Seven

I took a peek at some of my daughter's homework the other day. The class is learning how to count coins. For some reason, this seems advanced to me. I don't remember knowing about coins and money until I was much older. Mia is somehow picking this stuff up.

Of late, Mia's been obsessed with her Nintendo (she's really become adept at Mario Kart DS) and WebKinz. I don't remember playing video games when I was her age, because they weren't invented yet. I certainly didn't know or remember passwords when I was her age, yet here is Mia, carefully instructing me not to reveal her WebKinz password.

I take her to school every morning that I am able. I've looked on at the parents of her classmates, and I sense the same feelings: warmth; pride; love. Raising a child is ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. One minute I'm blinking tears at her sweetness, and the next minute I find myself yelling at her to get dressed for school.

Mundane. Profound. And she's now seven.

AYT

A few months ago, I received my first text message spam. I thought somehow my wife learned how to text. But instead it was spam, so I deleted it. Over the next few days, the spam began to increase in frequency. I learned to mass delete the text messages on my cell phone, after quickly scanning their obvious subject lines. As the weeks went by, I was doing this more and more, until Jenn asked "what's up with your cell phone bill?" Sure enough, I was getting billed for each of these text messages. Every one of these messages took 15 cents out of my pocket, and after thirty or forty a week, it was beginning to add up. After trolling through Google, I found two sites ([1] [2]) that showed me how to turn off the ability to receive text messages. I did it, and now I'm spam-free. I'm sure when I get another phone, or my daughter discovers texting, I'll be inclined to turn this back on, but until then, just send me e-mail.