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Much as I love Alaska, it is tough being 1500 miles from my first grandchild. I love my visits with Elizabeth. In addition to going back and forth between Alaska and Seattle, we already have a tradition of returning to my home turf in Kansas on Columbus Day weekend, where we enjoy a street fair, a parade, hot air balloons, wiener roasts, a cabin, newborn kittens and puppies, fishing, and family.
But it is never enough. To bridge the gap between visits, Elizabeth and I now video conference weekly, singing, sharing books, and chatting about everything from our beloved cats to the moon we both see from our windows. Sometimes I aim my camera out the window so she can see all our snow or show her what plants I have blooming.
Before she was old enough to have conversations, we did a lot of singing during our video conferences. Elizabeth had one song she liked especially well; I would sing it and she would do the actions, with help from her mom when she was very young. As she grew, we added books. Sometimes we each have the same book so she can turn the pages while I read; sometimes I read favorites from the library, displaying the pictures with the story. Among our favorites are The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, The Lighthouse Cat by JP Stainton and Under Alaska's Midnight Sun by Deb Vanasse. One of Elizabeth's all-time favorites is a book I wrote - Dexter and the Little Bag of Candies.
During our video chats, I also share stories that my mom wrote to my boys when we were in Germany. Elizabeth especially likes the one about Mitten, the cat that got on the wrong side of a creek during a storm and could not get back to the barn. She also likes The Missing Green Brush, about a brush that went missing after Elizabeth's dad and her Uncle Bryan, then five and three years old, visited my parents on our way to Germany. Weeks later the brush turned up in a cabinet, stashed behind a stack of dishes. My mom never knew which of the boys was the culprit, but Elizabeth is quick to assure us it must have been Uncle Bryan (who has a keen sense of humor), not her own dad (who tends to be more serious).
Like her gramma, Elizabeth loves cats, and some of them join our video conferences: her own cats, Lucy and new kitten Shadow; our cat Gradi, who is scared of people; and especially our Dexter, who loves people, playing fetch, and nipping papers the more important, the better. I have learned to keep important real estate papers out of his reach, but he always checks my purse when I get home to see if I have a paper for him to nibble. If we have been gone most of the day, he lets us know he missed us by biting big chunks from the paper. During one of our conferences, I displayed a paper Dexter had attacked, and Elizabeth thought it was the neatest thing. I started mailing Elizabeth papers from Dexter, first blank and then with notes about and by Dexter. On one riddled with Dexter-holes after John and I had spent a long day working on one of our properties, Dexter wrote, "Gradi and I do not like rentals. You should get home sooner!"
Elizabeth loves her Dexter notes; her mom has to read them over and over to her. Before they came to visit, she told me on a video conference, Dexter loves me so much! We were all a little scared that he would not give her the time of day, but from the moment she stepped into our house we could almost see the love going back and forth between them. They played, chased each other, listened to books together, took naps together LOVED each other. Now Elizabeth has a new kitten, Shadow, who sometimes exchanges notes with Dexter. "Elizabeth, I sure wish you were here so that we could play string and read books," Dexter wrote recently. On another, "I wish I could meet Lucy and Shadow and see you at your house." When I offered one of Elizabeth's notes to Dexter, his eyes got big and he came over and started biting it and tearing out small pieces. I think he knew it was from his Elizabeth! Maybe he was saying, "Elizabeth, where are you?" Some kids might be upset if a cat tore up their notes, but to Elizabeth, it is more evidence that Dexter LOVES her.
Elizabeth also loves the moon, and we talk about that on our video conferences as well. Sometimes we even see it at the same time from our windows and think about each other looking at it, making us feel nearer one another. She knows about it needing just a couple more slivers before it is a full moon, or how after two more slivers are gone it will be a new moon again and weather it is a waxing or waning moon.
Not long ago I visited a buyer and her six-month-old in the home I had helped the family purchase. Watching her son on the floor, it was obvious he had recently discovered his hands. I told her that her mom could watch that as well. As I explained about my video conferencing with Elizabeth, she got so excited. Her parents live far away, and she feels so disconnected. Inspired, she bought cameras and is in the process of setting up video conferencing with her parents. She is so thankful that I mentioned it, and I know there are others that feel the same.
Thanks to technology, there is no reason grandparents and grandchildren cannot be close, even if separated by thousands of miles.
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