Facetime

By next weekend, my overseas family will be, as Lydia says, in America!  I am totally excited, but I must admit...I am going to miss those twice weekly FaceTime calls with Mandy and the girls.  I can be in the worst mood or have the most horrible migraine, and I hear the "quack quack quack" of the Stock family signature ring on my iPhone, and VOILA! I am better.  So, as I sit here and count the days, no, the hours till I see all my babies again, I wanted to try to capture some of my favorite FaceTime moments over the past three years.

A typical FaceTime call is between 9 and 11 at night our time, or sometime between breakfast and nap time in Bangalore, India.  Once I answer the phone, the first thing I see is almost always one of the kids, normally Isabella, or sometimes Lydia eating cereal, or Molly smiling that beautiful smile and then running away....always in motion, that one.  Once in a blue moon it is Mandy's beautiful smile, but regardless of whose face I see first, those faces always make me smile.  Sometimes the kids sing, sometimes they dance, sometimes they read to me.  They laugh, they cry, they eat (and "feed" me whatever they are eating), they show me artwork and block towers and outfits and headbands and Christmas trees.  But most importantly, they let me into their life, their daily routine.  I eat breakfast with them, stand by while Mandy disciplines whoever is in need of discipline, watch her get them snacks, open a milk drink, kiss the boo-boos.  Whatever happens during these precious calls, I am there.  A part of their lives.  Sharing in their every moment.  Watching my daughter raise her daughters, be a wife and mother.  Watching my granddaughters grow up in front of my eyes (albeit thousands of miles away).  Making them laugh, giggle, frown.  Here is a sampling....

-- Lydia and Molly singing "Barbara Manatee" to me...with changed lyrics to "Barbara Nana-tee"

-- Isabella saying "woof, woof" at least twice every FaceTime call (her way of asking to FaceTime with the dogs)

-- After Mandy saw my Facebook post about flying squirrels, she and the girls calling to FaceTime with Felix the Flying Squirrel (who we had trapped in our upstairs bathroom).  All of them squealing in delight as I screamed each time Felix flew across the room or ran over my bare feet.  Molly asking "Pop-Pop, could you pwease, pwease captcha a pet flying squirrel for me?  Pwease?"

-- Lydia proudly reading me a book

-- Molly showing me her dance steps

-- Listening to Isa's animal sound repertoire (especially the one she learned from her big sister, Molly:  What's a peacock say? Answer:  "tick tock tick tock"

-- Answers to what they want me to get them for Christmas (10,000 lip glosses, 20 sparkly headbands, a puppy, and a monkey) and what they want me to knit them (a puppy, a monkey, a ballerina, a monkey with a tutu, a jaguar, a Barbie house, a super duper twirly skirt)

-- Molly telling me she peed/pooped on the potty

-- Those smiles...oh those smiles.

-- Lydia telling me to get a pen and some paper so she could dictate her very large and very specific list of Halloween candy to mail to them

-- Watching them open packages

So many smiles, so many memories.  How I love these memories.  And with granddaughter #4 on the way at the Morrow house in Missouri, I plan on even more fond FaceTime moments.  Technology is great.  Yes, we survived wars and separation from family fifty years ago without computers,  without FaceTime, without instant connectivity.

But with it, we are so much more, well, connected.

And I don't know if I could have survived the past three years without it.