Tiny Dancer

Rita started "story book ballet" at Noble Dance in the fall.  She has a natural lean frame and is super flexible, so I think she will be an amazing dancer if that is what she chooses.  At the moment she is starting to talk about gymnastics again.  Here are some pictures from the December open house.

They start class with a story and a little tea party.  The stories are about ballet and/or manners and they practice manners while having "tea".  Miss Carol does not tolerate unladylike behavior from her girls.  Then they do stretching and warm up. Next they work on a skill and finish class with free movement.

Clockwise from bottom center: Story time; instructions and manners time; lining up to perform a skil; the little cutie 2nd in the line continually made funny faces in the direction of her mom (who was sitting next to me), she was so cute! Rita gets ready and does her big jump; stretching; Rita posing by the star angel; and center, the girls got ready for their "big show" by putting on tu tus and makeup (a little lip gloss).  After all, we must prepare for the show!

Poor Rita has such a tiny waist that none of the tu tus stay up for very long.  She had great concentration though, because she didn't notice that by the end her tu tu was down around her buns!.  I love my Tiny Dancer!

The Gospel According to Rita

This is the Gospel according to my five year old Rita.  She drew these one morning, then taped them together and had me tape them on the sliding glass door.  My walls and windows are covered with various masterpieces and no museum can compete with their value.  You will need to click on the photo to enlarge and see the details.  The top panel is the Nativity, or as Rita calls it "Jesus borned".  The next panel is "Jesus died on the cross".  Third is "when Jesus' mom and dad put him in the grave that was a cave" (she put the paper portrait, but if you look at it landscape, Jesus is lying down).  The fourth panel is "Jesus came alive again".  That's the Gospel in a nutshell.  God loved us enough to go through all these things and asks us to love all people like He loves us.  How childishly simple our faith should be, but humans make it so complex.

Breath of Heaven

So many thoughts fill my head these days.  It has been a year of blessings, some of them in disguise.  A year of joy, and of repaired relationships. But, of late, it seems that tragedy is all around us.  Division and unrest seem to eat away at all that is good about this world, this country, and the people in it.  Breathe.

It was an election year. And we argued and fussed about who would best serve our interests. Just when we thought we could take a break from the constant debate and endless news coverage of political agendas, tragedy struck in Oregon and Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and the noise continues. Some yell for gun control, others for treatment of mental illness, some would have armed teachers or police or soldiers in our schools.  The image terrifies me. Breathe.

So, of late I have felt a bit melancholic.  Where is God in all of this?  Why can't I feel him.  Sometimes, if felt as if my heart had grown cold toward him.  Breathe.

As if in answer to a prayer, I received a Christmas letter from a very special friend of mine.  Her name is Andrea, and our families are linked by God in a very special way.  So, I plagiarize part of her letter here.  After I read it, my heart warmed and I once again could turn to my Abba and say, "breathe your Spirit over me, fill me with the Breath of Heaven". 

From Andrea: When Christ our King came into the world, being God, He could have chosen to be born in a palace.  He could have lived a life of splendor more befitting His Divine Kingship.  Instead, He chose the cold, harsh poverty of a cave hewn in rock.  His Kingship is not of this world, and it is not this world's luxuries and successes He sought, nor do they fulfill the human heart.

Christ is not opposed to entering into cold, harsh poverties.  It is His delight to do so, even if the cold, harsh poverty lies within our own heart.  He readily joins us there.  Are we like the inn, so busy and bustling with our own temporary lives and the lives of those around us, so filled will passing amusements, that there remains "no room in the inn" when our Lord gently knocks?  Or, are we like the rocky cave?  Rough and imperfect, to be sure.  But with what joy does the Master enter our cold hearts if we but avail ourselves to the transforming power of love from the source of all love.  End quote.

Thanks Andrea, for the marvelous gift of those words, just when I needed them.  Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and may the Breath of Heaven fill you with strength and courage and hope.

December Happenings

We finally got some snow to play in.  Not much, not nearly enough!  While the rest of the country got blanketed, we got teased.  Still hoping for more for Christmas!

We set up the basement with blankets, pillows, pizza and rootbeer and the kids, along with friends Ella and Peyton, watched the Polar Express while the grown-ups played cards.  Anthony idolizes Peyton and I think it is so sweet that he is sprawled on his lap while watching the movie and Peyton didn't mind.

Trying to keep little hands busy and minds off presents and on Jesus involved planning a few projects. I printed a Nativity scene someone e-mailed to me for the kids to color.  Then you tape them together and they stand up.  Rita insisted on creating a paper manger for her holy folks, and then decided that her fuzzy doggy bank belonged in Bethlehem.

We made dough ornaments which, as of this posting, are not yet completed and may not be!

We played Pay Day, our favorite family game.  The little ones can play and even though they don't understand the concept of money, they love it...unless they lose.

Brendan made his first batch of Christmas cookies with very little help, a gift for his teacher.

We celebrated the birthdays of two men I love very much on the same day.  My Dad, Jim Singleton turned 70 (he'll kill me for telling you) and my Godfather, Jim Mills turned a young 85.  I always say that it was the darkest day of the year, but after they were born, light started to shine a little longer. The picture is of the Godfather.  The Dad tends to hide from his birthday, so no pictures will be coming :)

 Yesterday, the in-laws arrived from Salt Lake.  Granny, Niall and Mojic came for Christmas and I am so happy and blessed that I am not working and get to spend Christmas home with my loved ones.

Today we had a little fun with frosting and candy.  We decorated ginger bread men and attempted to make Christmas candy. Poor Granny had to scramble to get any candy for her ginger bread man as Anthony was generous with his decorating!

After dark we hopped in the van to do the annual troll through the town to look at all the pretty Christmas lights.  The little kid in me still loves this.

I love these little things that you can hold on to.  They keep the world at bay and give you a refuge from all that has happened lately.  Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we will attend the vigil Mass to celebrate the coming of Christ into the world.  Peace.

Couch Potato to Spartan

After I got back from Las Vegas, my neighbor, Rose, who is a fitness trainer and super buff woman, finally motivated me off the couch!  Here's how she did it:

My goal is just to finish the thing and not die!  I have improved my strength and stamina in the 3.5 months since then and yes, I have dropped a pant size!  I find myself finding strange opportunities to fit in squats, pushups and other strength building exercises.  Wish me luck!

October 2012

Mom left on the first of October and time flew by quickly until mid-October, when Brendan finally got to redeem his birthday present. He and Karl traveled to Seattle for a regular season football game between the Seahawks and the Patriots.  The Pats have been Brendan's favorite team for several years now, but the Seahawks run a close second, so it was win win for him either way.  It was a great opportunity for Karl and Brendan to have a whole weekend to themselves for some quality guy time. They got a little wet, lost a shoe in a parking garage and Brendan will never forget Ellensburg!

 Meanwhile, Rita and Anthony were fully in the swing of their second year at Give Them Wings Preschool.  The teacher was kind enough to schedule the fall field trips around my work schedule so that I, and another mom with a second year student, could attend them.  We both missed them last year.

The last weekend of October saw us finally get to visit my Dad and Cindy in Idaho, a visit originally scheduled for mid-July.  It was put off first because I got pneumonia and my Dad, being very susceptible to illness did not need someone coughing continually near him.  Then Mom broke her heart, as the previous post describes, and then the boys went to Seattle!  So, three months later, we finally got to go visit.  It was short but wonderful.  Not only did Cindy endear herself forever with my kids by making "the best cookies ever", but she fed us all to the gills with wonderful stuff.  She, being an awesome photographer, also did a photo shoot with us and took amazing pictures.  Maybe you'll see one of the twins on a greeting card some time.  She dressed them up as the cowboy and the ballerina. She did allow me full access to the pics and so I had a decent picture of the whole family for the Christmas card.  If you want to see more of her work, visit www.daydreamsart.com.   She isn't just a good photographer, she is passionate about it!  And I love watching my Dad haul equipment, following behind her, and patiently waiting for her to get the shot she wants.  He's whipped!

Most importantly, my Dad and I got to spend some time together, healing old wounds.  Not that we rehashed old hurts and conflicts, we just started fresh and let the past be the past.  That was the best part of the visit.  I feel a wonderful sense of peace knowing that if I died today, I mended relationships with both my Dad and Mom this year.  What a blessing!

We came home on Monday the 29th and two days later it was Halloween and Karl's mom arrived for her fall visit.  We packed quite a bit into this month!

If you haven't seen Madagascar 3, you won't get Brendan's costume. Google "Polka Dot Afro Circus" and you'll see what we were going for.  We didn't have time to get the polka dots in, but you get the gist. Rita was a princess who won't wear a crown because she doesn't like things in her hair.  Anthony was the same as last year, Dino Rider.
 
 And thus October ended, but I feel like I was still back in July in my head!

August, 2012: Heartbroken

On Friday, August 3rd, I got a phone call from my sister, Lisa, to tell me that our mom had a heart attack.  Crap.  Not being one to panic until I have enough information to do so, I waited for more info.  Lisa didn't have much at that time having had only a brief conversation with Mom.  All we knew at that point was that it was a "mild" heart attack and she was stable.  It was too late to try to contact my mom and I knew that more information wouldn't be available until morning.

The next day I was able to talk to Mom, who didn't know much more than it was a "mild" heart attack, that she would need surgery, but not right away.  My medical brain knew what that meant and I breathed a sigh of relief.  I was able to talk to the Nurse Practitioner caring for Mom and she confirmed the information in "medical talk". 

They had to wait a week to do surgery because of some lab abnormalities, so it was the following Friday that she went to surgery for a 3 vessel bypass.  She technically had quadruple bypass, since one of the vessels had two blockages.  Thankfully (yes thank you thank you thank you God), Lisa was able to fly to Las Vegas on Thursday to be there for Mom during and after surgery.

I hated not being there, but in retrospect it was probably better.  I wasn't able to go since I was scheduled to work that weekend.  I work 4 nights on and have 10 off and had missed my nearly all of my previous run of  shifts because I had a random attack of pneumonia.

I was at work that Friday night in the ICU of my little hospital.  Thankfully, it wasn't very busy and I was able to get regular updates from Lisa via text.  It looked initially like all went fairly well.  They were having a little trouble keeping her blood pressure up, but they reassured Lisa it was not unexpected and Lisa headed back to Mom's house for some much needed sleep. She texted me, probably after midnight, that Mom was headed back to surgery because her blood pressure wouldn't come up and they thought she was bleeding internally.  We spent the rest of the night texting back and forth, waiting for news.  It turned out that she did not have bleeding.  My sister earned her angel wings for being there during this so stressful time. It wasn't until the day Mom was discharged, when I was finally there, that I was able to ask the nurse practitioner exactly what happened. The words "flash pulmonary edema" made my blood run cold.  I didn't realize she had come that close to the edge of death.

All told, Mom spent 5 days on the ventilator in the ICU. She was discharged 2 weeks after her heart attack.  I flew down to Las Vegas on Thursday the 16th, to join Lisa. The initial plan was for me to get there on Thursday and fly back to Montana with her on Sunday so she could recuperate for a few weeks at our house.  Since she didn't get discharged until the 17th, there was no way for her to be ready to fly on Sunday.  Our tickets were with an airline that only flies to Las Vegas and back to Kalispell on Sundays and Thursday, hooray for my small town.  So I was there for a week.  Sadly it meant missing Brendan's 11th birthday, which caused tears from both him and me, but he was a trooper and understood that I had to be with Mom.  Besides, I was bringing back a grandma to live with us for a month, so Happy Birthday!

To say all of this was a blessing in disguise will probably make some of you choke on your hot chocolate, this being December as I write this and finally find time to catch up the blog a bit.  But it's true. If there hadn't been complications, I would have missed a truly incredible opportunity.  Lisa, Mom and I spent a week together.  The three of us haven't been in the same room for 20 years or so and certainly not for the quality and quantity of time we had.  Lisa and I were also without kids, something which, for her, hasn't happened in 20 years and for me, in 11 years.  So there we were, the three of us, at Mom's house, talking, watching movies, reading, watching Mom nap.  She wasn't at her best, obviously, and she was still in quite a lot of pain, but even she says she wouldn't have traded that week for the world.  Neither would I.  One night, during a game of cards, we got the giggles.  Mom laughed so hard she was crying because her chest hurt so bad and I couldn't breathe (still getting over the pneumonia cough). 

After a week, I flew back to Montana with Mom in tow.  She stayed a total of five weeks and recovered at a remarkable pace.  The only thing that limited her was her back, which will never be right.  She did cardiac rehab, read, washed dishes and bossed me around my garden.  She also attended all of Brendan's football games while she was here and that made him very happy.  She is back in Vegas now, continuing to heal, continuing to be a FORMER smoker and planning to move to Montana in the (I hope) near future.  I am sure she will spend a fair amount of the long Montana winters in Texas with Lisa.

So perhaps, and I already knew this and you may have too, our blessings do come through raindrops.