My kids have been playing with phones since they could physically hold objects. They have more old cell phones and cordless phones than they have toy phones, although they have a lot of those too. Gwen loves phones. She loves to pretend anything is a phone; her hand, shoes, other toys. She’s too funny.

I watch the kids play with the phones and have pretend conversations. They seem to get it. They press buttons then put the phone to their ear. They make the patented little kid obnoxious ring sound with their voice then answer their phone. They seem to get it.

I have taken the time to teach Gavin how to dial 911. I showed him on our regular home phone so it made sense to him and he could remember it in context. He didn’t seem to understand and I started to really fear the day I may actually pass out from low blood sugar or something and Gavin was in charge of calling for help! So I let him call his grandmas or his dad. I told him how to dial and told him what to do.

Kids are funny when phones are involved. My kids seem to always get louder when they see I’m on the phone. Those are the times they save their sibling rivalry for. I love it. When I talk to my sister, who I really need to call but I never think of it at a convenient time, the boys get so excited. They always want to talk to her too. She is a really fun aunt and she will have long conversations with them. Then we both laugh at how cute the kids are. When my boys want to talk on the phone they refuse to hold it. So I end up holding the phone for them. They get this scrunched up look on their face like something smells funny and start pulling away from the phone. They don’t seem to get phones in real life.

If we are talking to one of our moms on speaker phone the kids get really excited. They come near the phone and start acting shy or they bounce around as they show off for Grandma, who can’t see them. The other day we had Heath’s mom on speaker phone. Parker came by and stood there for a second with his goofy shy grin on his face. Suddenly he leaned into the phone saying, “I love you Grandma” and ran off almost before he finished talking. That’s another thing. The boys hardly ever say goodbye when I give them a turn to talk. They just look at me.

Sometimes the phone rings and I can’t get to it fast enough. The boys are closer so I ask them to get the phone. They aren’t super fast since they have to stand on a chair to reach the phone on top of their CPU. Usually when I need their help my Heath is calling radar is strong. He is a patient father. Gavin has finally figured out how to answer the phone. He answers and says, “Who is this!” or “What do you want!” Thank heavens my radar is correct and it’s really Heath calling.

I tried to tell Parker how to answer the phone when I was on the couch with a nauseating headache. I told him to push the green talk button. I did not, however, tell him to say anything. I thought I missed the call since it stopped ringing. As he walked to me with the phone held at arm’s length so proud of himself for helping Mommy, I could hear this talking coming out of the phone. It was Heath. Like I said earlier, he is a patient father! The phone rang later and I knew it was Heath calling to say he got off the BART train. This time Parker was prepared to answer. Or so I thought. He answered like I told him to but then he held the phone out into the air again. We had a couple lessons on phone etiquette. Like finding out who is calling and telling that person to wait a second while they pass the phone to me! I hope one day the lessons sink in.

What age did you teach your kids to use the phone? Did you have to teach them or did they just figure it out?