Sunday, February 15, 2009

Some of the Text Messages I've Received Lately

Two weeks ago, the day before my pregnant sister's due date, I received a picture mail from her showing a close-up of a beautiful baby girl. A Korean baby girl. My sister is not Korean, and neither is her husband. I had a moment of great concern, then remembered that my sister's college roommate - whose parents are from Korea - was pregnant too. I responded with my initial worry to MiddleSis, who texted back:

"That would put a bit of a strain on my marriage."

Yeah.

Do you know the Le-iea story? According to the cousin of a friend of my sister's (and so forth) this is a little girl's name. How would you pronounce it? Apparently, her mother calls her Le-dash-ia. Anyway, here's another message from MiddleSis, this one in response to my question about deciding on a baby name. She was sure she was having a boy.

"I tell the Le-iea story all the time. If a boy it's Bruce. Will call Brodie."

I am so glad that I have a niece. (But of course I didn't say anything negative about the name, once they'd decided!)

On the day of Evelyn's birth, I got a series of messages from my mom and sister as they waited for the tardy doc, including a picture of my sister - suited up for surgery - flashing the peace sign. She called to announce the birth while she was still in recovery (and in pain). For the rest of the weekend, we passed several phone calls a day back and forth.

Two days later, this text came:

"All right - Everly or Evelyn or forever hold your peace."

She decided on Evelyn.

In my family, we talk about just about everything. In Paul's family, there's a bit less of that. Here's a text I got from him last week:

"Grandma died. System is down again at work. Ada still sleeping, though. :) "

Yes, he told me that his Grandma died in a text message. And there was a smiley face in the same message. This is not to suggest that Paul was cavalier about losing his grandmother, just that . . . he's still working on expressing his feelings!

Two years ago, I swore I'd never text. In the past I also swore that I'd never have a cell phone. OK, maybe I'd get a phone, but I'd rarely use it. And never while driving! All this does is make me a late adopter of new technology. I'm still holding out against HDTV and Blue-Ray. But I'm sure that I'll eventually see them as indispensable.

I still don't think I'll ever announce a birth or death to family members via text message, though.

5 comments:

Orange said...

Get with the program, Sarahlynn! Major family news should now be announced via Facebook status updates or Twitter tweets.

Barrie said...

I text a lot more than I thought I would...

Sarahlynn said...

Barrie, me too. It seems a little silly to me now that I used to think that texting was what people do when they're having illicit affairs. I mean, I'm sure that's so. But there are also other applications . . .

Orange, you're absolutely right; how could I have forgotten?! If it weren't for Facebook, I wouldn't have had a picture of my new niece to post! I blatantly stole the one I posted on Friday from my BIL's Facebook profile. But don't tell.

Rob Monroe said...

For the record, the smiley must have been referring to the bliss of Ada continuing to sleep, not the loss of grandma.

I think that sharing that type of news over a text was okay in this situation. It was anticipated to be soon, almost expected even.

Maybe he was just trying to put too many expressive things together at once. I find it a little depressing to actually type a frowny face - :o( - especially in a text. The frown would not have been expressive enough anyway - much more than frowning.

You know how little my family communicates! :o) and :o(

Sarahlynn said...

Rob, you're right, of course! I had taken Ellie to her "practice reading class" after putting Ada down for her nap, and Paul was working from home in my absence. Ada obligingly slept the whole time we were gone so that he could get some good work done. Hence the smiley face.

And it was expected, as much so as any death ever is.

Your family and mine - opposite ends of some spectrums. Spectra? And yet, you and I are not like aliens from two different planets!