Whispers and Shouts: To Bake a Cake

It stinks to have my parents so far away from us, but let me tell you…the boys have a relationship with their grandparents that they would not have, thanks to video chatting on Skype. We talk to my parents and see them online at least three times each week. The boys gaze at Mom and Dad’s ceiling fan. They pretend to play with the dog and cat. We’ve been out to see the garden and the sprouting lawn at my parents’ house. Mom and Dad hang out on my laptop on our balcony with us, see the boys play outside and inside, jumping on their beds and running around in their diapers before bed.

I lived a long way from my dad’s parents growing up and they were always great about talking to each of us kids once every week when they’d call, and it was special, but I did not know them the way my kids know my parents. When Mom and Dad came to visit in the fall, the boys didn’t skip a beat. They knew exactly who they were, what they look like, what they like to do and eat and wear. What a different world!

My mom’s birthday was Tuesday, and we called her in the morning on Skype to sing her happy birthday. We did and she loved it. The boys decided they needed to make her a birthday cake. I agreed and then spent the next few hours dedicated to this cake. Of course I didn’t have a cake mix on hand, so it took much longer than it needed to. At times it was fun, at times I wanted to throw eggs at them. They wanted to be in on every tiny step in the process. They weren’t even afraid of the mixer. They kept repeating, “Grandma’s too far away, but we will eat the cake for her to celebrate her.” Celebrate is a new word for them, as is ingredients, after this venture.

So we baked her a cake. It came out extremely tall, so we ate chunks off it to “level it out,” and planned to have a real piece later after dinner. I thought I’d make frosting eventually, but I didn’t. The boys didn’t notice. Mom had gone out to eat that evening and was thus un-Skyepable. We had a piece of cake and took a video for her. I never got around to emailing the video, and then the next day after lunch we called her and ate another piece, sang to her, and the boys blew out the candles again. Awesome.

I love and highly recommend Skype, or some other form of video chatting to make and maintain relationships that you wouldn’t normally have beyond a once or twice a year visit or once a month phone call. Also, keep cake mixes on hand.