That's Just the Kind of Man He Is

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My Father-In-Law is losing his memories to early onset Alzheimer's. While he's losing his the rest of us are busy soaking in every precious memory of him, and my children and I are going to have a lot of them. 

I'm glad I don't relate to any of those in-law jokes. My father and mother in law are two of my very favorite people. I've learned important things from them in striking ways. Things like turning the other cheek, not taking offense, being the first one to be kind and generous. I've been the recipient of those actions several times and watched them demonstrate those attitudes towards others countless times. It's been one of the great blessings of my life.

I watched it happen again last Saturday--Halloween--when the children and I were all busy carving pumpkins. The kids are getting older and I'm trying to teach them to be more independent. In year's past I have helped them carve their pumpkins but this year I decided they were big enough to do it on their own with me standing close by. I did help them use a sharp knife to cut off the tops but when it came to using the little knives from the pumpkin carving kits they were all on their own. They each struggled a bit. I busied myself nearby picking out and washing pumpkin seeds to bake later and encouraged them.

This was an especially hard task for Marilyn. She wanted hearts cut all over her pumpkin. I showed her how to do it, cutting the triangle on the bottom with the knife and rounding out the curvy tops with the potato peeler, and then set her to it. She had a really hard time and got pretty frustrated. Projects like this are a huge learning opportunity for her though and someday when she is a grown up mama she is going to need to use a potato peeler. I can't and shouldn't give in and tell her to quit when she gets frustrated. I don't want that to be the behavior she learns. I want her to learn that she can push through and do hard things. So she kept trying and I kept encouraging. I carved a few more hearts on her pumpkin so it wouldn't be so empty but she kept working on her one heart for over 20 minutes. 

Right near the end of that 20 minutes Grandpa and Grandma Parker showed up to drop something off at our house. Grandpa came on in to give all the kids hugs, realized Marilyn was in tears over her pumpkin carving efforts, and she became his focus. He hugged her several times (and he's not a big huggy kind of man), told her how great her pumpkin looked, and when she told him she didn't like how it looked he told her she could probably get another one. Marilyn knew I wasn't going to go get her another one because I wanted her to be OK with the effort she had made on her pumpkin just like the boys. Honestly her pumpkin efforts were just about as successful as the boys', the boys just struggled less with theirs. Grandpa saw her need though and his natural reaction was to be generous.

He left her with a hug and 20 minutes later the doorbell rang again. It was Grandpa and he was carrying probably the biggest, roundest pumpkin he could find and it was ALL for her. She was so taken aback by his loving kindness that she couldn't say much but it meant more then she could express. He gave her a big pat on the back, told her to have fun with her new pumpkin and then was on his way.

After he left she cried some more but this time they were tears of gratitude and love. What an amazing thing it is to be the target of someone's generosity!

She had finished carving her other pumpkin by this point. I'm pretty good at knowing when and how much to push her so this time around I offered for her to paint her pumpkin instead of carving it because I knew it'd be so much easier for her and that she'd enjoy it more. I wanted her to bask in her Grandpa's love, and she did. 

Marilyn came up with the design of her new pumpkin all on her own. I helped her print the words she wanted on it and trace the hearts for her to color in but she told me what she wanted to say and exactly how she wanted the letters to look. She got grandpa's message loud and clear:


And this is what my kids will remember of their Grandpa Parker.

White Cane Day

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We had a fantastic opportunity this past month to celebrate "White Cane Day."

Here we are meeting Blessing. Marilyn LOVES Kelly Clarkson but after spending two days with Blessing she said he just might be her favorite now.

Every month or so Marilyn gets to attend a "Short Term Program", basically an overnighter with visually impaired kids from around the state where they do fun things to increase their mobility, practice other important skills, and have a lot of fun. In October the Short Term was focused around a National holiday I had never heard of before, but love now, called White Cane Day. 

Marilyn uses a long, white cane to help her travel. She has a special "Orientation and Mobility" or O&M instructor at school that comes once a week to help her learn how to use it. This cane is a God sent blessing. It helps Marilyn navigate the world independently and being independent is a huge part of person's self esteem. I can't say how much I love that she gets to use a cane. At first Marilyn hated using it but now she doesn't go anywhere outside of home, school, church, or her Grandparent's houses without it. She feels like something is missing when she doesn't have it and that's perfect because her cane acts as her eyes everywhere she goes. 

White Cane Day celebrates that independence. Marilyn is going to grow up and be able to travel anywhere she wants with her trusty cane. She'll confidently be able to navigate the daily places she'll need to travel to like go to the grocery store or Dr.'s office because of her skill with it and will even be able to travel the world.

For this special Short Term Program Blessing Offor, a musican featured on The Voice who also happens to be blind, came and spent two days with them. He mentored them, inspired them, worked with them and helped to show them that they were capable of following any dream they had. The Short Term culminated in a concert put on for all their parents and the rest of the community where Blessing and the children performed an original song they had written together, the kids spoke, played the piano on their own, and then Blessing told the incredibly beautiful story of his life and sang and played us some songs. He encouraged the kids and the parents to never go easy on themselves because of their disability, to never stop working hard just because it is hard. It was especially poignant for Marilyn because he is a singer songwriter who plays the piano beautifully and that is one of the things she wants to do. 

Blessing was incredibly candid and personal with each child and made them all feel special. At the end of the night Marilyn worked up enough courage to talk to him and sing to him one of the songs she had written. He loved it and encouraged her to write music for it on the piano "by the next time he saw her."

Marilyn and her good friend Lexi saying their part for the program.

Max, and especially Noah, fell in love with the guide dog puppies.

Random Fall Funness

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It's always great to see the First Graders bust out of the school doors at the end of the day after they've done learned something particularly fun. Columbus Day was one of those. They were all sporting their Christopher Columbus hats and Max ran to show me how proud he was of the essay he had copied.

I'm back to having my "niecephews" Andrew and Kim come over Fridays after school so Linda can finish up her work at school. It's always so great to spend extra time with them. Andrew stays busy playing with Noah, Max and all the neighborhood boys and Kim has been keeping herself busy practicing her baking skills in my kitchen. It's awesome: I give her baking ingredients and she gives me treats. What a deal.

Our church's General Conference was one weekend and as one of our new favorite family traditions we spent it together listening while we put together puzzles. We get out smaller puzzles for the kids and then Chris and I spend the weekend working on a 750 to 1000 piece puzzle. This year's was extra fun for me because it was a picture of Disney's Sleeping Beauty - one of my favorite movies. All of our puzzles each conference have had a castle in them so far. The previous ones were German castles we saw on our trip there with Chris' parents.
 

Max is really good at puzzles. He finished the new 100 piece Star Wars puzzle we bought him to work on that weekend and then he helped us with ours. Noah mainly just likes to hang around and relax and Marilyn worked on her own craft at the table next to us. It was a wonderful, soul nurturing weekend.

Marilyn loves to read herself to sleep after we have family scripture study and prayer. She's been choosing to read a lot more often on her Braillenote, which is what she is holding in this picture. It has a lot of the same functions a laptop does only it is for Braille users. Her fingers feel a display at the front that pops up a line of Braille for her to read. When she is done reading the line she pushes a button, the display reconfigures and a new line of Braille pops up. She can download just about any book she wants to read in a Braille format onto a SD card which is then inserted into the SD card slot on the Braillenote. I love this capability because not a lot of books are available in Braille in paper format but this way she can read anything and everything she could ever want to and she is turning into quite a bookworm. I love it.

The Braillenote also has the capability of searching the web, just like a regular computer, and she can type (using Braille) on it, save it, email it, or print it out for her teacher or anyone else to read and that person will read it in standard print.  The teacher can even make comments on her assignment and email it back to Marilyn to read in Braille. She will complete most of her school assignments in the future using her Braillenote. Technology is AMAZING!!!

It's been baseball playoff and football season so Daddy and Noah have had plenty of snuggles in front of the TV and times where they watch and throw the football back and forth from across the room to each other. (I try to ignore that last part is happening.)

Marilyn stays busy and happy most Fridays playing with her good buddy down the street Lilly or her BFF Janie. Here are her and Janie on the hammock in the back yard eating popcorn and listening to a book on Marilyn's school iPad. Books, whether listening to them or reading them, are one of Marilyn's favorite forms of entertainment.

We've had a lot of fun this fall with our extended family. I LOVE that my children are growing up as friends with their cousins. We all got together at Grandma and Grandpa Parker's house for dinner one weekend. Somehow about 30 flies (not kidding) got in and so we turned it into a game and tried to see how many flies we could swat off their vaulted ceiling. It was actually really silly and fun. Makayla, my oldest niece, and Marilyn made a cute braid of their hair together. I sure love them.

Max has discovered a love for writing Daddy and me notes and leaving them somewhere "secret" for us to discover. I thought this one was especially cute. It says, "To Mom from Max. Do you love me? Yes No," so of course I circled yes and gave it back to him. 

Marilyn's Fall Duet Piano Recital

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Miss Judy, Marilyn, and Miss Rudd

See that look on Marilyn's face? That's what comes when you practice for countless hours for 5 months straight on a piano piece and then play it fantastically at your recital. Self esteem is built by hard work.

For Marilyn's fall piano recital she was assigned a really challenging duet with a partner her age. She's played duets at recitals before but always with her teacher. She, and her partner, learned so much as they prepared for this night and as I watched them learn I grew too.

They played two of the three movements of Sonatina for Two and in total it was 5 minutes long. Holy cow that is long for a student who has only been playing for just over 2 years! This piece had lots of times where she had to very quickly switch her hand positions, and at one point, she even got up and switched positions with her partner on the bench. This is tricky for any student but Marilyn plays all by touch and switching hand positions is even more difficult for her. 

Another complication in practicing with a student her age was that her partner played by reading music and Marilyn played by memorization and knowing the theory. Her teacher helps her memorize a piece by telling her that an "inverted fifth" of such and such cord comes next. When the two students got together to practice one would say, "let's start on the 3rd line on the 2nd page," and the other would say, "lets's play where it does this," and there was a lot of confusion. They had to really, really work as a team to figure it out and by the end they did. I was so incredibly proud of them both.

The day of the recital I was nervous all day long. They had worked so hard but in their practice sessions it was rare to hear them play the whole piece all the way through without it falling apart somewhere in the middle. I thought there might be a good chance that the recital might happen in that way and I was worried that Marilyn would be ashamed or disappointed. In true Marilyn style though they played beautifully. My heart beat along with the running rhythm of their song and my eyes filled with tears. I was so incredibly proud of my sweet daughter. I was proud of how hard she had worked, how she never once gave up. Proud of all those hours that I heard her in the other room working to figure it out and then hearing her squeal when she did. Proud of how she had worked so patiently with her partner even though there were times when it was extremely hard for them to communicate their different needs to each other.

My daughter is a beautiful delight.

The night was even more special because Grandpa and Grandma Parker, Grandma Buckholts, Miss Judy (a former beloved Braille teacher of hers), and Miss Rudd (one of her current Braille teachers) all came to hear her perform. Afterwards we celebrated her hard work and success by going out for ice cream like my family did after piano recitals when I was growing up.

Aunt Linda, a.k.a. "Mrs. Witkamp" during the school hours because she is Marilyn's 4th grade teacher at our local elementary school, called later that night and asked if Marilyn might like to perform her duet with the help of her piano teacher in front of her whole class the next day. For their reading theme that week they were talking about overcoming obstacles by hard work and she thought telling them about how Marilyn had practiced for 5 months and then having her play would be a great demonstration of this. Marilyn said she felt alright about doing it and her wonderful piano teacher agreed to meet us at the school so the next day I got to be proud of my daughter again. The kids in her class are learning that Marilyn can do a whole ton of things that they didn't think a person with a "disability" could do. I watched their faces as she played this really complicated song and some of their mouths literally dropped open in surprise. I told Marilyn about it afterwards and we both giggled.

Watch out world! Marilyn is working hard and prepared to amaze!