In Her Element

Part of our time lately has been spent at gymnastics.  I have been counting the days until I thought we could work in gymnastics for Callie.  I was so excited when we moved back here to learn that Mrs. Linda was still teaching gymnastics at the Springfield YMCA.  Linda has been teaching gymnastics for 31 years!  I don’t know how many of those years has been at the Y but she has been there at least since the first time we lived here in 2003.  Kellen and Garrett both took from her the other times we lived here and I even worked there!  When we lived here in 2005-2006 I helped with the homeschool and gymnastics programs at the Y and loved working with Linda.  Linda has three boys so we hit it off and always had a good time visiting.

So, when fall came around I signed Callie up for the mommy and me class.  It is so fun and she is totally in her element!  Believe it or not she is my only climber and jumper.  She has been a flipper since she was in my tummy.  They told me when I was pregnant that they would have to watch her up to the last minute because every time we went to the hear the heartbeat she had flipped to a different place!  Luckily she flipped to the right place when it came time!

    As you can see by the big smile on her face she is loving it.  And, she is doing a great job!  I can’t tell you how excited this makes me :).  Finally a sport that I can relate to!  You can see Mrs. Linda in the background of the last picture.  She had already started her next class so I didn’t want to bug her to get a picture with Callie.  We love Mrs. Linda!

Sorry

Sorry to leave you hanging with such a fabulous blog about potty training.  Lucky for you Callie was the only person left in our house not potty trained, so you don’t have to worry about any more of those!

Unfortunately when we have so many interesting things going on, I don’t have much time to blog!  I will try in the next few days to put some pics up just to show some snippets of things going on.

Part of my lull was not a good thing.  On September 20, my Aunt Patti passed away.  She had been battling cancer for about 18-months.  Let’s just say that kind of took the wind out of my sails.  As you well know, when something like this happens you realize that most everything you spend your time doing does not really matter.  When someone that is only 59 passes away, you realize that the things you do with your time better matter. There is not time in 59 short years to waste.

Even though she had cancer, I just always thought she would get better.  She was better for a time.  She was at the family Christmas party last year like nothing had happened.  Then the cancer came back and there was nothing more to be done.

I spent a lot of time at her and  Uncle Jerry’s house when I was in junior high and high school since I babysat my cousins.  My cousin Chad was more my brothers age so it was more like going over and playing with a brother!  Luckily I had a lot of experience with this!  Then they adopted my cousin Lori.  I babysat her practically from the time she came home.  Needless to say I was in my element!  Especially since Patti loved to dress her up, and mostly in pink!    I babysat Lori for years.  Even after Todd and I got married, Lori would stay with us during the OU/Texas weekend so they Jerry and Patti could go to Texas for the game.

Patti referred me to her friends to babysit for.  Thanks to Patti, I had lunch money in high school!  I don’t think Patti ever knew how much all this meant to me.  Not only did I enjoy the jobs, but it meant something to me that they trusted me with their kids.  That she trusted me with her kids and trusted me enough to refer me to people.  I was so shy, I would have never gotten out on my own to get these jobs, and for me this was so much better than any other job that Shawnee, Oklahoma had to offer!

I don’t really know why I say all of this.  I guess just to remind myself that you never really know how you are influencing someone.  You never know what is going to impact a person.  It seems like such a simple thing, but it really had an impact on me.  What could be better to a young person than to know that you trust them?  I’m sure she was just glad to have a babysitter!  We were all at the right place at the right time for this to work out.  I wish I was better at telling people what they mean to me when there is still time.  That is not something I am good at, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.  At this point in my life, with as many places as we have lived and as many people as we have come in contact with, it would take years to go back and tell people all the little things that have impacted me. Really, it is more than being at the right place at the right time.  People in and out of my life are all just pieces of the puzzle that God has designed for my life, to make me the person that I am now and the person that I am going to be.   Little did I know it was a gazillion piece puzzle!  Really, God, 500 pieces, 1000 maybe would have been plenty!

So, Patti, thank you.  I will try to be there for your family the way you trusted me to be there for them years ago, even if it is just lifting them up in prayer every day.  Thank you for making me feel important at I time when I didn’t feel all that with it!  I hope I can do that for someone else someday.