Thumbing yourself silly

I am constantly amazed that the primal urge to communicate is still an art lost on many primates in our community. The power of speech is so powerful yet nearing extinction to thumb speak – texting.

Beau used to dribble and gurgle his words when still lying flat on his back, similarly Chick became rather chatty early on. Dawn and I always spoke to them in normal ‘adult’ language.

There are times nowadays I miss the quiet from the boys instead of their toilet verbiage.

“Hey Chick, what was the best thing you did at preschool today?” I quiz the miniest man over the phone. “I did a big poo” he laughs.

The boys on loudspeaker break out in fits of laughter and mimicking bodily function noises “Guys, settle down, you are so disgusting some times”.

I think about how much we text people. Sure it’s quick and sometimes necessary to let someone know you are thinking of them but we’ve let it replace the gentle caress to our ears and hearts – speech.

Some people are surprised I call them instead of a text, others don’t answer as it’s too confronting. Send us back a few decades or so and we were writing notes that took months to arrive at our friends or loves hands.

Communicating styles aside, what about when people don’t communicate? Is it apathy, is it because they don’t know how?  Either way, trying is better than nothing.

I was reading recently that children are requiring much more attention on their writing skills in this age of keyboards and texting. Handwriting, god forbid cursive writing, is fast becoming old fashioned, but it’s an important developmental skill for our little people.

Chick has started writing out his mum’s shopping lists and smiles brightly when I praise his little letters.

So, when you next go to text someone, perhaps instead of breaking your thumbs, why don’t you press the little green button and call just to say hi. Either that or get a good carrier pigeon.