The joy of Skyping

“Hey! A new Tundra book,” exclaimed our 8-year-old grandson, as he ripped off the wrapping paper.

He leaned back on the couch, pulled up his feet and knees to prop up the large book and promptly got lost in the pursuit of his favorite comics. Beyond his knees, we could only see the top inch of the book and above that, an inch of the top of his tousled hair. Every so often he would turn the book sideways to view a horizontal, full-page comic. A few years back, the Tundra books were gifts to our son-in-law, but now, Harlen is a loyal fan.

At the same time, his 5-year-old sister was opening her box of beads, which she had practically rattled to pieces trying to determine the contents. Amelia, too, was excited to begin using her gift and immediately started choosing beads to make her mother a bracelet. She was happy to find all the letters to spell “Mommy” instead of “Mom”.

As our daughter’s family became absorbed with the gifts we sent, my husband Gary returned to his newspaper, but I sat quietly like a “bug on the wall” observing the happy scene through the Skype internet program. Three cheers for modern technology, which allowed me to enjoy the moment in real time.

My mind wandered back to a childhood Christmas in the mid-1960s when, unbeknownst to the rest of the family, my father had set up a reel-to-reel tape recorder behind the couch. He turned it on just before our family of six began opening gifts Christmas morning. Our mother had a rule that we take turns and focus on each gift as it was opened. Even so, that didn’t stop excited kids from all talking at once, making the recording a bit hard to decipher.

The next year, Mom specifically asked Dad if he had the tape machine on. After affirming that fact, he formally introduced the family members and identified the celebration and the year. I promptly grew self-conscious and tried to be on my best behavior.

Fifty years ago, that reel-to-reel tape was only audio and not a regular occurrence. Nowadays Skype is both audio and visual and through regular use, our grandchildren are no longer self-conscious. We didn’t Skype when Harlen was five, partly because we saw him in person every spring and fall when we were snowbirds. No longer leaving Alaska in the winter and not enough time with grandkids lead us to try Skype two summers ago.

The first couple of sessions were awkward, but it didn’t take long to get comfortable. Our daughter, Erin, supervised their end prompting the kids with various things to tell us or show us. Many times, one of the grandkids would disappear from the laptop monitor to run to their bedroom and retrieve something they wanted to show us. It wasn’t long before we were on our own while Erin worked elsewhere, but within earshot.

Gary and I have seen many things thanks to Skype – Halloween costumes, pet hamsters rolling across the floor in a specially designed ball, school artwork, Lego creations, Lincoln log towns, baby chickens and the family peacock. We’ve Skyped in various locations around the house and several times at the dining room table during lunch. Sometimes, Amelia has said, “I’m taking you to...” and then she picked up the laptop and carried it to her bedroom to show me her new Barbie doll house or to some other location to share numerous stuffed critters — showing them to the camera one at a time, with continuous commentary.

With the earlier visits, some went better than others, especially when the grandkids started bugging each other as only a brother and sister can do. One day Erin must have stepped out to the back yard to gather something from the garden. When general goofiness turned into rather unbecoming antics, I said, “If you two don’t stop that behavior right now and straighten up, I’m going to click the ‘end call’ button.”

I only had to say it one time.

I quickly learned that once the show and tell part of our visit ended, another plan of action was needed. I offered to read stories and that was a big hit. After Harlen returned to school that fall, reading stories to Amelia became the main reason to Skype.

The only problem was that I had already taken most of the books I’d saved from our children’s growing up years to our daughter’s house. It didn’t take long to exhaust the selection at my house. Soon I was combing the children’s book sections of every garage sale I shopped. One lucky day I found several Dr. Seuss books for 50 cents each. I keep rotating my supply and Amelia doesn’t mind hearing and looking at the pictures for each book more than once. Sometimes I choose what to read and other times I show her several book covers and let her