Like any normal geek dad I always feel the kaleidoscope of Butterflies flitting around my stomach whenever one of my children picks up my iPhone. I know that I’m supposed to be leading by example and extolling the virtues of sharing, but it’s hard when all I can see is my beloved phone bouncing off the kitchen tiles and having to spend the next few weeks Tweeting through crazy paving.
This particular dilemma has been made impossibly worse by the recent purchase of Talking Carl. If you’ve not heard about Talking Carl then I shall try to explain. Carl is a beautifully rendered orangey-red square with a funny voice. He laughs, shouts, growls and repeats anything you say via the iPhone’s microphone.
To the average person on the street this would all seem rather inane. But you’re a geek dad, you understand. It’s fun! What I hadn’t anticipated was exactly how much fun.
Now the kids are pestering me morning, noon and night to play with Carl. Most of the time I am able to fob them off with some, unfortunately true, claims about battery life and the possibility of needing to use the phone for, you know, actually phoning someone. But sometimes my parental guilt kicks in and I hand over the phone, albeit, according to my partner, with a rather pained expression.
It seems, to this particular dad, that the only answer is to invest in an iPad so that the young ones can talk to Carl at their hearts content. At least that’s how I’m justifying it to my other half.
Now I’m sure there must be some good reasons for insuring the kids can’t be playing with the iPad all the time…