Mimi Status Update

Friends, it's been a long day. Mom's surgery lasted seven hours, much longer than the predicted two-hour procedure we were expecting. When the surgeon finally came out to talk to us, she informed us that Mom's ovaries were not as enlarged as she expected and she was thinking that instead of ovarian cancer, this might be peritoneal cancer (if you click those words, it will take you to a good link that explains what that is).  Lab results are in the works which will confirm or deny her hunch.

The doctor also told us that the cancer was on the surface of pretty much every organ in the abdominal region, which is why the surgery took so long.  They removed all the cancerous cells from the surfaces of the tissues and organs and also removed the ovaries, the omentum, and two significant pieces of colon.  The surgeon had to call in a colon surgeon to help with that part and to make sure that the remaining parts of colon could be fit back together to function properly.  So this was a much more extensive procedure than we were all expecting.

Mom will be in ICU for several days before being moved to a regular recovery room.  She is currently stable, conscious, and breathing on her own.  We've even gotten a few humorous anecdotes from her in the few hours since she regained consciousness.

We were all extremely saddened to hear the news of how grim the situation was.  There was much hugging, praying, and crying.  But I must tell you all, and my sister and aunt both agree, that there has never yet been a moment when we have not felt completely at peace knowing that the situation is in God's hands.  He has been so good to bless us with an overwhelming sense of comfort and peace through the past few days and hours.  And we feel so loved by the encouragement and prayers of our loved ones.  It is wonderful to know, that when we grow weary of praying, there is an army out there praying on our behalf.

Please continue to pray for:

• The fused parts of colon to take and heal properly
• The abdominal organs to begin to function properly
• The cancer to be all removed
• Her spiritual, emotional, and physical healing (she still doesn't know of this difficult turn of events)

Over the next few days my family will be taking turns staying with Mom.  I'm on the home shift right now and I'm going to go to sleep after a long and trying day...sleeping in the comfort and strength of the arms of The Beloved.

Heading into the Valley, With Blessed Assurance

Last night I got the unexpected phone call from my parents telling me that they had just learned that my mom has ovarian cancer.  I knew she had been having some tummy troubles but I had no idea this was a possibility.  They said her cancer is probably at least a stage three (same as my dad's) and had already metastasized (spread).  This is not good news, but we are gearing up for another battle, not a defeat. 

Surprisingly, I did not feel scared or panicked when I heard the news.  I think this was partially because I have been through a cancer battle with my dad and I feel much better equipped to handle it this time.  But I also felt that God was actively blessing me with a sense of peace, reassuring me that His hand is in this and He is in control.  I heard, shortly after that, from my mom's sister and my own sister, who shared their own sense of peace in the Lord over this situation.  My sister and my aunt are two of the most faithful believers in Christ that I know.  I find it awesome that all three of us who are among the closest to my mom in all the world, would feel such reassuring peace at hearing such potentially devastating news.  It's like our most trusted Guide and Friend came to comfort and encourage us as we were told that He would be navigating us through a difficult valley.  There's nothing that inspires confidence like the assurance that the beloved Guide will be with you, holding your hand along the journey.

After a good night's sleep, that knowing my tendency for insomnia when under any stress whatsoever had to be another of God's blessings, I woke up feeling sad for my mom and the awful battle she is going to have to endure.  But the Lord had more blessings of assurance planned for me.  As I reached for my ipod and checked my email, a dear friend had sent some comforting verses to me that were the first words that reached me this morning:

Psalm 22:24  --  For He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden His face from Him but has listened to his cry for help.

Psalm 34:18 --  The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

And then I decided to listen to some music while I did my workout this morning.  The words to Fernando Ortega's song "Hear Me Calling, Great Redeemer," blew me out of the water:

As I walk, Lord, Through the valley,
Hold my hand, Hold my trembling hand.
If I stumble by the wayside,
In Your strength help me stand.

The sparks fly upward while the wind blows
Like a spirit, Lost upon the sea.
I am torn, Lord, And born to trouble.
I am blind and I am weak.

Hear me calling, Great Redeemer,
At the foot of Your dark cross
Where You suffered for the sinner,
Bleeding, Dying, For the lost.

Go before me through the valley,
Speak to me, For I know Your voice.
Lead me homeward, Gentle Shepherd,
God of Love, God of Grace.

And as I exercised, blinking back tears and praising the Lord for His goodness in all situations and thanking Him for the encouragement I get from other faithful believers who write songs and send scriptures and share their love and their prayers with me, this scripture came to mind:  After Hebrews 11 lays out the famous Bible stories of the great faith of the men and women who have gone before us, Hebrews 12:1 offers this encouragement to those of us still on the journey --"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."  I wanted to come home and record these beautiful, reassuring thoughts for two reasons: 1. So that, when this journey gets difficult, as I know it will, I will have the reassurance of remembering God's amazing faithfulness to me and my family.  And 2.  So that, one day, I might be counted among "such a great cloud of witnesses" to God's love and faithfulness.  

I am certain of many things, but right now chief among them is that we love our Mimi so much and that God is with us in this valley.

Little Mermaid

I had some misgivings about posting this video of Abby singing in the bathtub but I really tried to keep just her little face in the screen.  And it's "Little Mermaid" sung from the bath, so what could be better?  I'll tell you what: A three year old singing her heart out without really knowing the words.  Pretty funny.  :)

Karate Kid? Perhaps Not.

Other than swim lessons, we have not signed Isaac up for any sport or activity until now.   For the past month-and-a-half he has been attending a weekly karate class.  He was super excited to start and looks stinkin' cute in his uniform:

After the first few classes, the students started sparring.  This is when we discovered that Isaac was perhaps not ready for this particular karate class.  The class is very fast-paced, overcrowded, and not well organized and, as we discovered while watching him spar, he really still has no idea what he's doing even after 6 hour-long lessons.   This is a video clip we took of him sparring with another boy his size.  Not only are they not using any actual karate skills that were taught in the class, but they are also not even close enough to hit each other even if they tried (and they did!).  They maintained a safe distance of about five feet apart, and while bouncing around, kicking, and flailing at will, they resembled a pair of uncoordinated dancers, rather than trained martial arts students.  Isaac is the one closest to the camera:

Still if nothing else, this moment was good for a laugh (the entire row of parents was watching and stifling laughter during this sparring session) and he had fun while it lasted.   We decided to remove him from the class until he's a little older and can follow the fast pace of this slightly unorganized  karate class.

Cookie Class

Last month Abby really enjoyed the cookie class at the YMCA.  This month they didn't have enough kids sign up for the class (and we wouldn't have signed her up anyway...not in the budget for this month).  So our awesome friend Jennifer, who happens to be the teacher of the YMCA cookie class, offered to come help us make cookies here at my house.  So Abby and her two bestie-best friends got to decorate cookies together.

First Decorating...

Then eating...

One little brother got in on the action

The other only dreamed some big cookie dreams.

Can't you just hear him thinking, "If only I were three inches taller!"

Thanks friends, for the great morning!  I feel so blessed to have friends that I love and our kids love each other too.  God is good.

Creative License

If you've known me for a while or read this blog a few times, you'll know that from time to time I get inspired with creativity.  Usually this culminates in a carefully crafted project for my me and my kids to complete.  Well, last Halloween, Isaac and I created a fun, cheap, and easy door monster:

So this year I wanted to decorate the door again, but I thought instead of a monster, we'll make a pumpkin patch.  We had made construction paper pumpkins before and it was pretty simple.  I precut the pumpkin shapes and the green tops and let the kids cut black scraps to arrange and glue as eyes, nose and mouth.  I was picturing a bunch of pumpkins that look somewhat similar to this, but with each child's creative flair:

My kids, however, apparently have their own creative inspiration (is that allowed?!?) and their vision of pumpkins was not at all what mine had been.   So instead, I got this:

And this:

And this:

I must confess, it was rather hard for me to allow my kids the freedom of their own creativity.  After all, I had a plan, did I not? And, after guiding their craftiness from their first creative attempts toward something that actually resembled pumpkins, I actually had a hard time honoring their creations by displaying them among the other pumpkins in the patch.  But then I thought, "what kind of psycho-controlling mom would I be to have my supposedly kid-created pumpkin patch on display without letting my kids' creativity shine through?"  So, with great deliberateness, I let the kids decorate the door as they imagined with their own creativity:

And the end result is this:

Perhaps not the most picturesque or typical of pumpkin patches.  But, after all, from a creative point of view, I guess typical can be pretty boring.

PS, my dog has been a little high-strung since we hung up the pumpkin patch. You see, every time she passes by the door, she sees this:

And she thinks someone is at the door.  Bitsy believes that her sole purpose on this earth is to bark when people are at the door so she has been barking ALL DAY LONG.  It was pretty funny at first, but it's slowly growing old.  :)

Dewberry Farm

Mimi and Boppa treated us to a day at Dewberry Farm.

Cousins.

Corn maze.

We never solved it, but the kids loved it anyway.

Rolling inside a tube, first one way...

...And then the other.

Jumping in the hay.

Spinning Swings.

Bouncing.

Riding the cow train.

Isaac had a blast racing the pedal cars.

Abby didn't quite get the hang of it.

The day ended with a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch.

Lily fell in love with the biggest pumpkin she could carry.

Everyone else found a smaller treasure.

Thank you for the fun day, Mimi and Boppa.

Halloween Craftiness

Our friend Celeste sent Connor over to play with a bat headband for each of the kids.

So Isaac designed some bat-wings to go with them.

Thanks for the inspiration, Connor!

School Pride

If you want to read my whole post, please do, and then come back to the top and watch this link for "School Pride."  If you don't feel like reading, just go to the link.  It really speaks for itself.

As a former teacher, and a teacher at heart, I am really excited about the new reality show "School Pride" premiering tonight on NBC.  I'm excited because it is targeting something dear to my heart.

The show is in the line of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," except that this show is about finding schools in need and uniting the community to renovate the schools and solve the problems the students face every day as they struggle to learn.

The few years that I was a teacher, it was in a low-income, inner city K-8th grade school.  I taught K-8 drama and 8th grade language arts.  Because the school had no gym, every rainy day, the PE teachers would bring their students to the small theater we had and I would have to bring my 40 drama students to my English class that seated 32 students.  What a mess!  And how do you teach drama from an over-crowded classroom with no textbooks or resources other than your own brain?  I loved it, but it was a challenge.

When I toured Isaac's new school, I was slack-jawed at the amazing facilities.  Get this: they have an art room that was actually designed to be an art room with art tables, a kiln, and plenty of supply storage; they have a music room that was designed to be a music room with instrument storage, and risers for the students.  There are two computer labs, a fantastic library, a large cafeteria and an indoor gym.  It's amazing to me considering my previous school experience.  The art and music rooms at the school where I taught were regular classrooms, "made to work" as best as the teacher could manage for the new intended purposes.

I have been so happy to be able to provide for my child a school that is so well-designed and cared for, and teachers that are well-trained and community-supported.  But my experience at a school of another kind has made this experience bitter-sweet.  It's not fair.  It's not fair that my child should be able to have the world at his fingertips while other kids in our country have to refuse to go to the restroom all day because a trip there would be either dangerous or futile because the facilities don't work.  I am very excited that someone has noticed and work has begun, however slowly, to draw attention to this problem, and provide solutions.

The producer of "School Pride," Cheryl Hines, has actually been doing these kinds of school renovations for the past four years before she decided to make a reality show out of it.  I'm excited for the show because I hope and pray that the exposure will help the movement gain enthusiasm and support.  This is one reality show where copycats will be most welcome!

Money, Money, Money: Part 2

Adel and I have been attending Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University this past month.  We really liked one of the ideas he has for teaching kids to be responsible with money.  For any money that the kids receive or earn, Ramsey recommends dividing it into three separate envelopes or containers: Spending, Saving, and, Giving.*

I liked this because I feel like we've done a good job teaching the kids about saving, but not about spending or giving.  Up until now, if they gave, it was our money, not their own, and when they received money, it tended to go straight into savings and nowhere else.  While saving is good, on its own it doesn't teach them the value of money or how to handle it.

After the last chore chart I made (in the first "Money, Money, Money" post), I realized that I am not up for checking daily chore assignments.

We still keep the chart so the kids can opt to earn extra money here and there, but this time we aimed to try for one larger, weekly chore for the kids to do to earn their money (supervised for now, but training them to one day work independently).  For now we're going to try having the kids help out with whatever Adel and I are working on in a particular week.  For example, this weekend we did yard work.  We had the kids do 30 minutes of weeding to earn their pay.  

Isaac was actually genuinely helpful while Abby needed a lot more directing: "Over here, Abby.  Here's a weed.  Stop playing around Abby.  Come get this weed.  Right here.  It's right here.  I've been trying to show you for the past five minutes.  Come pull this weed.  Good girl!"  Needless to say, I chose to pay Isaac a bit more than his sister.  Next weekend we may wash the car and get them to help.  And so on.

Once they were done with the work, we introduced the three containers and showed them how we wanted to divide up their pay.

Later in the week, when they were along with me on a shopping trip, we brought their spending money so the kids could put our plan in action.  The shock of value was a good lesson for them.  Here they are looking at big toys they could not afford to buy with their first pay check:

While I encouraged them to save up their Spending money for bigger purchases, the allure of the power to buy was too strong for them and they lowered their expectations to items of more appropriate value for their budget (no surprise, Abby got candy!).

And we'll work to make it a habit to bring their Giving money at church on a monthly basis.


*Side Note: Ramsey advocates paying kids for chores as long as they have the understanding that there are other things we do for our family just because we're part of the family (ie: you don't have to pay them for everything they do to help out!)


**Update from Oct 17:  The following weekend, the kids helped us wash the car, inside and out.

Isaac was again genuinely helpful, but for some reason I have no pictures of Abby actually working.

But isn't she cute?  

Isaac got paid more than double her earnings this time!  And this time, he decided to save it up for something he really wanted, rather than waste it on a cheap toy.  They're learning!