Lesson One: Always be ready to change your mind

The Grandma Nanny Diaries

April 3, 2013

Making the segue into grandmotherhood from non-grandmotherhood requires some serious thought. I have entertained many serious thoughts. One of my big ones is this: I have loved hating cell phones. I profoundly vocalized my disdain of interrupted conversations one day while sitting at lunch with a grandchild who texted her best friend in the middle of one of my stirring and insightful thoughts. Where was her father when I delivered the message about manners? Besides, I didn't need a cell phone; I am always with someone who has one. And really, I didn't want to spend $50 a month for something I would probably lose in a week. My eight children nagged me incessantly about the danger of a woman my age running around like a loose marble in an old unreliable car, a worry I defiantly ignored on the grounds of being capable of taking care of myself. Even the day when I finally broke down in my old unreliable car on the freeway the man who rescued me, who was also in an old unreliable car, had the number of a tow truck he frequently used right in his cell phone. So there you are!!! Well, that passion for never getting a cell phone completely disappeared one day when out of the blue one of my great and wise friends (whom I relied on heavily for cell phone usage) said to me, "Nan, if you had a cell phone it would make you look a lot younger. Even if you don't know how to text you could stand around with your thumbs on the thing like you were texting. It will change your image. Besides, these days it's the only way you can keep in touch with your teenagers ( referring to my 17 teenaged grandchildren). Three words stuck in my head, YOUNGER, THUMBS and TEENAGERS. Two days later I was in the Apple store signing up for the elixir of youth