It’s true. I am. My husband audibly sighed when I took delivery of my iPhone because he was pretty sure he’d never actually see me again. My mother was pretty happy though, as we Facetime every other day and sometimes a few times a day. But the point is, I love technology, and I love what it’s done for us, and what it’s given us.

Is that a weird thing for a ‘natural parent’ to say?

source: http://heatherbleier.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/love-technology.jpg

I guess I should make a distinction between me and my children. I don’t want their lives to be overwhelmed by technology, but heaven knows, over the last few months I have been so grateful for the world at our fingertips.

See, when I knew I was going to Australia, the first thing I did was type Parents Western Australia into Facebook and up popped a group. Before I even arrived in Australia, I had ‘met’ people, and I had made friends and had contact details for AP playgroups.  Before the jetlag wore off, we had friends. How awesome is that?

In our quest for real food, and trying to reduce our gluten intake and everything else I write about in the Festival of Food posts, the internet has been amazing for learning about real food and more importantly, finding things we don’t find in our local supermarket. I mean, kombucha anyone? And while people – me included – complain that a real food/ raw food/ healthy food is really expensive, I’ve even been able to join a food co-op where we do all our ordering online, buying in bulk.

Just in the last few weeks, I’ve relished the ease of life with the use of social media. We have a miserable mould problem in our home, and our landlords say it’s for us to ‘sort out’ by opening the windows and turning up the heating. I sent out a tweet asking if anyone had advice. It was retweeted a handful of times, and Shelter got back to me with advice from their website. The problem isn’t resolved, but at least I have steps to take now, and feel empowered to do something!

There have been some practicalities too. Take a baby to Australia, and you drive to the airport in a car with a bucket car seat. Five month later, you bring a walking toddler back and she doesn’t even fit in that seat anymore. In years past you’d have had to get your tired and jetlagged self out to the shops to buy what you needed, and because you’re tired and jetlagged, you’re not exactly going to shop around, are you? But I bought Aviya’s new carseat from Kiddicare, on sale, (thank you internet for promo codes) for next to nothing. I know it’s probably weird to you, but that excites me!

Between Facebook, Twitter, and Google my life has been simplified and made so much easier, more pleasant and less stressed in the last few months. And don’t get me started on Pinterest. I take my hat off to anyone who was a stay at home mother before the internet. Like, seriously, how did they do it?

Like chocolate, too much of a good thing is bad for you, but, like belladonna  things used for their rightful purposes, and for the best they can offer are amazing and after my experiences in the last couple of weeks, I’m totally loved up on technology!

Categories: Motherhood

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