Boy Wonder will definitely grow up being better equipped to handle long distance relationships than I ever could. Why? FaceTime. Take it from someone who’s lived on the other side of the country, away from his family for a long time, FaceTime rules.
I’ll bet that most of you grew up in the Stone Age. I’m talking about those Flintstone days, where we actually had to pick up the phone and dial up whoever you wanted to speak to. Speaking of dial up, the next big break through was the AOL Instant Messenger.
I bet most of you still remember your embarassing first screen name. Mine was Scoundhound, named after my dog Scoundrel. Yeah— that was a good idea. No dad in the world would raise an eyebrow at his daughter talking to someone named Scoundhound. It was totally innocent, I swear. Anyway, AIM became the precursor for modern day cellphone use known as texting.
I really think that someone lazier than me must have invented texting. “Oh, you sent me a text message? I’m so sorry I must have missed that one . . . The other twelve? Oh I got those but I couldn’t respond. My phone was glitching. Yeah, I couldn’t figure out how to block your number.” Also, We don’t have to remember phone numbers anymore, although we probably should. I’m embarassed to admit that I don’t have my wife’s phone number memorized. Why would I? It’s programmed into my phone so I don’t have to remember. See- laziness.
When I first moved away, my mom and I would have long FaceTime chats. Sometimes she would call me during family parties and just set her iPad on a table. Forget about HD video or high quality audio. Sometimes we barely had a decent connection but it didn’t matter. For a minute, I was teleported right back into the kitchen, listening to all the people I love and grew up with. For a second, it was like I was home again.
Boy Wonder teleports everyone, grandparents, aunts uncles, and friends, into our home nowadays. He loves seeing their faces on the screen. Actually he loves trying to eat them and I spend most of these conversations trying to keep my phone out of his mouth. Since they live so far away, Grandpa, Grandma, and Grammie call as often as they can. So often, in fact, that he’s taught himself how to hang up on them. Still, his little face lights up whenever I tell him we’re going to FaceTime.
I’m amazed that he’ll have close relationships with people he’s never met in person. It’s already started. He FaceTimed with Aunt Noreen a lot and by the time she met him in Las Vegas, he adored her. The same thing happened with Grannie Grannie, when she visited a few weeks ago. He still has plenty of cousins, aunts, and uncles, to meet too. We’re so lucky to have this bit of technology for him.
On the other hand, when this great gift of technology falls into the wrong hands, it can be used to play a hilarious trick on Boy Wonder. When Grammie and Gannie Grannie’s plane landed on this latest visit, they FaceTimed us on their walk through the terminal. Boy Wonder was used to this because we FaceTime Grammie alot. But it threw him for a loop when I took the phone away and she was standing right in front of him. “Daddy, you let the old lady out of the box! How’d ya do that? Hold that thought. I’m gonna try to eat her face.”