Hello and early Seasons Greetings or late change of address or late birth announcement . . .

1997 has been a year of many changes for our family and while we intended to send out change of address and birth announcements, suddenly it’s three months later and close enough to Christmas — thus the triple combination.

Mick would say “I had it first” so we’ll update you on him first. He has developed an incredible vocabulary and will talk and create stories, change words to songs, etc. He is presently sitting beside me doing his homework – and getting ready for school “when I get a little bigger”.   We took a brief vacation at West Edmonton Mall in February and Mick had an absolute blast. He still talks about betting splashed by the dolphins, going inside a big fish and his favourite mascot Cosmo (a green alien). It’s taken a while to teach him that not all malls and hotels are like WEM, or that we just can’t go there in an afternoon. At Easter we met with Deb’s brother Al, his wife Joan and their grandson Benny at Deb’s Mom & Dads. Benny is six months younger than Mick and they had a great time playing –or at least Mick did…Benny had a ride-on truck and throughout the weekend Mick kept trading Benny other toys in order to ride on the truck. Once they were both in the kitchen and Mick had nothing to trade so he marched around the kitchen saying “I am walking on the road, Benny is riding, Benny do you want to walk?” Talk about learning the art of manipulation at a young age. When the two got together again this summer Mick remembered that Ben was the little boy whose truck he stole and Ben guarded his toys carefully.

Summer was tough for Mick with lots of disruptions. Moving meant not only the loss of his house but also of his babysitter Lisa and her family. We were very busy with packing, moving, and going to Calgary for prenatal appointments. For over two months, we travelled somewhere every week. Then Keelan was born and he had to learn to share his mom and dad with a new baby brother. However, as seems to be his nature, he adapted quite well the only small hitch was that he became “Little Foot” – the dinosaur somewhere in the process and for a period of time refused to respond to any other name. When pressed he would tell you that Little Foot lived in the new house and Mick lived in Creston. He seems to have melded back into one person now but it took until mid-October.

Following the dinosaur theme, this fall we stopped by the Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. Mick wanted to ride a dinosaur so we explained before getting there that the museum just had bones and skeletons of dinosaurs. He had a great time and identified some of the more well known ones such as Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rex and his favourite, Pteranodon. As we drove into Calgary later that day we went past a building with air planes outside. Mick asked why they were there, if they were broken I explained that it was a museum to which he replied “are there skeletons of air planes inside?”.

Keelan Mackenzie is Mick’s new brother. Deb fared much better throughout this pregnancy and made it until week 39 before they induced her. This was a good thing as they moved during week 38 and Pat kept expecting that he’d have to make the move alone. On July 24th Deb went in for her checkup and agreed with Dr. Delaronde that they should induce later that day. Deb was admitted after going back to her folks to tell Mickey what was going on and to call and update Pat as he was still in Cranbrook. Once back in the hospital, things seemed to move at a snail’s pace, finally around 5pm, the resident came in to get things set up to induce labour. He read through Deb’s records to check to see if they were accurate. As he read along he says  “I see you had an amnio and you know that the baby is healthy” Deb replies yes, he says “and you know it’s a boy?” Deb says “No”, so 12 hours before birth the resident ruined the surprise. He’ll never make that mistake again. Oh well, it gave us time to decide on a name. We had been so sure it was a girl that we hadn’t decided on any boys names. So at the last minute, Deb changed our girl’s choice from Keeley Mackenzie to Keelan Mackenzie, so that Pat could still have his Mick and Mack combination. At 10:30 pm Dr. Delaronde broke my water, as the labour was not progressing very quickly. By 1 am I was completely dilated but Keelan was not fully down the birth canal and so we waited till around 3 am to begin pushing. Part way through Keelan went into fetal distress and although his heart rate did not drop as far as Mickey’s did, it was enough to prompt Dr. Delaronde to use forceps to help him out. Keelan was born at 4:56 with both hands hanging on tight to the umbilical cord (thus the fetal distress). However, he was healthy and happy and within two hours we were both in a normal hospital room and back to Mom and Dad’s a day later.

Keelan is a very active baby, holding his head up right from birth – Deb fears that he will be creeping by Christmas and walking before summer. He definitely knows all of his family members and is very social. He will fuss for no reason other than nobody is paying attention to him. He has a lovely smile and is beginning to make baby sounds in response to attention. He loves Mickey (or so Mick says) and Mickey has adjusted well to learning to share time and now toys.

Last but not least, here is the adult news. Pat began a new job on March 1. He had no indication that his job with the new ministry would continue and so competed for and got the job as director for the East Kootenay Child Care Society. He is responsible for 5 Daycare programs, Child Care, Family enhancement, Family Counselling, & Women’s Counselling both in Cranbrook and Kimberly. There have been lots of crises, bumps and hurdles but through it all he seems to be creating an atmosphere of camaraderie and accountability. He deals with the Ministry of Children and Families for some of his contracts and it continues to be in a state of absolute confusion. Deb at least is happy that he’s not there, – EKCCS is not easy but at least Pat has some control & input.

Our summer began with an adventure in moving…while we decided not to go with U-Haul we did have an adventure. In mid June we finally got an offer on our house – with one month notice to move out. We had not been looking at all in Cranbrook and although Deb had packed a few things, there was much work to do. Remember all the time we spent at the auctions…well we sure bought a lot of stuff which now had to be sorted, boxed and moved…to where we did not know. We spent one day looking and put an offer in on a house by a lake just out of town. We did not get it and so a week later we started all over again, the problem was that there was so much on the market we only got more confused and we needed a house to move into in five weeks. We eventually settled on a house in town with a spectacular view out the dining room window and lots of space for the kids. We spent all our spare time and some we didn’t have during the next three weeks packing, taping and packing and taping some more.

The same day as the offer on the house, we got a letter stating that we had to tear down an addition that we had been building to our trailer at Moyie. Deb went in and tried to negotiate with the building inspector to keep parts of it but lost. Finally, using her impending move and obvious pregnancy, she got a bit of relief in extending the deadline for demolition from July 15th to August 15th.

Just in case you think we were beginning to get a handle on all this, add to the stress a trip to Edmonton July 14 & 15th to review an old child welfare case from 1982 that was coming back to court. Trying to remember details of a 15 year old case was very difficult especially since nearly all of Pat’s notes were missing. After providing as much information as we could, we were able to leave by noon on the 15th Deb stopped in Calgary for the night while Pat drove back to Creston to meet the movers at 7 am on the 16th. He grabbed 4 or 5 friends and together with the movers had two large trucks, a half ton, a trailer and a couple other vehicles packed up and on the road by noon. Deb meanwhile (8 1/2 months pregnant) grabbed her sister Gail (who was about to move to Airdrie from Quebec) and drove quickly to Cranbrook to meet the movers on this end. By 6 pm everything was in the house on a move that had been estimated to take two days. Now the fun of unpacking would begin. Gail, Deb and Mick went out for a late dinner and by the time we returned Pat had beds set up. This was a good thing as Mick had got up early, had not had a nap and dodged movers all afternoon so fell asleep during the 5 minute drive home and could not be woken up. Gail unpacked and set up most of the kitchen and Deb’s other essentials. Deb stuck to supervision and unwrapping due to her size and concerns about stress. Thank goodness for Gail’s help otherwise Deb surely would have gone insane (or more so some would say). By the night of the 20th Deb was back in Calgary “just in case” and Pat returned to work and settling the house at night.

Gail then orchestrated her own move to Airdrie on July 25th. Her son Devon arrived from Quebec on the 30th. Arlene, Ross, Cam and Harley moved to Okotoks on August 1st. Once again the Reed family is all out west. It will be great for the cousins to grow up close enough to really know each other.

Sadly we also suffered a great loss this summer. Deb’s Dad died on August 27th. He had been diagnosed in the spring with narrowing of some of his arteries. He had undergone three angioplasties with minimal success. On August 16 he suffered a heart attack while visiting with close friends in Cypress Hills. He was transferred to Foothills in Calgary and seemed to be recovering well. However after about a week he went rapidly downhill and a triple bypass was scheduled. He went through surgery but at that time they assessed that major damage had been done to the heart and two days later he passed away. Deb is very thankful that he did not suffer and that he did not hang on and have to live a limited life. It is also a blessing that he lived to see his family move back closer and have some time with Arlene and Gail as well as seeing Keelan born. It was almost as if he waited until we were all settled so that we would be able to take care of Mom and each other during the loss. Deb misses him a lot and just the other day almost called to ask if he was cheering for Saskatchewan or Calgary in the CFL western semifinal.

Deb and Mick have joined parent and tot “Power Skate” and began today. Mickey is very excited and seems to be getting his balance reasonably well. Keelan cooperated by falling asleep in his carseat at the edge of the ice. Good thing cuz Mom can’t skate well enough to put him in a snugli. Next week we start “It’s a Small World”, arts and crafts program – and we will have to see what this will bring. Deb is still considering returning to work in Creston in January. The tentative plan at this point will be that she and the boys will travel over Monday afternoon and stay at Mom’s place. The boys will be looked after by Lisa during the time that Deb is working (Tuesday, Wednesday), and they will return home Wednesday night or Thursday, depending on the roads. Although this may not make the most economic sense, it does provide other benefits – the boys will get to visit with grandma weekly, they will have the benefit of Lisa and family during the day, and Deb will be able to work with people she knows. The plan at this point will be that she will continue this until next fall and then reevaluate.

On the home front, our house is finally starting to feel a little bit more like a home. Although there are still a few boxes around, it is basically set up and livable. The house will suit our need for the next number of years, but will never have the same feeling or attachment to it as we did with Spirit Ridge. We still have our property at Moyie, and are going to see if using that during the summer, makes for a good balance.

Well that’s all the news for now. Hope this letter finds you well. Take care and stay healthy.

 

Wishing you a wondrous Christmas and happiness throughout the New Year . . . Deb, Pat, Mick and Keelan