Webcam Peekaboo
Where's Waldo?
While we love these calls, we’re not always sure of what SFBaby makes of the whole ordeal. She is definitely interested in the “screen with moving pictures” aspect, but we couldn’t tell if she “got it” or not. On the surface, the video call with the grandparents is not much different from the presidential inauguration video she watched the other day: they’re both a bunch of talking 2D human-like heads that make noises she mostly doesn’t understand. (The inauguration, incidentally, is also the only online video that SFDad has ever allowed her to watch.)
On a recent call, SFGrandma was being her usual self and trying to play peekaboo with the baby. As one might guess, playing peekaboo over a video call is a bit of a stretch, since the person on the other side is a little bit…two dimensional, and the Skype video quality doesn’t lead to a particularly good rendition of hands covering one’s face.
To contrast, when we play peekaboo in real life, SFBaby generally uses her special “peekaboo blanket.” When either of her parents lie down on the ground and toss the blanket over their faces, SFBaby knows to run over, pull it off, and collapse in a fit of giggling. We can also toss the blanket over the baby with similar effects.
In a (very) fleeting moment of inspiration, SFDad realized that not only was there a way to play peekaboo over the video call, but that this method could perhaps also convince SFBaby that the people “inside” the computer were truly interacting with her.
The solution was simple: cover the video camera (and screen) with her special blanket! True to life, SFBaby immediately knew that she needed to rip off the blanket as soon as she saw it. When she saw that the SFGrandparents reacted to her blanket-ripping-off just as they would have if they were right next to her, I think she finally understood that she was interacting with real people.
The next trick up the grandparents’ sleeve was to cock their head at funny angles and see if SFBaby followed along. She did…and I think she’s onto something!
Tags: games, peekaboo, silly dad, Skype, videoconference, webcam