Grandma Robin e-mailed me with a conundrum.  (We pause here for a vocabulary lesson.  Conundrum is pronounced kuh - nuhn - drum. It means a riddle, something puzzling, a mystery, a problem.  There.  You’ve had your vocabulary building for the day.)

Grandma Robin’s conundrum was how to use Skype effectively with her 16-month old granddaughter who lives in Philadelphia while she (that’s Grandma Robin) lives in California.  (Drat it!  Don’t we just simply hate it when our grandchildren live so far away??)

I shared some ideas with her that I want to share here with you.  I’m even going to throw in a couple more for good measure.  Kind of like a baker’s dozen — only this isn’t baking and I don’t have a dozen ideas. . .

Before I share my ideas, I want you to keep this rule of thumb in mind: the length of a child’s attention span is one minute for every year that the child is old.  So, if the child is four years old, the child will generally have a 4 minute attention span.

Knowing this will help you adjust your expectations on how long you can expect your grandchild to pay attention and be involved in a Skype conversation with you.  Knowing this, you won’t be disappointed (hopefully) when you want to keep interacting but your grandchild would rather get down and go play somewhere else.

So, here are some Skyping ideas that you could do with 16-month old grandchildren.

1.  Before your Skype call, collect a few pictures from magazines or newspaper ads (a cat, dog, doll).  Hold the pictures up one at a time.  Make a comment about a feature such as the color of hair or what the dog is doing in the picture.

2.  Say a nursery rhyme incorporating appropriate actions.  See if your grandchild can do the actions with you.  If you have a book of nursery rhymes with pictures, show her the picture that goes with the rhyme.

3.  Sing a little song like the Eensy Weensy Spider or Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.  Have her do the actions along with you. Here are some more examples of songs that you can learn and sing with your grandchildren.

4. Ask her to point to her eyes, her ears, etc.  Or, you could have her point to “your” eyes, etc., which means she would touch the computer screen to indicate where your eyes are.

5. Before you Skype, ask her parents to have her favorite toy nearby.  Then, ask her to show you her toy.  Ask her a question or two or make some comments about the toy.

6.  Ask her what sounds different animals make such as ‘What does a cow say?’

7.  Have some alphabet blocks nearby.  Hold up a block and tell her which letter it is.  See if she can repeat the letter after you say it.  Also, see if she can spell her name as you spell it out loud with her.

8. Read her a very short picture book.  Point out items in the pictures for her to look at.

9.  Have her draw a picture (while you are watching) and show you what she has done.  Comment on the beautiful colors she uses and how artistic she is.

10. Have a finger puppet and have it ‘talk’ and ‘play’ with your grandchild.

11.  Have a bottle of bubbles and blow bubbles for her while she watches.  She may get frustrated and want to do it herself so maybe her parents can have a bottle on hand for her to use.  Then, the two of you could blow bubbles together.  See who can blow the biggest bubble.

12.  Play peek-a-boo where you go ‘off screen’ then come back on.  Play peek-a-boo with the finger puppet or some other item.

13.  Have her create something out of Play Dough while you watch.

14.  Touch your finger on your computer screen and move it around.  Ask her to see if she can follow your finger with her finger on her computer screen.

15. Have her show you how she can play catch with a parent.

16. When she gets older, play Candyland.  She will roll the dice and move the marker for both of you.

17. If you are really adventurous, put on some music and dance.  (You can’t be self conscious to do this activity!)

Well, lookee there.  I didn’t think I would have twelve ideas and I’ve ended up with 17.  Remarkable!

Remember, keep it short.  If your grandchild doesn’t seem to be interested in what you are doing, change and do something else — even be willing to end the conversation.  Good luck!

What Skyping activities do you do with your grandchildren?

My children think I’m a geek.  When compared to my friends and peers of the female persuasion, I have to admit that yes, indeedy, I am rather geekish.  So, what’s a body to do when she comes across a site that converts pictures into ASCII code? Why, give it a whirl, of course!

Take a look.  What do you think?  I think the ASCII code pictures are rather charming, if I do say so myself!

Isn’t this totally cool? It’s amazing how you can recognize the picture even though it is programming code instead of picture pixels.

(This is so radical I think that the next time I wake up at 2:00 a.m. and can’t go back to sleep, I’ll ponder how this all works. I might even wake up Grandpa to have an in-depth conversation about it. What do you say about that, Grandpa?  Huh?  What’s that?  You know, if you’d stop grumbling in your beard, I’d be able to understand you better . . .)

You don’t have to be a tech whizzard to do this.  You don’t need to be moderately geeky.  (Is there any such thing as moderately geeky, I ask you?)  If you are reading this, you have ample technology skill to create some ASCII pictures yourself.  (See, a website does all of the work for you.)

Photo2Text.com is where you go to create these types of pictures.  You simple browse to the picture you want to upload and click submit. You’ll need to enter in a nickname.  (You’ll see why in a moment.)

Then, you have the option of downloading a text file that can be opened in TextEdit on a Mac or Notepad on a Windows machine.  You’ll also have the URL that you can share with others to see what you have created.  (The URL has your personal nickname that you selected — so that people will see YOUR picture and not somebody else’s.)

Here are a couple of ways how you can use this idea with your grandchildren:

• Invite your grandchild over.  Take some simple pictures of the two of you to submit.  Print out the picture from TextEdit or Notepade.
• Have your grandchild bring a couple of digital pictures (of their family, friends, their pet) to turn into ASCII code.  Print up and give to friends or family members.
• Make a photo album of several ASCII pictures.
• Do a ‘through the years’ photo album of your grandchild using their school pictures turned into ASCII pictures.
• Get a mat board that has cut-outs for two pictures and frame a copy of the original photo and the ASCII code.  Or, do a collage of your grandchild using original pictures of family members or  cousins or friends and the ASCII photos.
• YOU create the ASCII picture and then e-mail or snail mail it to your grandchild.
• If your grandchildren live far away, e-mail them the URL.  Then, have them e-mail you a copy of the pictures that they create.
• Turn pictures of you and grandpa into ASCII code and snail mail them to your grandchildren.  Whether or not they live close by or far away, getting a letter in the mail with one of these pictures would be great fun for your grandchildren.

A while back, I received an e-mail from another grandma who suggested that I put my picture on my site.  That was a great suggestion!  So, here’s a picture of me holding sweet Kaylissa on the day that she was born.  Don’t we look lovely? 

Last week, a wonderful lady contacted me about an app for the iPhone that she has created.

Let’s pause here for a moment.

I took a computer programming class eons and eons ago (well at least a long time ago in technology chronology).  I learned lots.  Like the fact that I didn’t want to spend my life looking for errant semi-colons and brackets in computer programs that I wrote.

However, I thought I was a pretty hot shot beginning programmer when I created a fun little program that was like the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books that my children enjoyed while they were in grade school.  But that programming euphoria dissipated as I realized programming wasn’t for me.

While I don’t know the exact age of the woman who created the application that I’m going to talk about, I do know that I can claim her as a peer.  I am SO impressed that she (at her age) knows how to develop applications for the iPhone.  I’m even MORE impressed to know that she taught herself how to code for the iPhone.  Let’s bow down and worship her — and give her a big round of applause.  (Clap, clap, clap.)

Now.   Back to our regularly scheduled post.

Dawn has created the application ItsAGranddaughter with companion programs for a grandson, son, daughter, niece, nephew, and twins.

The idea is that after you’ve been snapping photos with your iPhone of the new darling little grandchild, you can add one of twelve background designs, all of the birth stats, and then e-mail the photo to all of the folks in your contact list on your phone.  (That’s grandma’s bragging on steroids!)

I don’t have pictures of our new granddaughter, Kaylissa, on my phone (because I had my camera there that took higher quality pictures).  However, I did have a couple of our other granddaughter and used those pictures to try out this application.  They weren’t taken when she was born but that’s okay.  They will still work.

The pictures here are examples of what the program creates.  (The cute pink background is my favorite background!)

This program is exceptionally easy to use.  Maybe I’d better qualify that a little.  If you know how to use your iPhone it is easy.  (I know people who only know how to call out and receive calls on their phones.  Those folks might need someone to provide a wee bit of tech support at first. But just a little bit because the program is so simple to use.)

You can find these wonderful applications at http://www.dawnkempf.com.

There’s only one eensy weensy bug with the program in my humble opinion.  You can’t have a weight that is in even pounds (like six pounds even).  You cannot set the ounces to zero.  While that really isn’t a big deal, it doesn’t let you give the correct birth weight if the baby weighed say an even seven pounds.

Don’t have an iPhone?  (My sympathies go out to you.)  However, do the parents of your grandbaby have an iPhone?  If so, you could give the gift of this application at a baby shower or before the baby was born so that the proud parents can be ready to shout out to the world that their little bundle of joy has arrived.

Now, I just need to get the application ItsAGrandson and then I’ll be set for the arrival of our next grandchild regardless of what flavor it is.  (My phone is ready, are my children ready to give me another grandchild???)

The other day, I saw a website that did a ‘Mailbox Monday’ post.  I thought that was a clever catchy title.  I wanted to share that little phrase with you, my Dear Reader.  Maybe you haven’t heard of it before, like I hadn’t.

You can dub your Mondays as Mailbox Monday and make a special effort to send e-mail to your grandchildren that day.

Do you worry that you’ll run out of things to say if you e-mail them every Monday?  Why not send them a joke, a recipe, a photo you took, or a motivating quote?

Share the story about the day your grandchild was born and how you felt — especially when you were first able to hold your newborn bundle of joy.

Send a story about something their parent (your child) did when s/he was your grandchild’s age.

Share an interesting news story that they might not be aware of.

Most importantly, tell them how special they are and that you love them.

Teen-aged grandchildren disdain e-mail.  It’s oh so old-fashioned.  They’re into texting.  So, have a Texting Tuesday for them.  (Ha!  I made that phrase up . . . or at least I’ve never seen or heard anybody using that before . . .)  Do a Texting Tuesday — assuming you have a cell phone AND that you know how to text.