Do you have a computer and a grandchild who had a computer? Well I have both. My grandson lives in Florida, and I can't always get down there to visit him. We spend a great bit of time together when I am there. Toy, games and just plain talking about kid stuff.

When I'm not there we still spend a great bit of time together. It is called Internet. Yes he is 8 years old and knows his computer when it comes to messaging grandma to chat or to play an online game with him, or send an e-mail just to say I Love You with a picture he drew for you. I come home from work and turn on my computer and messenger and there he is, waiting for me. His message next to his name either says, waiting for you or where are you grandma. It got to the point, that my daughter couldn't get online cause my grandson was hogging it up, and would fight with her because he was online with grandma, and didn't want to give her the computer. She ended up getting him his own computer.

We spend a couple hours together each night. First comes the messenger. We chat back and forth for a while. Then comes the phone call. I guess he gets tired of typing, or he has a story to tell me that would take too long to type on the messenger, or he doesn't feel like typing an e-mail or he just plumb wants to talk to me. That one phone call can take up to 45 minutes. I hear a lot of I love you and I miss you, when are you coming to visit.

After all this, it is ready to get down to business and play some games on the internet with him. He plays games and sends the link to me and I do the same with him, but the fun part is playing a game against him. We have hours of fun. I am the type of grandma that lets him win once in a while but not too often. You don't want him to grow up thinking he has to win all the time. You want him to grow up feeling it is great to win but you can't be the winner all the time. He was getting an attitude when he lost all the time. At one time everyone would cheat so he could come out the winner. That wasn't the right thing to do. Once he got older he thought he was the greatest at all games. Grandma doesn't play that way. We play fair until Grandma wins all the games. Then Grandma feels bad and lets him win a few here and there. But not all of them. But now that he is older, there are some games that Grandma can't beat him at and of course he smears the pie in my face because of it.

To all the grandparents out there. If you can't visit your grandkids and you have a compute and they have one, visit them online. You will get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I know I do.