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This one's getting packed in the hospital bag

With JP's upcoming deployment, our gifts to each other this Christmas were decidedly bent towards a tech-happy focus, devices that would help keep us close despite the miles of separation between us.

As one of the last remaining people on the planet without an ipod of some sort, I decided to give him an ipod Nano to give him access to his favorite songs that might make being far away from home a little more bearable. I also thought this might be a way to create podcasts of Jolie and the new one, if noises beyond crying can be captured, to keep with him while traveling. I have a nano myself- the really narrow older generation model- and love how lightweight it is yet so packed full of memory. The newer generation has a larger display and the capability to play videos.

Another gift to him was a souped up web cam that he can just clip to his laptop for hopefully some regular video conferencing (using something like Skype or Yahoo Messenger). These web cams can come with good resolution and have built-in microphones.

JP's gift to me which I'm really excited about is the Flip video (pictured)- a handheld camcorder which fits into the palm of your hand and creates effortless videos that can be uploaded to a computer and sent via email or easily uploaded onto You Tube or on my blog. The resolution is supposedly not as great as at traditional camcorder but I've heard it's good enough for computer-viewing and will let me capture some of those milestones of the kids that he might miss otherwise. It can capture up to 60 minutes of video and runs on 2 AA batteries. I'm definitely bringing this when I go into labor. (Don't worry, I will not be broadcasting any gratuitous crowning shots, but definitely of the first moments with the baby!)

I'm glad there are all of these technological advances to help us stay connected. It'll be a difficult time, regardless, but at least our current age of technology can keep us nearer than we would be able to otherwise.