We’ve decided that the best use of the 30 minutes of free phone time that the Husband gets through our local base is for him to call on Friday mornings.  Both girls are home and can take turns talking to Daddy.

It’s fun to watch how excited they get when they realize that it’s Daddy on the phone, but the fighting and arguing over who gets to talk is frustrating.

They are still little enough that they need to have the phone on speaker phone so that they can hear him, he can hear them and I can hear it all to translate.

The problem is actually twofold.  They fight over the phone and who gets to hold it when.  I try to keep one quiet while the other talks and then after a couple minutes we switch off.  It seems to work for the first switcharoo, but inevitably the Big One remembers something that she HAS to tell Daddy when the Little One is talking and vice versa.

Once they start whining and fighting, it gets very difficult for the Husband to hear anything at all.

The other challenge is the conversation itself.  I don’t know what’s best.  Is it best to try to “guide” the conversation with prompting or is it best to just let them ramble?  I do let them ramble initially, but then they seem to lose steam and run out of things to say.

I hate feeling like I am forcing the conversation, but at the same time I want to make sure they utilize the time that we have.

I always end up feeling like an overbearing stage-mom promoting my girls on what to say when. My intentions are of course to make sure that Daddy gets to hear as much about their adventures as possible.  I just feel like  it comes off too forced.