Busted

So. We have iDevices around here. Four, to be exact. And it's no small thing that Apple chose to make large portions of them out of glass(-ish stuff). I bought the iPad used, but it was still expensive for me. The iPod was a hopeless case from day one, but I fixed it and it worked so...we have an iPod. The iPhones were painful purchases all-around. No two ways about that. If they die, it's legal pads for the masses. We'll throw notes wadded up at each other instead of texts. Just sayin'.

So now that we've had all this crap for three years, it's no secret that it's been my mantra this whole time with the under-aged ones that we do NOT wander around with mommy's iPad. We do not run. We sit. "We" is free to walk about with their iPod, but not run. And "we" must use our Otter boxes as though our very life depends on it.

Then, three weeks ago...

I was happily mowing about on the lawn tractor when I felt a sharp yank on my ears as the headphones detached and I glimpsed my pink Otter box-covered phone fly out the left side of the deck. This is why Gravely makes an auto-killswitch for their mowers because I threw the handles back and jumped off while it was moving. The phone was fine! The Otter box had a chunk out of the rubber, but you could barely tell. Still...

So life went on. No more phone in the pocket while mowing. I pin it to my shirt in a ziploc baggie like a kid taking lunch money to school (assuming they do that any more...mine don't).

The following week, I came back from a run and walked by where Buddy was working on his van. He asked me to listen for an air leak, so I stopped to grant the deaf one a favor and do as he asked and put my paraphernalia including the iPod in it's leather belt clip on the trunk of the car.

The morning progresses and it starts to rain. Buddy and I are on the porch now discussing the radiator leak that we discovered on the van and the future of oil in an unnamed state when he spies our neighbor running across the yard way off by the road in the rain. He jumps up to give her a ride home and tears off up the driveway.

About the time I'm thinking, "Fabulous. Dog smell in the car. Dog smell from a dog that's just left me a fresh poop slick to drag around with the tractor tires. Ew." (that bit right there is a freebie) Right about then it dawns on me that I left the iPod on the trunk of the car. So I take off up the driveway on foot after the car--because all supermoms can catch moving vehicles. I don't know why. I catch him at the end of the driveway loading the dog (who doesn't want in the car...good doggie), but it's too late.

The iPod made it all the way up and made one plop onto the ground and shattered.

Two days later, my phone fell maybe six inches? My guess is that it was injured *somewhat* by the mower trip and this was the final insult.

It took Squib about five seconds to assemble all these facts once they had occurred and determine that I had not been playing by my own rules.

"You run with my iPod? When I'm not using it?" I try to maintain eye contact. It's supposed to make me creditable. Or something.

"Yes." His eyes open a little wider for a second.

"And you broke the iPod and your phone?" A hint of indignance there.

"Yes." I'm still using the eye contact thing like a life raft.

"May I play with my iPod still?" He's the prince of probers.

"No. It still works and Mommy uses it, but I don't want you to get glass in your fingers."

He nods. Once. The gears in his head are fairly shreiking with force as they turn. He's already raised one eyebrow.

"May I play with your iPad?" He also knows how to strike a bargain like a seasoned CEO.

"Yes, but all the same rules apply."

Then he makes this face which, suffice it to say is rather characteristic of him but speaks volumes. Smug. Knowing (the kid knows and I just have to acknowledge that). And....belabored...or something. As though breaking me in is tiring him unnecessarily. You know, "Parents, you have to go slowly and talk a little louder." With Beanstalk there is no such wringer to go through. Squib is compensating for that loss.

"So, I can't touch the broken ones, and I still have to sit and stay seated using the iPad? But you don't."

"Yes." I'm starting to see his point here. Eye contact. Eye contact.

"Why?" Valid question. And instead of addressing the obvious differences between us, which granted, at the moment weren't much. I said...

"Because I'm the mom. And you're the kid."

I can't believe I said that.
Scat