Skype! Yikes!

What a wonderful surprise I had yesterday! My son was fiddling with and manipulating my computer by remote, and he hooked me up with Skype! Suddenly I was in their living room seeing my 3-year-old granddaughter face-to-face and having a conversation with her! We talked about her 4th birthday coming up (“I’m having a Sweet Pea birthday cake, and my party is at the zoo!”), her playmates (“Gabe won’t marry me because he’s mad!”). Then she thrust her doll into view (“It’s Barbie, from Toy Story 3!”) Her enormous blue eyes lit up as she went on, “I want to tell you about my dream! I dreamed my friends were over, then I couldn’t find them!”

I asked her if she wanted to go to school, now that she was turning four. “Actually,” she said, “I do go to school at my church. We have praise and worship! And we have snacks!”

“Do you practice letters and numbers?” I asked her, to which her reply was, “Well, 3’s are kind of hard. They are…uh…different.”

I hadn’t seen their family much this summer, but briefly in Tennessee for a family wedding a couple of months ago. I don’t think I even had a conversation with her then, busy as she was dashing around with cousins. It’s amazing how fast kids change. Here she was, articulate, animated, dimpled smile flashing and blonde curls bouncing. Be still, my heart! If baby Maddie hadn’t been asleep, it would have been double the fun.

Later that evening when PaPa was home, we got on Skype again. This time 19-month-old Maddie was in on the fun, if escaping to distant corners of the room in pursuit of some elusive toy. At one point, they got on a battery-powered 4-wheeler and zipped around riding double. I remembered when Maddie had received that as a first-birthday present, and, standing beside it, she turned the ignition and hung on for dear life as it took off with her. She must have grown into it a bit by now.

“I forgot to tell you something about my dream,” Anne-Marie announced, coming into view, then, distracted, the moment was lost. We are looking forward to our trip to see them as we meet at our son, Trevor’s, house, for Thanksgiving. An outing to an Amish Homestead Fair is planned for Friday following the holiday. With the petting zoo, carriage rides, craft exhibitions, and musical performances, I’m sure it will be a wonderful excursion for one and all. Until then, I can see them on Skype, and maybe Anne-Marie will remember more of her dream. Meanwhile, she and her little sister will populate mine.