My love/hate relationship with my iPhone.

For my 29th birthday I finally got a smart phone. I used some birthday money and got an iPhone 4. I love it. You see, dear reader, before purchasing the iPhone, I had this gem:

I knew I was behind the times, but it really hit home when I shared an elevator with a 90-something year old man who had the exact same phone as I did. Matt got his iPhone a few years ago, but I have been resisting upgrading my phone for some time now. Why, you may ask? I guess the main reason is that was my way of refusing to become one of the billions of people who move through life with their eyes and fingertips glued to their phone. We've created so many distractions for ourselves that we can no longer be content to just sit. At the bus stop, in the doctors office, in the classroom, at dinner, in the car - the list goes on and on. And I didn't want to be one of those people. I wanted to enjoy going out to dinner with Matt without being tempted to pull out my phone and check Facebook while waiting for our table. I wanted to sit in a room with my parents and my sister and talk - without "needing" to beat my high score in a game. It makes me sad to look around and realize that while my family and I may all be in the same room, one person is watching TV, one person is reading an article on the iPad, one person is playing Words with Friends on their phone, and two more are on laptops. (Don't get me wrong - I was usually on a laptop myself). But now I've really joined in. What made me crossover? Ben, of all things. You'd think that having a baby would make me reject all of that even more - you know - in favor of living in the moment and savoring every second of this precious new life. But here's the thing: I'm kind of obsessed with taking pictures of Mr. Ben. If you're my friend on Facebook, then you know that I've uploaded about 9,700 pictures of him in the past 6 months. And the iPhone 4 does have a great camera. And Instagram, oh man, don't even get me started on that wonderful app. So I caved. I waited until I was in Tallahassee so my sister could go with me then teach me how to use it. As we were walking out of AT&T I held up my new phone and proudly announced that I had stepped into the future, at which point my sister corrected me and pointed out that I was actually stepping into the present, about 5 years late. Ehhhh, whatever. And now I'm truly a goner. On the way back from Tallahassee I played Bejeweled Blitz for ENTIRELY too long. I've saved about 35 pictures on my phone - all but 3 of which include Ben as the primary subject. I've blown up my Facebook wall by uploading Instagram pictures of - you guessed it: Mr. Ben! (Who can really blame me though, he is the SWEETEST!)

In conclusion, I love my new phone, but I kind of hate what it's doing to me. But if that's the price you have to pay to have millions of sweet pictures of your baby that you can easily share with friends, family, and strangers alike, then so be it!