“Ooooo… You just want to reach out and cuddle him!”
[i]- CJ’s great-grandmother, 84, was introduced to skype.[/i]
________________________________
12 months ago S1 and I faced one of the hardest decisions we have had to make.
We were ready, it was time to start trying for a family, but we had one [s]small[/s] big problem…
11,400 miles
(18,300 km for the kiwis reading this).
Half way round the world
Our parents, potential grandparents, who would love nothing more than to have a grandchild to cuddle were as far away as they could possibly be.
(to put this into perspective, it’s 24 hours travel to get there, too far for a cuddle)
Ultimately, we made the difficult decision,
choosing what was right for us at this time of our lives.
But, decision made, that still left the issue of distance.
Weeks later, we found out CJ was on the way. During that excited phone call home, I decided I would do whatever it took to shrink the world.
You see, one problem with being this far away is the 12 hour time difference.
With NZ while we are awake, they are asleep.
We actually have to plan for even the basics like a simple phone call.
And so we started with the internet-baby revolution.
The first thing I brought for CJ, a night vision internet camera.
Our parents can log in in their day and watch him (hopefully sleeping).
And skype. Our parents don’t call to talk to us anymore, there is a much better distraction.
And then came blip. It’s a daily record of our rapidly changing lives. My journal has changed. And my wife, S1, has joined now as well.
Her mother prints out her blips and takes them to her grandmother.
Just hearing that brings a tear of homesickness to the eye.
Genuinely, I don’t think we would have been able to make the call to stay in the UK had this been only 10 years ago, the distance would have been to great.
But today, suddenly we are no longer 11,000 miles from home.
These days we are one a click away.
Any time of day or night, we are there.
In the words of disneyland, it’s a small world after all.
Leave a Reply