Skype Me Up, Scottie: Visiting face to face with the grown kids and the grandkids.

I may be a little late to be an enthusiast, but I've discovered Skype. Had heard about it, of course. But had no real reason to use it. Now paterfamilias and I do. Alpha daughter and her family are living in a country that is an ocean--and a six-hour time difference--away. But with Skype, we "call" each other through our computers and can both see and hear each other. It makes it feel like we're right there in our daughter's apartment, sitting in her kitchen, looking out her kitchen window and chatting over a cup of tea. Our granddaughter sometimes sits still long enough for a conversation. But often she just dances by, says hi, and dances off screen. Or plays the piano for us. Our grandpup also makes her presence known.

Alpha daughter has also used Skype on her laptop to give us a tour of her apartment and a closer view of the courtyard outside her window. When we go on vacation with our son and his family next week, we hope my little notebook-laptop will Skype us a visit--the cousins can see each other and tell each other whatever silly things small children manage to convey via a computer screen.

Other friends are further up the evolutionary ladder on their Skype. One, whose granddaughters live on the other coast of the U.S., says she reads stories to the youngest kids--turning the book to show them the pictures. Has anyone tried checkers? Or another game? Or found another inventive way to use computer-phone technology to bridge the distance between our homes here and their homes way over there?

Comments

[Susan Adcox]

I am just about to tackle Skype as I will have family members traveling in Europe for a month. They won't always have access to a computer, but my son-in-law tells me that somehow you can use Skype to place calls to phones as well. Has anyone had experience using Skype to call from the U.S. to Europe?

[penpen4]

our grandchild, now living in Germany for a year, turned 8 last week. We Skyped her, sang happy birthday--and could see her laugh along. We also got to watch her delight when she opened our birthday present to her: four Bunnicula books. English-language children books are hard to find in Germany. While we talked to her mother, we could see her start reading one of the books.
Skype Rules!