Halfway down the Danube

Travel side effects

Doug is in Laos and Cambodia for the next four weeks, after 10 days in Kosovo and 2 short days in Bucharest. The kids are understandably confused and upset. We try to ease the pain as best as we can and we found that Skype is a great help.

We can talk daily without bloodcurdling phone bills. We can talk as long as we want, the kids can talk and stop talking and run away and come back without either one of us twitching over money trickling down the drain. We even had Doug sing good-night songs to the boys via Skype. With the webcam, Doug can watch the boys during the evening routine of bath, book, brush and watch his youngest getting more alert every day. I recommend Skype to all traveling Dads and Moms.

There is just one thing you have to be careful about:

Yesterday, we had the first video call with the boys since Doug landed in Laos. David prodded the laptop a little and said - "Daddy, are you in computer?"

The connection was a bit bad and I shifted to text chat instead of talking - I can almost type as fast as I talk anyway. As I started typing, David started screaming: "Don't do that, don't do that!"

He's 2.5 years old. He throws fits for every reason you can think of, and then some. I try to ignore it as best as I can. But this time, he wouldn't be consoled, grabbed my hand, pulled it away from the keyboard and said, with tears running down his chubby cheeks: "Daddy in computer! Don't hurt Daddy! Don't hurt Daddy!"

Things were explained, and no lasting damage has been done. We think. Although - David did tell his teacher today that Daddy went back into the computer...