We love our 7 year old Grand daughter. We’ve worked hard to keep her exposed to the Arts. She has been in dance lessons since the age of 3. During the past couple of years she has really loved opportunities to perform in front of an audience. Recitals, and a couple parts in a local production of The Nutcracker have given her much delight.
A few weeks ago our daughter in law called and said that Breanna’s dance teacher had ask if she could participate in a unique opportunity to dance as part of the pre show for a professional ballet company The Ballet Magnificant. The dance was going to be to Steven Curtis Chapman’s song “Cinderella“. And it was going to require that either Breanna’s Daddy or her Papaw danced along with her. Breanna’s Daddy works 2nd shift so he had a good excuse to not be available. Her Papaw couldn’t stand the thought of Breanna being unable to dance so he surprised all of us by saying that he would dance the part of her Daddy in the song.
This turned out to be one of the highlights of our lives. I couldn’t video the actual performance due to distracting others. But between my daughter in law and myself we did get a video of the dress rehearsal. And some precious pictures.
Hope this home video touches you just 1/8th as much as the real thing did everyone that watched. Breanna told me later that people watching back stage were actually crying real tears because they liked she & Papaw dancing so much!
Every Grand parent should have Face Time or Skype to be in touch with their grand kids.
To have a before school video chat
Your grand kids can show you their new art project in real time
The excitement of seeing their smile when they loose their 1st tooth
Sharing of ideas (with my SparklesGlittern- a new dance move- she’s developing)
Your grand child can read a book to you
The ability to have sweet before bedtime ritual’s
Nite Nite kisses
And my favorite of all: When they want to video chat just to say “I love you”
Heart Melting
You can do this now with FaceTime which can be installed on a new iPod touch or an iPhone 4 or any Mac running Snow Leopard. Or you can just use skype on your PC. Both of these services allow you to talk (when on wifi) without adding to your used minutes. Remember although I’m showing a gallery of screen shots I took while Face Timing with the Grandkids that this is real time video.
Just like the Jetsons!
Then your 7 yr old grand daughter can ask ” Me Maw what are the Jetsons?”
We’re Grandparents and love it! Our youngest son married a woman who had a four year old son; so we inherited “Jacob” and don’t get to see him near enough. Although he lives with Tony & Laura, he spends most weekends with his Dad. And of course you hear about our little Breanna all the time:) I’ve even created a twitter account for her (so she’ll have her one w/ her “stage name” once she becomes famous
One of the biggest joys of Grand parenting is creating great memories for the kids to place in their “memory banks”. My memory bank is all tucked away in files in my brain. I have many files that I can retrieve in my mind at will. But with the technology available now we can help these deposits be more tangible by placing pictures and videos online.
Last week we had one of those great opportunities to help them make deposits of sledding. I’m unable to do the physical aspects of the hill climbing and sledding, yet I am blessed to be able to be the official photographer and maker of the archives for their memory banks. Thought I’d share this day with you.
