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Taylorsville Journal

There’s an app for that

Jun 08, 2016 10:56AM ● By Bryan Scott

By Peri kinder

If someone else tells me, “Here’s how to do more,” I might just rupture a spleen. (Someone else’s spleen, not mine.) I’m already trying to cram 29 hours of tasks into a 24-hour day.

Experts recommend we spend our day evenly divided with eight hours of sleep, work and play. But experts are idiots. 

These Time Control professionals don’t take into account the 75-minute commute, the one hour spent finding lost keys and clothing items, the 10.5 minutes to make/eat breakfast, the 17 minutes showing my spouse some attention, and the one hour spent daydreaming about being rich, followed by 15-25 minutes of sobbing.

And that’s not even dealing with kids. (Add an additional seven hours of chores to your day—per child.)

Family apps are the latest thing everyone needs to keep their lives on track or you are so completely out of touch you might as well live in a Quonset hut on Neptune. If you don’t have at least five apps coordinating your daily activities, you are a failure.

For new moms, Glow Baby tracks your child like a super-focused CIA agent, monitoring everything from how often your child poops (along with the consistency/color) to how often your child cries (going on three years). I never once tracked my daughters’ poop . . . well, except that time I tracked it down the hall to a discarded and very full diaper.

Cozi is a much heralded time management app that allows your family to share calendar items along with a journal for recording those heart-warming memories. Disclaimer: this app will not alter time to get you across town in less than 10 minutes after you forget your daughter’s softball practice. 

For the family chef, Food on the Table lets you create virtual meals and shopping lists using sale items at your local grocery store. But, this app does not come with a shopper who will purchase menu items, or a chef who prepares and serves your family a healthy dinner. (Sounds like frozen waffles for dinner again.)

And for the (crazy) helicopter parents, MamaBear lets you follow your child’s every move, so no more hiding behind shrubbery with dark sunglasses and video cameras. You can monitor your children’s social media pages, their location, their use of swear words and ability to lie without even blinking. (Warning: you’ll discover your child is a sociopath. Because kids are.)

If you’re truly into documenting your baby’s bowel movements while virtually preparing a five-course meal no one will eat before checking the tracking device on your teenager’s car, then these apps are for you.

But if you’re tired of all the techno-hoopla, I’ve created apps for normal people. I call them RealAPPs. 

BlackOut shuts down all the power in your house and car, forcing everyone to stay home in their pjs, eating sandwiches and playing old-school board games. GuiltAway gives you permission to forgive yourself on a weekly, daily or hourly basis. MomResponse has preset answers, sent through text messaging, to all those repetitive questions. 

RealRecipes will create meals from whatever you have in your fridge/pantry. (Spaghetti Cheetos Ritz Cracker Casserole, anyone?) NoGo sends an automatic “NO” whenever someone asks you to volunteer/bake cupcakes/babysit/garden. 

Once you download the RealApps, you can kick back and not worry about high-maintenance tracking any more. And you can punch those “Here’s how to do more” people in the spleen.   

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