By Adrienne Martini
One of my less-endearing qualities is my thorough hatred for the phone.
It's not a new disorder; I've pretty much always hated the phone. My only concession to the passage of time is that I now also hate cell phones.
It's not a phobia. I'm fairly certain that the phone will do me no harm, unless the Boy tries to jam it up my nose or the Diva left it where I could trip over it late at night. Either scenario is possible. Neither would be the phone's fault.
My problem is that living with a phone is like living with a baby; you just never know when it's going to need your immediate attention. And, no, I can't just ignore the ringing.
Too many times, the calls involve the kids. Someone is sick and needs to come home. One of them has a doctor's appointment the next day and the call is a reminder. Or, my least favorite: the roads are lousy and school is closed, which always sets off a cascade of more phone calls as we try to figure out how my husband and I will cover both our jobs and child care.
But my real issue stems from the other end. I don't like calling people, especially when they aren't expecting me to call. I always feel that I'm interrupting someone just as he is on the edge of finding a cure for cancer. Now we'll never know what it is because the ringing phone chased the solution away. Which made being a reporter about nine times more difficult than it needed to be, let me tell you.
Rationally, I know most people are doing the same thing I am when the phone rings, which is usually surfing the Web. Still. The possibility exists that they're up to something useful.
Of all the things I didn't know about having kids _ a long list that also includes an epic sub-list on kids licking inanimate objects _ one of my main blind spots was not realizing how having kids exponentially increases the amount of time you spend on the phone.
When the kids were younger, I spent a lot of time calling the pediatrician's office to ask about fevers and ear infections and intestinal gas. None of these topics ever came up during office hours, because that would be convenient. Every last crisis hit during the dark hours when every last problem seems worse than it probably is because you haven't slept at all.
I called more for the first kid, of course. By kid No. 2, I'd had a better sense of my own tendency to panic in the middle of a sleepless night.
If I had a kid No.3, I suspect I'd just hand the phone to the baby and let her make her own call.
Leading up to each call was a good hour of dithering about whether to call, because I knew I'd get the answering service, who will then call to wake a doctor. And then that inevitable 10- or 15-minute wait for the doctor to call back would give me plenty of time to second-guess calling in the first place.
We seem to be past that stage of kid life. Of course, now that I've typed that, one of my two will wake up with terrifyingly high fever at 3 a.m., brought on by some dreaded germ picked up by licking a shopping card handle.
This new phase is worse, frankly. I have become the Diva's social secretary.
Given how lousy I am at organizing _ or, frankly, even having _ a social life, it's ironic I am now the one who schedules play dates and horseback riding lessons. I can barely keep track of my own phone number, yet have lists of other parents' phone numbers. I'm not even sure that I have the phone numbers of most of the people I'm related to.
Should she want to play with a kid whose number I don't know, the Diva is always shocked that I can't miraculously find the kid's contact info.
Yes, we do have a phone book. But last names being what they are _ heck, my own kids don't share my last name _ the white pages are less help than you'd think. Couple that with her inability to either a) remember the last names of her friends or b) spell them accurately and it's a wonder she has friends at all.
I'm trying to make peace with all of the calls I make on the Diva's behalf. But I still fear that I'm calling while the parent is donating a kidney or helping an old lady across the street.
Soon the Diva will be responsible for making these calls herself. I have no doubt that will be fraught with its own problems. Next thing I know I'll be willing my phone to ring so that I know exactly where she is and with whom.
By that point, however, the phone may be obsolete. To which I say _ good riddance.
Adrienne Martini is a freelance writer, instructor at the State University College at Oneonta, mom to Maddy and Cory, wife to Scott, and author of "Sweater Quest," which will be published in March. Her columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/
parentingimperfect.
