Second Holy Communion

The best Mother's Day gift came last week when my two little girls made their First Holy Communion. We were so glad that my mom was here and the girls were wearing heirloom dresses that she made for them. They looked beautiful and innocent and happy.

 Forty years ago, the same mom made my First Holy Communion dress. Apropos of the time, it was much less fancy and took much less time for her to make. She indulges me these days to tackle very difficult projects on the sewing machine. Her handiwork almost always involves my little ones.

 Today, we all got up for the early Mass and quietly and reverently went to Communion for the first time as a whole family of five, the second time for the girls, and as part of the eternal line.

Sanctified Times Two, version 2.0

The girls both made their First Reconciliation today with the same lovely priest as their brother. They asked if they could go again next Saturday. I told them any time their little hearts desire to go, I will take them. Any time.

We celebrated with a brunch at The Waffle House. Big brother, who is now an altar server, is off with his Pinewood Derby. Tonight, the girls have the annual Father/Daughter Dance and I get the traditional Mother/Son date.

Time flows steady and strong and these babies of mine are being carried away from their childhood. I try so hard to preserve it, even if momentarily, against the ever-moving current.

Bye-Bye Magic Stick!

We had an appointment with Mr. Tony today. Before we set out, I dug to the back of the closet and retrieved Annie's blue 'magic stick', her arm crutch, which was a demo loaner from Mr. Tony. She hasn't used it for weeks. She asked me to carry it to the van. The mantra, 'big girls don't need magic sticks,' was oft repeated to reinforce her new habit. It seems that her posture, balance and strength have also improved with her new habit. Duh. It was a crutch!

In the office, we heard the story of a young boy who had a traumatic amputation recently. Annie told Mr. Tony, 'maybe someone else can use this. Thank you!' The stick is a nice medium blue, perfect for a little boy who's learning to use his new leg.

I thought of A Christmas Carol and Tiny Tim and the potential-scary-future image of an unused crutch. Here, however, the unused crutch makes my heart glad with the thought 'God bless us, everyone!'

Thank You, Saint Lucy

I am privileged to be teaching a class called 'Alphabet Saints' to the K-2 students in our co-op. I love knowing about them and teaching the little ones to rely on this 'cloud of witnesses' as they go through life.

Today, Annie went for a follow-up eye exam. As a preemie, she suffered from R.O.P., retinopathy of prematurity, and she had laser surgery to save her eyes. She is still cared for by this wonderful pediatric ophthalmologist. She wears corrective lenses, but the eyes have a great disparity. If a strong eye is relied upon too much, the weaker eye's messages to the brain eventually get shut off. One way to combat this is to patch the strong eye to make the weak eye become stronger. We have been patching for years now and the doctor just couldn't get Annie past a plateau. Six weeks ago, he decided to throw everything and the kitchen sink at this vision disparity and we began 'mega-patching.' Basically, Annie has her patch on during all her waking hours. In that mix, I asked St. Lucy, patron saint of eye patients, to intercede yet again for Annie's clarity of vision.

We had a good exam. Both eyes got 1.5 lines better on the eye chart. We will continue with more mega-patching. So while thanking St. Lucy, I ask her again to work her heavenly magic and intercede on behalf of Annie's eyes.

DVD Review: Life After Tomorrow

I just watched "Life After Tomorrow" on NetFlix Instant View. It's a brief [72 minutes] documentary about the little girls from various shows and tours of Annie who, as grown women, share their memories and sometimes quite sad stories of making it big as a little kid and the feelings they had of outgrowing their fame. Ultra famous Annie, Sarah Jessica Parker, does an extensive interview and comes off as remarkably well adjusted. Another personal fave of mine, Martha Byrne, who I came to know as Lily Walsh on As the World Turns, does a nice interview, too. There are many, many, many others and their post-show biz struggles are poignant.

I think this film should be required viewing if you have any plans of putting your daughter in show business or on the pageant circuit.

I am an Anniephile. Dad must've belonged to some record club because I remember hearing Broadway Cast albums of many shows. Dad would play them on Sunday mornings after 7 a.m. Mass when he would cook breakfast for Mom and the rest of us. I wore out the grooves of my Annie album. We bought the piano music to "Tomorrow" and I played it always. I knew the words to every song. The National Tour came to Milwaukee when I was a junior or senior in high school. I bought tickets and dragged my boyfriend to the show. We made a day of it, riding with his folks there and back and having three meals on the road that day. I was in heaven. I bought the t-shirt and wore it until it became a gym shirt and then I wore it for gymnastics practices. I know there's a picture in a high school yearbook where I'm wearing it. That musical touched me. About 10 years ago, the show was coming to Winston-Salem and I won the easiest trivia question possible about Daddy Warbucks [first name 'Oliver'--duh!] and took my man to see it. I was way up in the balcony on the edge of my seat, enraptured. I still knew every word to every song, even though I had only seen the show the one previous time in the late 70s.

And then there's this.

It was a little sad for me to see this film and tarnish some of my golden memories. I highly recommend this pic, but only for people who loved the musical.

NICU Wall Art

A while ago, I allowed my girls to be photographed for an art project at their old NICU. This weekend, their nurse posted her pictures of the finished prints and her musings on the wall of fame that now graces her workplace.

Thanks, Sara. You are an amazing nurse and you have enriched our lives by being so good at what you do.

Proofs

[Photos by Sally Gupton, all rights reserved.]

The girls were asked to be photographed for an art display at the NICU. Photos of some graduates will be displayed on the walls as a sign of hope for the families who are currently in the NICU. I thought that sounded like a great idea. The photographer is Sally Gupton and I think she did an excellent job. Click on the photo to embiggen it.

Mr. Tony version 3.0

Annie had a physical therapy session today and afterward, we went to see Mr. Tony and pick up her third prosthesis from him. She seemed to grow two inches in that hour. He continues to tweek and rework and adjust her prosthestics for her and her growing body and expanding physical needs. As she learns to do more, she wants to do even more. This leg has a new, larger foot [to match her fleshly one] and the leg itself is shaped like an oval and less like a circle to minimize the leg turning on her while she's wearing it. It comes up much higher on the outside of her leg and it will accommodate a knee joint when we decide to try that out. It's so obvious that Mr. Tony loves our little girl and puts all his skill and creativity into her prosthesis. We are so blessed and grateful.

Royal Tannenbaum

Last year was the first year for a Christmas tree in a decade. Santa was kind enough to leave it with us. It went up several days ago. Annie has nicknamed the tree "Shrubby" and begs to go downstairs to check on 'him.'

I just checked. Bedecked with lights and garland and Santa just dropped off a load of presents. O Shrubby-Tree, O Shrubby-Tree, how lovely are thy branches.

Pixel Dust

Behold our first ever picture taken with Santa Claus. We thought of photoshopping the cowlick, but then we'd have photoshopped out all the whimsy.

Merry Christmas from the Adamses!

Good Enough to Eat

The kids' vocabulary is growing. We recently added 'siblings' to their lexicon. When I showed Annie the picture of all the children with Santa Claus, I asked her who's that with you? And she said, 'my dumplings.'

She learned that word on Thanksgiving.

I Owe You a Few

[Top to Bottom]: My dashing, incredible son, Zeke, as Dash Incredible; Annie as Ariel, Zeke as Dash, Mary Jo as Tinker Bell, Hallowe'en 2008; Mary Jo and Annie leaf nothing to the imagination; Zeke, Joey and Annie astride an alligator at Alligator Adventure, September 2008.

Annie PT Update: Cheerily Victorious

I haven't written about Annie much lately. She had a really good session of PT last week. In fact, it was her best one since her injury in August. Turns out that the injury was indeed a fracture at the same place that her knee was fused to the thigh oh-so-long ago. The wire that's been in her bone kept the leg together. The x-ray showed the wire bent, but did not break and that the bone's fracture was so small as to be known only to Annie at the time and x-rays several weeks later after healing had begun. These days she's hopping and climbing without her prosthesis as if nothing had happened. With her prosthesis, she's a little less certain. Yesterday, we took her in to see her prosthetician, Mr. Tony, and he did his creative magic to buy us a little more time on this leg. Annie's grown quite a bit since he first fashioned the leg, but most of the growth has been vertical. So he added a little length and filled the interior of her prosthetic with some foam to help give her a more snug fit. We're happy about the progress and glad that the kid is so remarkable and determined.

Happy 5th Birthday, Annie & Mary Jo!

Yesterday, we celebrated a little milestone as the girls turned 5.

Here's Joey, awaiting her guests' arrival.

ADDED: Dave tells me that Zeke snapped this picture. Perhaps he's got the Uncle Paul gene?

And this is Annie with her new stuffed elephant "Gipper," a present from Uncle Chris and Grandpa. By the way, Uncle Chris is batting a thousand when it comes to gift selection.



Mary Jo looked at the two cakes and asked if Annie was having a birthday, too. After I quit laughing, I explained that, yes, Sissy is having a birthday, too.

Learning a New Language

With the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican's vice-presidential nominee, there's a sudden discussion of Down syndrome. I found this message from the National Down Syndrome Society to be very helpful. And I also found this essay, "Welcome to Holland," to be applicable to my life once upon a time. [And, I got Italy mixed up with Switzerland, but the sentiment was the same. I also note that I got the lingo wrong on Down syndrome.]

Annie PT Update: Slow Progress

Things still haven't gotten back to 'normal' around here since Annie's leg injury two weeks ago. We've been to the orthopedic doctor twice since the injury and to physical therapy twice, also. Wednesday's session was much improved over the one 7 days earlier, but Annie is still significantly reluctant to don her prosthesis, much less take a step. On the upside, she's much more mobile and comfortable sans prosthetic. She's scooting around and climbing unassisted, but she has refused to hop, which had become her mode of movement around the house.

I notice that each day is a little better than the day before, and I am hopeful that if there's a slight fracture, it will heal in due course as she continues to lightly bear weight on her leg. The doctor believes her prosthesis is as good or better than any cast would be. We'll see what's going on with x-rays on the next appointment in 2-3 weeks.

The injury made us cocoon a little bit while Annie mends and I hate the additional medical duty it poses, but I guess that's life with youngsters.

Annie Update: Slow Progress

We have a follow-up appointment on Tuesday afternoon. Annie's been sitting all day watching Noggin and sleeping pretty comfortably all night since Wednesday. We haven't even attempted any weight-bearing. She does fine with a little Motrin, but getting her to take it requires some creativity. She's mostly content, sometimes a little whiny, and will often 'hold court' and make the other two do her bidding. There's a little swelling on the leg and I'll be glad when we get over this speed bump. I hope it's soon because I don't relish this weird return to ortho worries.

Prayer Request

As I was heading out to work, the back-up nanny came in with Annie crying [and Mary Jo, too, but for other reasons] saying that she hurt her leg [while wearing her Mr. Tony leg] and landed on it hard while swinging. Usually Annie is tough, but she was really favoring the middle part of her fused left leg. It would not be consoled away. I made a few calls and Dave and I took her to the Emergency Room at the same hospital where she spent many weeks as a preemie. Several hours and a couple x-rays later, we had a diagnosis that it was not broken but was traumatized. The prescription was to not weight bear until it feels better. She's in her own bed, propped and snuggled in and sleeping. Would you pray that this little girl heals? Might as well ask for what you want: total healing NOW.

God, of course, will handle the details.

Little Milestone

I had a mom-and-kids fun outing yesterday while Dave worked at the Wine Festival parking cars [and getting a very bad sunburn]. We went to Chik-fil-a. The kids did great and Annie, for the first time that I can remember, went into the play area [known in our house as 'the gerbil cage'] with her leg on and kept it on the whole time. She was able to do her climbing, sliding, crawling and walking without difficulty. Near the end, she asked to take off her Mr. Tony leg and I told her that if I took it off, it would be time to go. She considered that a moment and returned to her play with her leg.

Annie PT Update: Doing Swell

Annie had another PT session today with Miss Ashley. We've been going every two weeks since January. I haven't written about each one because, to me, it's nothing new to report. But that's not completely true. Annie continues to gain confidence and mobility each session. She doesn't always wear her prosthesis at home, but when she's not 'up' on the leg, she's 'up' hopping. She can pretty much hop from her bedroom through the living room to the kitchen door. She's incredibly powerful in that right leg and has excellent balance. When she arrives at her destination, she just puts her short leg up on the couch or chair or wall as a third point of balance. I've gotten used to it, but it really is quite astounding.

Today, her PT said that Annie was 'fantastically adaptive' and 'kinesthetically gifted.' She is always assessing Annie--measuring how far she jumps, noticing how she gets from the floor to a stand, even seeing that when she falls, she's doing that correctly. Today when I told Annie we were going to see Miss Ashley, she did her best Tweetie-bird impression, "Oh, doody, doody, I wuv Miss Ash-a-wee." And I would say the same.