Praying

"What's wrong, Mommy?"

"Oh, nothing honey. Mommy is just a jumble of emotions right now."

"But I can make you feel better."

"Oh, yeah? How?"

"I give you a hug and you put up your eyebrows and then you will feel better!"


Yeah, life is a jumble of emotions right now, and these days my heart doesn't know if it should beat right out of my chest, jump in my throat, or swell to gigantic proportions. Case in point: I sat on the shores of Lake Superior this past week with the sun blazing down, the wind whipping my hair, watching my daughter and my brother's two children play in the shallows of that chilly lake's waters. My niece, Anya, is the picture of wild purity, a child who experiences everything to the utmost and lives her life with a zest that will make people flock to her as she matures because she radiates such a beauty of spirit. My nephew, Gideon, is the happy, easy-going one, always ready to bring a laugh or a smile to your face and so darn adorable I swear he could be the poster child for any kid product ever made. And then there is my Isabelle, splashing in the water, still trying to decide if she really is okay with being that sandy and disheveled but industriously filling her bucket with sand and compacting it with water anyway. All of them are the picture of innocence and of what is beautiful and right and wonderful in this world and in that moment sitting in my chair with my mother and my brother and sister-in-law, my heart could not possibly get any bigger with love.

Yet, in that same moment at the opposite end of the spectrum my grandmother lay ill in a hospital and we were waiting for word. Days later there have been a lot of words, little improvement and more questions. I am told to pray, but my heart asks what should I pray for? Ultimately, I pray for God to help my grandmother ...... in whatever form that takes so long as it removes any fear, suffering or pain from the equation. Selfishly, I would keep her with me always, but I don't "man the controls" on this ride, so it is not for me to decide and perhaps that is as it should be. For me, sometimes life feels to big to handle. Like I have more emotion then I know what to do with and this week has been like that. Everything is such a muddled mess within my head that it is hard to form an articulate thought. It is at times like this when I like to believe there is a "greater power" at work, somehow guiding me through. Call it naive, if you will, I don't mind.

But through my jumble of emotions I still see how life comes full circle (as well as throwing you a couple of curve balls) so I will choose to think about my grandmother's great grandchildren (her legacy) frolicking on the shores of Lake Superior, and I will swallow the lump that continues to climb into my throat, and I will listen to my heart thump away in my chest, and I will hope for a better tomorrow.

All things Isabelle

Last Friday Clay and I took our daughter to Green Bay for a surprise. She has been obsessed with Thomas the Train for the past two years, so when the "Day out with Thomas" program came to the National Railroad Museum, I knew we had to take her. It was toddler insanity! Picture about a gazillion 2-5 year olds trailing around with their parents, strollers, cameras, and Thomas t-shirts, waiting for their chance to meet Thomas. Isabelle got to go on a twenty-five minute train ride with Thomas at the head of the train. We paused for photo ops with a giant Lego Thomas, jumped inside a castle trampoline for an eternity, saw Sir Topham Hatt himself (you would have to know the Thomas the Train books to have any clue who he is) and toured the railroad museum, climbing in and out of a number of engines, passenger cars and the largest train I have ever seen, named "Big Boy." Isabelle also entertained a roomful of people with an impromptu dance on a stage to music piped through the speakers in between the children's band that was actually performing. In the days since our trip she has talked continually about her ride on Thomas, and wants to wear her new "I spent the day with Thomas t-shirt" everyday. Overall, I think it is safe to say she loved her surprise, and it was a great way to finish up celebrating her birthday.

Her birthday party the Sunday before our trip to see Thomas was also very much enjoyed. She loved her presents (I have been chasing her on her new bike everyday) but mostly she loved playing with her cousins. It is hard to believe she is now three years old and truly no longer a baby, but instead a little girl. The time has flown, but I find this age a lot of fun, although exhausting! It is an amazing experience to watch the tiny being you created develop into a little soul with her own personality, sense of humor, and crazy quirks. I see glimpses now of the woman she will one day become, and I mentally tell myself to log these moments away in a safe place as they are going to be the memories I cherish most. I am so thankful for the time I have with Isabelle. Yes, it is hard sometimes (to the point where I swear I am going to need a padded cell, or at the very least several stiff drinks), but she fills my heart in a way that nothing else in this world ever has. So, looking back on the last week, I am just feeling fortunate .... fortunate for the time I can spend, the family I have, and the fact that we can give Isabelle the kind of safe and happy childhood that every child should be blessed with.

Lord Stanley, at Last!

It seemed somewhat anti-climactic after the insanity that was the fifth game, but the Red Wings are bringing home the cup once more, and I, for one, could not be happier. Playing in their 104th game of the season they clinched their 11th NHL championship and 4th in the last 11 seasons. They did it this year by closing out every playoff series on the road, by battling through doubt, questionable calls, trash-talking coaches, and always believing in one another. It is the epitome of why I love team sports, and especially hockey.

How beautiful to see such a deserving guy like Nick Lidstrom, hoist the cup as team captain, and it was fantastic to witness Dallas Drake, NMU alum, after 16 seasons and at age 39 win his first NHL championship with the same team he began his career with. By far though my favorite moment of the night was watching Dan Cleary, cool and collected, be interviewed by the Canadian announcer. Moments later he located his wife and baby daughter in the crowd and dissolved into a puddle of tears and emotion. After fighting back from a horrifically broken jaw, Cleary will now bring the Stanley Cup home to Newfoundland for the first time ever.

So, now I can breathe once again and my continual talk of playoffs, and Cups and Red Wings will perhaps not be so prevalent on my blog (well, once the victory parade is over on Friday, and of course, there is always next season!) For now, I will sit quietly and smile, perusing all of the interviews, articles, videos, and photos I can find on the Internet, secure in the knowledge that the best team won. Go Red Wings!

Why God, Why?

I should have known it was not going to be our night. The second Kronwall accidentally cleared the puck into our own net, I should have known that our hockey luck was absent yesterday. It was apparent that Fleury was standing on his head and stopping everything, but when we battled back and tied it and then took the lead, I thought surely the hockey gods would favor us now. I felt like someone had just told me my dog died when the Penguins somehow scored with 30-some seconds left in regulation. How could this be? Yet, I still held out hope, watching the Wings out skate, out shoot, out play the Penguins through two and a half overtimes, despite two very questionable interference calls, and even when the death knell was delivered by awarding a four minute penalty to an accidental high stick that yes, drew blood, but only because the player already had a previous cut in the same place. It was like a perfect storm created for the sole purpose of denying the Red Wings what should be rightfully theirs.

We deserve this Cup. We are the superior team in every sense of the word. We have behaved the right way, worked hard, continued to be a classy hockey team regardless of the fact that the Penguins have whined, complained, and delivered cheap shots to get where they are. We are a true team, with everyone contributing and not just one or two players carrying the load. I will tip my hat to Fleury who single-handedly kept his team in the playoffs last night, but frankly I find it hard to give credit to the rest of their team as it is more a matter of us beating ourselves then the Penguins actually beating us. I would challenge anyone to watch Game 3 and and Game 5 over and tell me otherwise.

Now, I am left feeling somewhat heart sick. I still firmly believe that if we play how we are capable we will prevail, but I have seen the better team not win the Cup before, and it feels as if the fates are conspiring against us. On to Game Six.

My Boys, My Daughter's Bum, and My Brain

I am a pretty happy girl today for a variety of reasons. My Red Wings are doing fabulous, my daughter decided to up and potty train out of the blue, and my MRI came back informing me that I have no brain tumor, nasty growth, or any other offensive object somehow contributing to my headaches (no surprise there though).

So, to elaborate:

***The Red Wings have thus far made the Penguins look like the inexperienced, over-rated team I have believed them to be. Now do not misunderstand me. I think they are a very good team with some absolutely talented players, who still could easily make a series of this Stanley Cup final. However, it does show that my assessment was correct. The Penguins have not faced a team like the Red Wings thus far in their playoffs, and now find themselves facing a rude awakening. Perhaps they were believing too much of their own press? How quickly the media backtracks now and jumps on the Red Wings band wagon. Once more I say to hold on. Yes, we have won two games. In fact, we have two shut outs. Right now it looks like nothing short of a freight train could slow the Wings down, but this is hockey, and I for one will not be counting my chickens before they have hatched and Lord Stanley is being hoisted above Nick Lidstrom's head. I have seen crazy things happen too many times, and we will be going to their arena for the next two games. At the same time the Wings are the better team, and barring any more ridiculous calls (Holmstrom's supposed interference negating Lidstrom's goal in Game 1) I believe we will prevail.

And what was up with Roberts, flat out punching Franzen in the head during the third period?! For those of you paying attention Whitney went on to also knock Franzen in the skull just a few minutes later. When the one player who is coming back from concussion like symptoms is nailed twice within the span of eight minutes, I find it hard to believe he wasn't being targeted. Franzen, for his part is more forgiving than I, saying they were just trying to get their team fired up and when questioned about being hit in the head only replied that well, he does have a big one, implying it is an easy target. I am not so sure.

And, of course, now the whining begins that the Detroit defense is obstructing and Osgood embellished his fall into the net. Funny, how no Penguin was complaining when Holmstrom's love tap on Fleury's pads negated a Red Wing's goal, but now when it is on them it is suddenly not fair. Can we say sour grapes?

On to Game Three!


*** Isabelle woke up last Tuesday and decided from that moment on that she was going to use the potty, and has been accident free ever since. It is simply amazing how she just suddenly began doing what I have been wanting her to do for months. I am so glad, I listened to all those wise mothers out there who told me to just wait and she would decide to on her own with no endless fighting on my side. YES!! My little baby is quickly joining the world of ladies wearing "big girl panties" and I am thrilled and proud. Who knew that pooping and peeing in a potty could leave one so fulfilled?


*** Yes, the MRI did nothing more then confirm what we already knew. I get a lot of headaches. Bad ones. So, bad, in fact, that one can see the evidence of them scarred on my brain. Or as my doctor put it "a small defect in the white brain matter, which is seen in people with untreated high blood pressure, diabetes, or chronic severe headaches." Using the word "defect" in conjunction with describing my brain is not something I enjoy, although I am sure my brother will get a good laugh out of that one. Regardless, I am back to playing the waiting game to see if my current meds have the desired effect, but I must give them ample time to build up in my system before deciding if they do or do not help manage my headaches. I can say today they are not working as my head is feeling more like something that was mixed in a blender. On that note, I will sign off and ease the pain in my head with thoughts of my Red Wings and my potty-trained daughter.

The Holy Grail

Yes, the Red Wings are in, but they still get no respect. I just finished reading an article on ESPN. com that picks the Penguins to win in the seven game series. On and on about how glorious the Pittsburgh forwards are and how great Fleury has been between the pipes. And while they were at it why not just anoint Crosby as the second coming? Ugh, I so hate all the so-called experts.

So, let me just throw in a little food for thought. I have no doubt that this will be a tough series between two highly skilled hockey teams, arguably the most skilled teams in the NHL. I have no doubt that the Penguins are, indeed, worthy of the praise they have received having essentially coasted through the previous rounds of the playoffs. However, anyone who follows hockey a little bit would tell you the Western conference is much tougher to play in. And while Fleury may be a great goalie, Osgood has proven he can hold his own, plus he has Stanley cup finals experience under his belt. Not to mention I do not believe Fleury has been tested with the likes of Datsuk and Zetterberg thus far in the teams he has encountered, nor had someone get under his skin like Holmstrom. Malkin and Crosby will certainly be a tough duo, but I truly believe our defense with Lidstrom, Rafalski, and Kronwall have the capability of doing the job.

At the very least the Red Wings deserve praise and respect for the fact that year after year they put together a great team and are always contenders. The organization has been to the Stanley Cup finals 23 times, which is the second most in the NHL, behind Montreal. Furthermore, they carry the burden of being "the team to beat" into every series they go into, (with class and dignity, I might add) and if they so much as hiccup and lose a game everyone starts screaming about how they are choking and are not a great team after all. Now all the chatter will be about the youth of the Penguins and the experience of the Wings. Well, fine. Our road to the cup this year has shown us to be a team that when we stumble, can come back even harder, even when our number one scoring man, Franzen, is not playing. So, enough with all the predictions; drop the damn puck and then we will see.

MRI Insanity

So, I had my very first MRI yesterday. Quite the experience. Being a person who likes to be informed I had popped myself on-line and read about MRI's and of course, queried everyone I knew who had gone through one. Everyone said the same thing: loud and small. (They were not kidding.)


First of all, I had to do the complete strip and throw on a hospital gown (two actually, I wore one as a robe for warmth and some added coverage in the posterior) because any kind of metal is BAD in an MRI for obvious reasons. Anyway, there I was swimming in two gowns (both like triple x-large and capable of covering a small humpback whale) sitting on this narrow "bed" and getting ready to slide into what looked to me to be a very tiny tunnel. First, the ear plugs wouldn't fit. Turns out I have tiny ear canals and most ear plugs just pop right back out when you try and stuff them in my ears. So, the nurse and I crammed them in the best we could and then she had me lay down in order to put this "helmet" on my head. I had a brief flash to Hannibal Lector in "Silence of the Lambs" when he is strapped to that board wearing what looked like an old style goalie mask. It wasn't that bad, really, as it only covered the top half of my head and there were large eye holes, but I was quickly feeling, shall we say .... contained. The nurse then wedged in a whole bunch of padding between my head and the helmet in order to muffle the sound and keep my head still. At that point I could not have moved my head if I wanted to. Handing me a squeeze ball with a cord attached she instructed me to press it if I needed to stop the test and told me to relax.


Now I should mention I am a little bit leery of tight spaces. I am not a huge fan of elevators (although I think that might have more to do with the movement and less the small space) nor do I like to be in a crowd. I would not have described myself as bad as claustrophobic because it isn't like I panic (Well, except that time at Shamrock bar in college when there were so many people it was like we were a herd of cattle in a corral and I felt my heart start racing and it was as if I was going to scream, cry, or freak out, if I did not get out of there immediately. Yeah, it was a panic attack but that's another story). So, hell, maybe I am claustrophobic, but as I did not wish to be sedated I figured I would just suck it up and handle it. Yikes. Turns out the tube was even smaller on the inside than it looked on the outside. I closed my eyes before I even felt the bed move into the tunnel, but all the same I could sense the closeness of it, the walls pressing down around me, and I felt my heart rate jump up and my hands start to shake.


Then the sound began, and I can only describe it as laying inside a metal drum while someone runs a jackhammer against it on the outside. Yes, it was that loud, and even knowing it was going to be loud I was still startled. The panic was crawling up my throat, and for a moment I thought there was no way I could do this test. Somehow, I managed to get a grip on myself and concentrated on taking some slow breaths. The sounds continued and changed varying like something in a kid's cartoon with strange twangs, beeps, pulses, thumps, and whistles, and soon I found myself trying to anticipate what I might hear next. It was a continual effort to keep a handle on my emotions and not let my fear creep in, and it dawned on me that an MRI might not be a bad torture device for any terrorists we capture. I mean lets review: not allowed to move, crammed in a tiny claustrophobic space, incredible noise..... for me, if you just piped in Rod Stewart singing "If You think I'm Sexy," I would be in the seventh circle of Hell.

Twenty minutes through the nurse pulled me out, and I had a few minutes to open my eyes while she gave me an injection of contrast dye, which was no big deal other then that it was cold and I could actually sense it in my vein moving up my arm. Later, I swear, I could feel it in my brain, like cool fingers. It sounds like something out of a horror flick, but truly, while weird it was not an unpleasant sensation. Six more minutes in the tube, and I was done, feeling like a dog let off it's leash for the first time.

Now I have only to await the results, although I doubt anything of significance will be found. I have joked with my mother for years that I know my headaches are not caused by something scary like a brain tumor because I would have been dead ages and ages ago. (Is that my Monty Python "Tis merely a flesh wound" mentality coming through again, Chrissy?)


Red Wings update: Do not get me started on the disgusting job of officiating during game 4 or the almost blatant appearance of slanting a game enormously in one team's favor in order to force a game five. Yes, the Wings did not play perfectly, but then again typically a team only has ONE opponent in a hockey game, not two. Actually, though it will work out fine as it is hard to play with a continual level of intensity when you are always kicking the other team's A**, and it will serve to help the Wings refocus their energies. Plus, we will not have the pressure of carrying on a long winning streak going into the final series. Besides, I see Pittsburgh was not any better at finishing off their round against Philly and they did not have to play against the refs too.