Those three months when the kids' ages are easy to remember

Me trying to compute the exact ages of my children

I call August through October "birthday season" in our family, as three of our kids were born in this time frame.

It starts with Jared on August 5th, continues with Melanie on September 21st, and culminates today with the anniversary of Chloe's birth.

In addition to Chloe being a person worth celebrating, I also like getting to October 23rd because it means that, from now until late January, all of the kids' ages are either even or odd and thus easy to remember.

Today, for example, Chloe turns 28. That matches nicely with Elissa (30), Jared (26), Melanie (24) and Jack (18).

Until Jack's birthday arrives on January 27th, I don't need to give much thought when someone asks me how old my children are. As long as I remember Elissa's age – and I always do – I can just step down in two-year increments through Melanie, then subtract another six years for our relatively late-in-life baby Jack.

Once Jack turns 19 in a few months, though, it all goes out the window. It will take me a few extra seconds to get all of the ages in order in my head, at least until we get back around to next year's birthday season.

Your kids reach their 20s and 30s and suddenly their exact ages are not only a little blurry, but in some sense a little less important, too. There's a lot more of a difference between, say a 10- and 12-year-old daughter than there is between a 26- and 28-year-old.

I think the same way about myself. I'll be 55 in 10 days. To me, 55 is pretty much as the same as 51, 52, 53 and 54 were, and probably essentially identical to 56, 57, 58 and 59.

Of course, by the time I get to 60, I'll probably start forgetting the kids' ages entirely, no matter what time of year it is. At that point, family birthday season won't mean much.

But for now? It's a life saver.

(And happy birthday to Dr. Chloe Edmonds!)

I'm not the only one who uses this app every day, right?

The most-used apps on my phone are the ones you would probably expect: Messages (for texts), Gmail, Facebook, YouTube, ESPN, etc.

I also spend quite a bit of time  playing a Yahtzee game I've had on there for years.

Much further down the list, in terms of actual minutes in use, is the built-in iPhone "Reminders" app. I am actively engaged with it maybe 3 minutes total each day.

Yet it is, far and away, the app that has the most positive impact on my life.

"Reminders" does exactly what you think it does. It reminds you of various events, tasks and occasions of which you feel you need reminding.

For example, these are some of the recurring reminders I've set up and how often they pop up on my phone to jog my memory:

• "Feed Cats" - Every day at 5:30pm. I feed them first thing in the morning out of deeply ingrained habit. But I sometimes miss the evening feeding when I get home from the office, often because I'm rushing around getting ready to go out and announce a game or some other nighttime activity. This reminder ensures our two feline girls don't starve.
  
  
• "Blog Post" - Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8:00am. This reminds me that a new post has just gone up on my blog and I need to make sure the link gets shared on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
  
  
• "Begin Church Newsletter" - Every 15th of the month. A year or so ago, I took over compiling the monthly PDF newsletter recapping all of the relevant news and events for our church. The newsletter usually goes out near the end of the month, so I begin putting each edition together two weeks earlier.
  

Right now there are also six one-off reminders in there that include reducing the price of the Kindle version of my book "5 Kids, 1 Wife" to 99 cents for a special promotion I'm doing with RobinReads.com, asking someone for photos to go with an article I wrote for our school alumni newsletter, and updating the resume/log I keep of all of my sports public address announcing gigs.

I'm not saying I would forgot all of these things if it weren't for the Reminders app, but enough of them would go by the wayside if I tried remembering them on my own that having Reminders is a life-saver.

The best part is that I don't have to type anything on the tiny iPhone keyboard to set a reminder. All I have to do is summon good old Siri and tell her, "Hey Siri, remind me Thursday morning at 10am to fill the tires in my car," and she does. Just like that.

As I grow older and somewhat more forgetful, I anticipate being increasingly dependent on Reminders and Siri, my faithful electronic friends.

That's assuming, of course, I remember to set all the reminders I need in the first place.