The Birthday Watch

My daughter's eighth birthday is coming up in a few weeks.  It is occurring to me as I type this that we'd better get on with the birthday party planning, but that's another topic.  I think she's wanting to have a sleepover, which will be easy as it's at the house and will involve only a few party-goers.   My daughter is on the way home now from the mountains after spending several glorious days with my parents.   Perhaps talking to her about her upcoming birthday will help with the expected letdown of being backt to ou much less exciting life as a family here.

With my daughter, finding presents is always hard.   My son sees so many things he wants that keeping his list of wishes under control is more the issue with him.   My daughter doesn't know what there really is to want.  Couple that with many, many things being wholly unsuitable for her because they require being able to see things to do them and we've got a sparse Amazon wish list.  We end up  having only a few ideas to share with family and friends who want to get her something.

Every year about this time I start scouring the web for reasonably priced potential gifts for her.  Gifts that are tactile, look understandable that she could be successful with versus frustrated by.   They also have to look fun.   It's hard to guess what will work with her which makes the pool of possible gifts quite small.

Sometimes we can get the children a gift that's not really a gift.  There are things we've been able to give them that's served a purpose beyond that of a toy or entertainment.   This year for my daughter's birthday we've thought about it at length and decided to give her one thing she wouldn't get until she's much older and another thing she wouldn't get at all if she were sighted: an Apple watch.

Let me lay out some background.   First, she rides in a cab that has an ever-changing route with rotating students, drivers and even companies.   We wanted to track her location and initially got a GPS location device targeted at children with mental disabilities who might wander and get lost.   The device could be attached to the child's clothing or their backpack.   Since my daughter carries her backpack with her when she travels, this was a good option.

Some advances in technology and we got a second option that was smaller with much longer battery life but still had to be attached to her backpack.  About a year ago we got another option in the form of a watch.   The GPS location app wasn't as robust, but the device was on her.  The other main advantage was that it was also a limited phone.  Numbers had to be approved and added to the watch face and they were limited, but we added ours and a few others and set it so it was in silent/airplane mode during school hours to meet school requirements.

The watch turned out to be a better solution than we realized because of the phone.   My daughter loves to call Mimi after school and at other times and talks with her about all sorts of things.   She also sings to Mimi—a lot.  She's used the phone feature to call for help when she's needed it.  There have been a few times she's been well and truly lost and the calling has made the watch worth it in safety and security as a result.   But there are disadvantages to the watch.

My daughter's vision has degraded to the point she can't see what's on the watch face enough to discern anything.   She asks friends in the cab to pick the right person to call.   In the absence of help, she presses the screen until she makes a call and hangs up to try again if she gets the wrong person.

An Apple Watch comes with Siri, which means my daughter can just talk to the watch and ask it to call someone if needed.  The GPS location service is reliable and her location can be shared with not only my husband and me but any other family members who might need to know where she is.  My daughter can also say, "Hey Siri, where am I?" and it gives her the street address where she currently is.

And Siri can answer questions—all sorts of things.   My daughter takes advantage of Alexa in so many ways to find out information, having Siri available on her wrist will help her be more independent.  With Siri she can have family members in her phone and will be able to call the correct person the first time.   My daughter loves calling family members and talking away their afternoon.

The other thing the watch comes with that my daughter wouldn't have until she was much older is a phone.   This is sort of a non-present though because my daughter won't either have it or use it.  A basic phone was all that we needed but was a requirement because an Apple watch has have a phone as a parent device.   In her case, the phone will sit charging most of the time.

We're getting it set up now and will give it to her soon.   We did a test the other night and she was able to call, send text messages, ask the time and weather all successfully after having the watch on for only a few minutes.   I think she'll not only pick up how to talk to the watch quickly, but she'll also find out all sorts of things we didn't know you could do with Siri.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is currently at the state fair with Morgan.   Apparently, he stayed up quite late last night playing games with Uncle Jonathan.   I wonder how tired he's going to be when he gets home.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been picked up by my husband and is now on the way back from the mountains.   We weren't certain it would work well for her to go and stay with Mimi and Gramps.  My mother and I talked about it for a few years, trying to find the right age for my daughter to go.  It was apparently the perfect age because my daughter had so much fun she didn't want to come home—even though she missed us all.