We have a new i-Pad.  We resisted buying one as long as we could, but between our grandchildren and their father, our son Jeremy,  the pressure was too great and we gave in.  That is, Peter gave in.

I have to admit it’s pretty cool.  We’ve owned it for about ten days.  However, my total time on it adds up to less than sixty minutes.

That’s because of an app called Words with Friends.  It’s free if you don’t mind some ads.  If you do, it costs a dollar.

Basically, it’s online Scrabble, but you can play with anyone anywhere who owns an i-Phone, i-Pad or i-Pod.  You make your move and then check in periodically to see if your opponent has made a move.  A game can go on for days, depending on how busy the players are.  And you can have more than one game going at a time.  Now Peter has a game with Jeremy and with Jeremy’s next-door neighbor.  Don’t ask me how that happened.

When we went to see the kids in Maryland last weekend, we took our new i-Pad.  And there seemed to be quite a bit of Words with Friends going on. 

We thought it was a stretch for Leo at age seven to try Scrabble, but he gave it a shot on his i-Pod.  When Grady, age four-and-a-half declared that he could play, I asked him, “What words can you spell?”  “Wow,” he spelled, and “Mom”.  Not bad for a four and a half year old, I thought. 

And, he could make a double word just by turning the screen upside down.