Crazy about (m)i-phone

Mr. Steve Jobs is posthumously causing a major impact in my life.Not directly, but through one of those rectangular things he gave to the world called I-phones.
It's not just me obviously- the entire planet has been infected with the smart phone addiction . I look ahead in the train and lo- eight out of ten people in front are glued to their phones - Facebook, games , mails, browsing and God knows what else. Well yes ,even I, am typing this post using one! At office team lunches, meant to bind the team together people seem to be talking more to their phones than to each other . Even if they do manage to talk it's usually about some app that caught their fancy!
I did not start with this post to discuss the global impacts of smart phones. So coming back to my case- My 3 year old seems to have developed an obsession for this possession of mine . No habits of kids come out of nowhere. It all has a source and usually it's the mommy or the daddy. This one's no exception !
Well it all started when my son got a sudden interest in circus acts and started jumping from a moving stroller . ( I can almost hear the 'what's the big deal ! It's only a stroller not a train') . Well you will know it when you have to face it . To make him remain seated I resorted to You-tube on my phone and played some of the so-called-oh-cho-chweet videos like Lion King . It worked!
Then when we went to India I strategically loaded some of his favorite videos on my phone. Y? Flashing back to my last trip -
The air hostess completed the umpteenth demo of flight safety guidelines and made sure that all seats were upright. The pilot made an announcement requesting them to assume their takeoff positions. As the wheels began to spin at jet speed V released himself from the belt,stood up on the seat with his arms spread wide like a politician in an election rally and started singing Mgr's 'ore vaanile ore Mannile ore geetham urimai geetham paduvom' .(translates to we shall sing songs of rights in the sky and earth that are one) - waving his hands like a conductor of an orchestra !

Now you know why I needed a strategy.

V used to love the Talking Tom app . Every time that cat talked back he used to erupt with squeals of laughter.

Who does not like seeing a child laugh ? This resulted in the download of various apps that entertained him .

Earlier my husband or I were showing these to him and he would run to us, phone in his hand, with a big grin showing his tiny teeth and saying 'Animals parkkalaama' (shall we see animals) in his baby voice !

Later one day I found my little brat opening the ipod app on his own and deftly moving from one video to another . Boy!wasn't I proud ? And typical dialogues ran in the family 'Kids these days! Born with iPhones and iPad's ' .
Now my kiddo's familiarity with my phone has grown by leaps and bounds. He skillfully moves his tiny fingers like an artist at work and navigates with ease from one app to another - video to game, game to song , song to iPad ! And his favorite of late is You Tube.

In the course of learning he keeps rearranging or sometimes deleting my apps.

One day I got back home after work and was thrilled to see little one come running towards me.'O Darling! U missed me so much!' I exclaimed and stretched my hands out expecting him to run into my arms - he took the phone from it and went and sat on the sofa! Well darling missed my phone so much !

These days, his first words in the morning are 'where is amma's blue phone' 
He has also started expecting everything to be touch-screen. I was browsing the net one evening on my laptop; he came, sat on my lap and tried moving my desktop icons with a swish of his hand! 'To him this is outdated technology' my husband exclaimed.

The best was yesterday . I had hidden the phone from him and had placed it high up on the cupboard.A friend called. As I was speaking he kept following me like a puppy and repeating 'ok bye! Ok bye!' with a cute tilt of his head - translating to 'mama, say ok bye and hang up' . With all the innocence on earth i thought that my son was craving for motherly attention and did not want me to be wasting my time chatting on the phone! The moment I had hung up, like a lightning flash he grabbed the phone from me and quickly ran off to what for him was a safe corner where mummy won't pester him !
I am sure he will lose interest in course of time but for now he is crazy about m(I) phone!