Happy 2nd Birthday, Brookelyn!

Since our granddaughter now lives in California, it is a little challenging to celebrate special holidays together. Last night, we Skyped her second birthday party. Using this free internet program, we were able to video call the Roli-Polis and participate in part of the special evening. However, they did eat the cake without us.

Little Brookie was fascinated to see all six of our faces crowded into the screen. Whenever my husband Scott got tired of being smashed into the human pyramid of faces as we were laying on the floor with a notebook computer, she would jibber, "BAMPA GO? BAMPA GO?"


SIL, Aaron, holding Baby Bubbs up to the screen. Since we haven't seen him in six weeks, we oohed and aahed and made so many noises he got frightened. I told him he would get used to us. With technology, that could be true.

We watched Brookie open her presents. She threw down the presents from me to slobber all over the bright yellow, rubber duckies from Gamma Joy. Then, we giggled and shared and made faces for over an hour, with Brookie throwing in an occasional, "OH-UH" in thoughtful agreement. We were interrupted a few times with minor computer issues and one major, we-thought-it-was funny episode when Brookie peed on her Daddy. Sorry, Aaron, I should have been videoing!

When Brookie got tired of us, we got Spaz, the family cat who thinks she's a tiger, to entertain her. I think Spaz remembered Brookie. I think poor Spaz has nightmares and day terrors from all the numerous tail pulls, chasing sessions and smacks from little baby hands that didn't always speak the right love language. Brookie's calls of "KI-EE! KI-EE!" were soon replaced with "KI-EE GO?"

Aunty Beka discovered that whatever she did, Brookie mimicked. Yes, of course, fingers went up noses.

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It was a great new tradition, to utilize all the technology available to keep loved ones close to our hearts via our computer screens.

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As I was watching my beautiful daughter and her family, I got tears in my eyes. I was thinking about the young couples that ventured to California decades ago in covered wagons, fortunate to send and receive a few letters a year with the family they had left behind. In our generation, we can text, call, snail mail,Twitter, Facebook, email, send digital pics, blog, have online albums.....not only do we have an amazing variety of ways to communicate, the options are ever-changing and increasing.

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In other words, we don't really have an excuse for not being in touch with family, do we?

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The family.

We were a strange little band

of characters trudging through life

sharing diseases and toothpaste,

coveting one another's desserts,

hiding shampoo, borrowing money,

locking each other out of our rooms,

inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant,

loving, laughing, defending,

and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.

~Erma Bombeck