Appropriate conversations

The kids are back in the house. Our in-laws are also here. We have a full house and it feels great! 

We are back into funny conversations.

Kids are watching something on the TV from Netflix online. Suddenly Jr. (who let me remind you is not yet 13) gets the remote and starts forwarding something.

Me: Why are you forwarding it. Let me watch it.

Jr.: Appa, don't think it is appropriate to watch. that is why I am forwarding it

Little one (not yet 10) chimes in: Yes appa. that part she is forwarding is not appropriate

Me : !!!!! Appropriate for who? Me? or You? and if you know it is not appropriate, that means you have already watched it! what is going on here?

They both had a sheepish grin and were in a rush to talk over each other to offer an explanation. Apparently some boy kisses a girl in those forwarded minutes of "Good luck Charlie". Apparently, they fast forwarded it the first time they watched it also! Finally... "appa"-rently, they were more embarrased to watching me, watch it than they were, during the previous time they saw the episode.

Wasn't exactly sure if I should be happy or mad or sad for the fact that

- they are watching this

- they think the age appropriateness is for ME

- or for the fact they still had some respect for me that they would not watch it in front of me. 

Time will tell. 

Taking sides at a young age

Given my iPhone 5S is nearing its 2 year contract, I can get an upgrade to the 6 or 7 or whatever comes by November. 

Jr. already has got her own 5S and her iPhone 4S is now a hand me down to the little one. I have since been getting an earfull on how the 4S is useless! It has no memory. It has a poor battery life and keeps losing charge. It is slow and there is a long list of complaints. 

Also the little one is hoping that I get the new phone and she automatically gets my current phone as a hand me down... with a phone number. She now has a busy calendar and friends to call on play dates.. which will soon be called "hangouts"

Another thing I learned is that when a girl goes from elementary school to middle school and does the same thing with the same friends in the same houses, it still goes by a different name. It is not a Playdate anymore. It is a "hangout". 

Life was simpler when I was a kid. Same cricket bat, same electric box used as stumps, same bunch of boys.. same rules for what gets called a 4,6 or out. None of this playdate vs. hangout stuff. We didn't even have a name for when we all got together and played cricket or table tennis or went to the beach on our bicycles.

Given all the playdates and possible future hangouts, the little one made us wander to the phone section in target to "check out" the phone deals. Of course she points to a 5S and goes "it is 40$ per month ONLY appa!" 

If ONLY she knew what that ONLY meant for a two year contract! That is when San takes her to the wall and goes "why dont you pick one of these phones. they are larger, have more memory and come with cheaper plans"

The little one wanders through the display and comes back to us and goes 

"that wall is ENTIRELY full of Android crap!" 

I burst out laughing but looked the other way.

Jr. and San were shocked by the way she said it with all that frustration.

Given San uses a Xiaomi Android phone, not sure how she took it.

Looks like we have an "i-ddict" in the house. They got this one young.. 

Now we wait for November. 

Competing for eyeball time

It is not just the Googles, Facebook's and Amazon's that are basing their business on trying to get a share of our viewing times.

Every precious nano second where your eyes are target towards any screen, now count for real $. 

So much that there are technologies out there that actually read your cell phones vibration (from the gyro) and tell the source of what you are looking at, data about how long you looked at it, glanced at it, or just plain skipped through it.. all this from how you held your phone or iPad while viewing a page!

That is not where it stops. We like in a world where our kids are labeled "post-google" which means they grew up with the internet. So this stuff rolls over.

Three weeks ago, I had a picture of the little one as my screen saver. 

Last week Jr. comes to me in the evening, snaps her hands in front of my face and says 

"booyaah! There, I now have proof!"

Me: Please stop with this booyaah agressiveness. I dont know what it means. What proof do you have of what?

Jr. : I have more proof that you love her (little one) more than you love me!

Me : It does not matter how much proof you think you have. I KNOW that I love you both the same.

Jr. : She was on your screen saver for two weeks. Then you knew I realized it and changed your screen saver to my picture and it was not even a pretty picture. That too I was on it for 2 days. now it is a picture of both of us and she says she is cuter in that picture than me! so there you go.. Booyah! 

Me : !!!!!

Now we need a software that does facial recognition and devotes equal screensaver time for the two kids. Added plus if the kids can rate your screensaver, let you know how cute they think they look in those pictures etc. etc.

We live in a world where things are measured like never before! There is more data being collected than can be analyzed with any reasonable value. 

In case you are wondering, here are the pictures of Jr. and the final joint picture where LO is supposedly cuter..

Go figure!

Now don't get me started on the Chromecast screensaver that runs on the big screen TV in the living room...