technology, shmechnology.

i think technology has become somewhat of a disease. your phone was the coolest thing ever way back when and all it did was talk. then we added texting. and now...well companies have created this need for the latest technology that isn't actually a necessity. it was merely a year and a half ago that i needed to have a smartphone. i got the droid incredible by htc and it was blissful devotion from day one. i jazzed it up, i changed my background every other day, i downloaded apps and played games and checked facebook. slowly, however, the appreciation for the instant satisfaction wore off, and if my phone lagged for maybe three to five seconds i was becoming frustrated. i mean, this phone was supposed to be fast, right? so why did it take five seconds to load my facebook homepage? if i accidentally left my phone at home and couldn't instantly check the weather, couldn't shazam a new song on the radio, couldn't immediately update my status to my latest emotion--i was intensely frustrated. the novelty was becoming a necessity. and quite frankly, i'm disgusted with myself. thank goodness my husband finally came to the conclusion he didn't want/need his phone anymore otherwise i'm not sure i ever would have. i feel so much more independent, so much more alive and present in the real world. so much more involved. which i know, sounds crazy. but it's true.

i'd like to know why on earth we're wasting all of this money developing phones that try to be computers when who, honestly, complained about their computers and wished they were phone sized? if i recall, computers used to be entirely stationery. so the fact that we created a laptop--a mobile computer--is a wonderful accomplishment in itself. i mean who honestly complained, "gosh i hate having this laptop around. it's so inconvenient being able to have a computer with me wherever i go." like i said, things that weren't even in our realm of consciousness have now become necessities.

a nugget to leave you with: the most mind-blowing technology to me is the camera. think about what it's doing for a minute, and the fact that we somehow made it digital on top of that. blows. my. mind.

picky, picky.

the food diaries of the murphy family: donovan was eating avocados by the time he was 10 months old. he snarfed down pretty much anything we put on his high chair tray. now liam, on the other hand, who is 18 months old and counting, refuses to eat real food. the only "adult" food he will even touch is honey nut cheerios. not regular cheerios, honey nut. even then he will pick out the broken ones and put them off to the side and only eat the whole ones. similarly, we gave him "cars" cheerios (half red frosted, half regular colored frosted) and he picked out the regular colored ones and wouldn't eat the red ones. who is this child? i mean i'm a picky eater too, but even i have a larger palette than milk, baby yogurt, and whole honey nut cheerios. he won't even eat crackers anymore. we thought we were making progress, but no matter how many times i put new foods (regular noodles, green beans, bread, rice, etc.) in front of him, he immediately sorts them off to the side. in a recent development, he has decided he enjoys french fries-so we have something to feed him when we're out to eat. i tried to sneak in some pieces of chicken in with his fries once at culvers to no avail. he picked it out immediately (i think i even saw him sneer a little at the idea). if anyone has any ideas on how to feed an impossibly picky toddler, please suggest away.

let's not forget the antics of our nearly three year old, donovan. his culinary tastes are pretty wide-spread as long as it can be dipped in either ketchup or ranch, and sometimes both. he is a very big fan of jelly sandwiches--as long as you don't mention you've put peanut butter on it. he likes peanut butter, he eats it just fine, doesn't gag, anything, but he absolutely throws a fit if he sees you put peanut butter on his sandwich. "no! i don't like that stuff! not on my sandwich! just jelly!" and if you bring him his sandwich sometimes he'll pull them apart, point to the jelly side, and say, "i just eat this side mommy." i have to remind him at least eight times that he does, in fact, like peanut butter before he'll approach it. but once he does he eats the entire thing. another thing van loves is salsa. especially the chunky tomato kind from chipotle. he sits there with his chips and little cup of salsa and eats the whole thing. sometimes he entirely forgoes the chip and just uses his hand to shovel the tomatoes into his mouth. if only we could get liam to eat that adventurously!

when liam's in kindergarten, i'll be packing rice cereal in his lunchbox. how open to mockery is that? the boy who eats baby food. i'll probably have to send a note to the cafeteria staff requesting that someone please feed it to him because he's not quite sure how a spoon works just yet. we're working on that for first grade.

oy.