smashes on the ground, or vanishes into thin air, you are responsible for the replacement costs or repairs. Mow a lawn, babysit, stash some birthday money. It will happen, you should be prepared.
- Do not use this technology to lie, fool, or deceive another human being. Do not involve yourself in conversations that are hurtful to others. Be a good friend first or stay the hell out of the crossfire.
- Do not text, email, or say anything through this device you would not say in person.
- Do not text, email, or say anything to someone that you would not say out loud with their parents in the room. Censor yourself.
- No porn. Search the web for information you would openly share with me. If you have a question about anything, ask a person—preferably me or your father.
- Turn it off, silence it, put it away in public. Especially in a restaurant, at the movies, or while speaking with another human being. You are not a rude person; do not allow the iPhone to change that.
- Do not send or receive pictures of your private parts or anyone else’s private parts. Don’t laugh. Someday you will be tempted to do this despite your high intelligence. It is risky and could ruin your teenage/college/adult life. It is always a bad idea. Cyberspace is vast and more powerful than you. And it is hard to make anything of this magnitude disappear — including a bad reputation.
- Don’t take a zillion pictures and videos. There is no need to document everything. Live your experiences. They will be stored in your memory for eternity.
- Leave your phone home sometimes and feel safe and secure in that decision. It is not alive or an extension of you. Learn to live without it. Be bigger and more powerful than FOMO—fear of missing out.
- Download music that is new or classic or different than the millions of your peers that listen to the same exact stuff. Your generation has access to music like never before in history. Take advantage of that gift. Expand your horizons.
- Play a game with words or puzzles or brain teasers every now and then.
- Keep your eyes up. See the world happening around you. Stare out a window. Listen to the birds. Take a walk. Talk to a stranger. Wonder without googling.
- You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk about it. We will start over again. You & I, we are always learning. I am on your team. We are in this together.
It is my hope that you can agree to these terms. Most of the lessons listed here do not just apply to the iPhone, but to life. You are growing up in a fast and ever changing world. It is exciting and enticing. Keep it simple every chance you get. Trust your powerful mind and giant heart above any machine. I love you. I hope you enjoy your awesome new iPhone. Merry Christmas!
xoxoxo
Mom
O-W-E-N spells Owen!
So Tom was watching football, I was at the computer, and Owen was sitting on the couch playing games on the iPad (and lest you think I forgot Katie…she was napping). Owen starts saying “O-W-E-N spells Owen. O-W-E-N. O-W-E-N spells Owen.” Tom finally looked at what he was doing…and Owen had created a new profile for a game and had typed in o-w-e-n! 😯 He’s seen me do this before and I’ve showed him how to find the letters on the keyboard, but this is the first time he did it himself! Totally on his own! Tom and I were floored.
How Owen sometimes naps.
I was with Katie at the doctor’s office when Tom texted me this:
Skeletons that were dropped when I snuck up on him playing with them on the railing while he was “napping.”
Owen’s Name
Owen wrote his name for the first time today—and if you look closely, you can actually see all the letters! (We were drawing on an iPad app to email to Gramma Jean.) It was a combination of left- and right-handed!
The O is pretty obvious.
The W is good as well.
The E is a little shaky but readable.
The N is… (I did the yellow one as an example.)
Owen’s walkabout
Skyping with Grandma, Owen is showing her all of his robots.
Then he decided to take Grandma Marsha on a walkabout. It was hilarious, because he doesn’t quite grasp what she can and can’t see and was in his dark playroom showing her a puzzle that makes noise when you turn the lights off.
WANTED: Stinkeye Sawyer
Owen got a new Sesame Street iPhone app (The Great Cookie Thief) which allows you to make WANTED posters and save them. This is our favorite one so far:
Walking like a zombie…and more!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJw_FJOURG4
Owen is obsessed with zombies, thanks to Tom’s iPhone game Plants vs. Zombies. He will tell you they pee on the floor (like they do in the game), he will list off characters (the one with the screen door, the one with the zamboni, etc.), and he will walk like a zombie… (And then of course he wants me to turn the phone/camera around so he can see himself, but of course it doesn’t work like that.)
He’s also obsessed with FINISH LINES, courtesy of the Cars Wii game he’s been addicted to for months…so he’s always talking about finish lines and spelling F-I-N-I-S-H. I can’t quite make out the first few words he’s whispering, but then I definitely hear finish line. Then I try to get him to say “Arrrr” like a pirate but it doesn’t quite turn out like I thought. 🙂
Owen holds Katie! Owen feeds Katie!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGojz3OUFZo
He finally agreed to hold her today! Thank heavens for iPhones so I could capture it—I asked him like I always do but I really wasn’t expecting him to say yes so I didn’t have my real camera handy.
He was practically giddy with excitement and was all smiles—it was SO cute!
Checking himself out in the mirror!
And then he was done…and off doing Owen stuff again.
ARRRRRR!!!
project365
http://www.iphoneproject365.com/photos/hudson2001
Project 365 is an iPhone app designed to help you document your life by taking one photo a day for a year. I’ve been using it for just over two years now, and you can see all the photos at the link above or at the static link in the rightmost column.
Here is the first month (July 2010):
Here is the last full month (June 2012):
Lovely. My new iPhone4S has a crazy bug.
I can’t rotate any of my new iPhone4S pics once they’re offloaded to my computer. They appear fine on the phone, but aren’t rotated correctly once they come off. Interestingly, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to which are not rotated (I thought it might be all photos taken from the front-facing camera, but that’s not the case). If I try to rotate them using Win7’s built-in Rotate feature, I get this:
They are NOT read only. It does NOT happen with iPhone4 photos (which I have been using for the past year)—just 4S. I shut down iTunes and they still wouldn’t rotate. A reboot did nothing. If I Preview it and try to rotate it, I get this:
Which leads to no Help information. 🙄
BUT!! If I open it directly into Photoshop, it opens with the correct rotation, at which point I just save it and then the thumbnail is correctly rotated.
I have a TON of friends with the new iPhone so we can compare stories…and only one other person has commented on the same problem. I can’t believe we’re the only two this is happening to… Anyone? Anyone?
I’ve submitted Feedback to Apple with the bug, but of course I don’t hold out much hope for a fix unless thousands of other people are submitting the same bug without actually Twittering or Facebooking about it.
TweetStats!
http://tweetstats.com/graphs/dailyblather
I love colorful graphs. And seeing interesting stats like these.
- I have averaged 3.3 tweets a day and 70 tweets per month.
- Most of my tweets are around 3pm (237) with 10am and 11am coming in a close second and third (217 and 215 respectively).
- Most of my tweets are on Wednesday (432).
- Replies (retweets) account for 13.08% my total tweets.
- The person I’ve retweeted the most is @SelfishMom (10).
- The person I reply to the most is also @SelfishMom (34).
- The top five words I’ve tweeted: Owen (230), www, took, main, mugshot.
- The top 5 hashtags I’ve used: #yelp (83), #cutetoddler (28), #iphone (25), #hmdwl (23), #ugh (20).
- I have had 85 twooshes (a 140-character tweet)!
Phew!
{RANT} I just spilled a huge glass of water all over me, the couch, a table, two magazines, and the floor but {RAVE} it completely missed the laptop, the iPhone, the camera, and the Harmony remote.
Phew.
I like it when potential nightmares have a happy ending.