I hate TV trays

When I was a kid, we ate about 75% of our meals in the car, somewhere between softball practice and home. I would guess that 24% of our meals were eaten at TV trays. The other 1% - Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter - were eaten at "the big table." Growing up, I never thought much about it. It's just the way it was. When you were involved in everything under the sun - from drill team to softball to band to Latin club - there wasn't much to be done about where you ate your dinner. I never thought to myself, "Man. I sure wish we ate more meals at the table."

When I met Doug, I'd heard about these legendary "Carey Family Dinner Discussions" and I was intrigued. What would we talk about? Was there an agenda? Or did you just sort of wing it? We didn't discuss much over dinner in my home. We watched Family Matters, we listened to 104KRBE, and we rushed from place to place. I'm sure we talked about the latest report card grades and wondered out loud about the Astros game on the TV, but sadly, I cannot recall one single TV tray dinner conversation we shared as a family. Shockingly (note sarcasm), I can recall, in detail, many of our dinner table conversations with the Careys. Now that "the Careys" includes my little family, I've become a dinner table Nazi.

Because we never ate dinner at the dinner table, I never understood needing to be dismissed from dinner. It baffled me that anyone would have to ask permission to take his or her plate to the sink and flop down on the couch to watch TV. Thinking back on it, that's because when I finished dinner, I pushed my TV tray around the side of my recliner and continued watching TV until the next commercial break. It was understood - commercial equals dinner's over. Now that I'm a wife and a mother, I can't even fathom allowing my child(ren) to just get up after he believes he's finished his dinner to move on to something else. The total lack of respect for not only the meal I prepared but also for our quality family time would send me through the roof.

When Doug, Daniel, and I moved in with my parents, we miraculously moved 99% of our meals from TV trays to the dinner table. It was so ingrained in my psyche after just 4 short years of being a Carey that I forced my parents to become a part of my dinner table world. I couldn't stomach the idea of spending the entire day alone with Daniel only to sit yards away from my nearest family member, half enjoying the meal I'd worked so hard to prepare and splitting my attention between family discussions and what happened to be on prime time.

In the end, I guess it's not so much that I hate TV trays. I suppose it's more that I can't stand the idea of ever going back to a world where my family is separated during one of the very rare set-aside times that you can actually spend time as a family. To me (in my old age), dinner is a time to spend together. It's a chance to talk about your day without having to worry about who's doing what or how many minutes are left on the meatloaf. It's a designated window where we can focus on each other, not on Baloo the bear or Steve Urkel. Perhaps I don't hate TV trays - I've just come to despise what they represent.

On pregnancy

When I first found out I was pregnant, I was pretty ecstatic. Let's face it - I'm still pretty ecstatic. I didn't tell too many people at first as I have known far too many people who have had trouble early on. The last thing I wanted was to have to send out a new and unimproved message stating that something horrible had happened and it was all a false alarm. For both of my pregnancies, we decided that prior to an OB visit, we would tell immediate family and best friends. No cousins, no aunts, and certainly no friends of less than a decade. It's worked wonderfully thus far.

There are a few standard questions people ask you when you tell them you're pregnant - When are you due? When did you find out? How do you feel? Do you have a feeling about the gender? The first two don't really lead to much of a discussion. The last question is just sort of a "thing" people say. That third question? That's what bugs me. I'm not sure what people want to hear, but evidently, most of them want you to be miserable. While a few of my friends have smiled gleefully and nodded enthusiastically when I say, "I feel great!" some of them have less-than-desirable reactions. That list includes (but is not limited to), "Oh you've got plenty of time to feel like crap." "Ugh. I hate pregnant women like you." "You're the pregnant girl people love to hate." "Do you think maybe you have some sort of hormonal imbalance? It's not normal to feel so good during pregnancy."

What? Really? Do people really ask you how you're feeling because they want to hear your latest I-ran-for-the-bathroom-but-didn't-make-it-in-time-and-puked-in-my-hand-at-the-bank story? Because honestly? That's horrible. I know misery loves company, but unless you're in your first trimester and you just had that experience yesterday, NEWSFLASH - You're not miserable anymore! Don't wish that upon me!

I'm not sure what I'm getting at here, but I really do wish people could just be happy for me. I wish more people just said, "That's great! It's like God made you to make babies!" So far, I believe three people have said that to me. It's wonderful that you're happy I'm making a kid and that you care about my due date and my baby's gender, but don't be so crass when I tell you I feel good. Because that's just petty.

Whew. There. I got it off my chest.

Plugged in mommies

Nearly everyone in the US has a cell phone. From what I understand, about 65% of those phones are smart phones. Most of my friends have iPhones. All of my friends use their phones responsibly (in my presence, at least). A few of them have the babycenter app. Several of them use apps I've never heard of. Almost all of them play Words With Friends (including myself, who nabs my husband's iTouch when he gets home from work to play this silly game with my friends). I've never seen one of them ignore their child (for more than three seconds) in favor of the iPhone and I haven't ever seen one of them do anything dangerous as a result of being distracted by the iPhone.

My phone does not alert me when severe weather is coming. My phone does not play a little jingle when x, y, or z stock does one thing or another. My phone does not allow me to access Facebook, Google, or any other website from the convenience of the OB's waiting room or from the front seat of my car. My phone rings when I'm called, beeps when I'm texted, and is always there to provide the time. When I'm out and about, my phone is generally in the diaper bag and out of sight/out of mind. On occasion, I'll send a text while playing with Daniel, but they are usually short and almost always have to do with him (playdates, doctor's appointments, updates to Daddy). I personally haven't jumped off of the "normal cell phone" bandwagon and after this weekend, I'm not sure that I want to.

Sunday, we stopped by a new park on our way home from church. A family of five arrived just as we did and boy, were they cute. The two older kids and the dad were on bikes; Mama pushed the youngest one in the stroller. I commented to Doug what an adorable family they were. And then the truth came out. . . Before the kids could even get their kickstands down, the mom pulled out her iPhone and totally disengaged from the family. Lord knows whether she was working, reading the news, or sending an email about a baby shower, but I was bothered. It was 72 degrees out, not a cloud in the sky, and her three kids were begging to play. The closest she came to playing was sitting on the swing next to her kids with her face buried in her touch screen. They were there less than 30 minutes, during which time I personally witnessed 3 incidents where she either couldn't find one of her children, one of her children was hurt and she (obviously) didn't know what happened, or one of her children was in a scuff with another neighborhood kid and she was completely unaware. Seeing what a mess of a distraction an iPhone could cause in a normal, every day situation disgusted me.

While I hope I would continue to use my phone intelligently (and appropriately), this woman was enough to make me think long and hard about upgrading my lowly little phone to something more powerful. I guess it's like anything else - if used appropriately, it could be a wonderful and powerful tool. If used irresponsibly, it could do some serious damage. It makes me wonder how a woman like that can set any limits for her children as she obviously cannot set any limits for herself. Thankfully, I can and do set limits. I suppose when the time comes that a smart phone is the only way to go, I'll continue to be thankful for those limits.