Pamela Vanden Bos

  

     My three-year-old granddaughter Trista knows how to press the #3 button on her mother’s cell phone to speed dial Grandma Pama in Alabama. (That would be me.) Last week during one of her early morning phone calls, Trista asked to see my puppies. Therefore, without further ado, I hooked up my webcam and signed on to Skype. At the same time my daughter signed into Skype in their Seattle home 3 thousand miles away.

     Once the video connection was streaming I could see Trista sitting in her Dora chair grinning at me on the computer screen while her little sister Kalese played in the background. My daughter instantly disappeared.

     Trista looked at all my doggies inquiring about their names and told me that she wanted to come over to my house so she could hold my puppy. Obviously, she thinks I live down the street.  After Trista got bored of my dogs, she started running off camera and then seconds latter she would come back into view with a toy or hold up her foot to show me her favorite shoes.

     Whenever Trista disappeared off camera, I noticed that Kalese would get into things on the bookshelf. Twice I saw Kalese shoot me a wary look on the computer as she tried to unlock and open the front door. The second time I said, “Kalese where is you mother?” However, the little darling just turned her back to me and continued to pull on the door handle as hard as she could.

     Thank goodness, big sister Trista charged back into the room with a messy sugary snack so that Kalese instantly lost interest in her escape and toddled over to hug her sis. However, she was squeezing Trista so tight around the neck it almost choked her. Of course, I had to fuss at Kalese instructing her to let go of her sister before Trista turned completely blue. Once that drama ended, the girls began to lick their sticky tongues on the computer. My scolding did not do squat, they just laughed at me.

     My eyes were starting to cross and I wanted to get off the dang computer. However, it has been more than 15 minutes since I’d spotted or even heard my daughter’s voice. Where the heck is she?

     “Keelyn! Keelyn! Keelyn! Where are you?” I began yelling at the top of my lungs.

     Off in the deep recesses of the house I heard a faint reply, “Mom, I’m doing something”.

     Sheesh….like I couldn’t figure that out on my own? My point was… I want my daughter to get the heck back in the darn room and watch her own kids, this was not working for me, and I wanted to hang up. I know times have changed but OMG, how can I be expected to baby-sit when I’m 3 thousand miles away?