Call of the Child

As a multi-tasking mom, you’ve developed some serious selective hearing.

And in the midst of staying tuned in to everything in your life – your job, your friends, your husband, your kids – you end up tuning out some other important stuff, like your ringing cell phone.

The same was true for Lauren Dawson, a Honolulu mom who was missing all kinds of calls because her ringtone seemed to blend into the cacophony of her life. Not even a loud, obnoxious one would help – she realized the only sound her ears perked up for was her son’s voice.

So she and her husband developed Kid Ring, an iPhone app that allows you to record your child’s voice to create any number of ring tones. Simply download the easy-to-use app, make a recording, and your new ring tone is emailed to you for installation through iTunes. You can make as many as you want, and assign them to different callers.

Dawson’s 7-year-old son, Andrew, made his ring tone pretty straight-forward: “Mom! Your phone is ringing. Pick it up!” But you can get creative – no matter what your little tykes say, their adorable voices are sure to get your attention.

So you won’t miss any more calls, and your children will have a blast recording their voices. Upon hearing the playback, most kids dissolve into fits of laughter.

Which is music to your ears.

Kid Ring is available for use on iPhones. It can be downloaded for 99 cents at the iTunes app store or at www.kidring.com.