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Oma Sue's Blog

Hi – I’m Sue Reyzlik. I recently realized my life-long dream of building a writing hut in the backyard. The writing hut serves as a creative space and home office for Oma Publishing. This blog will be intermingled with family history, varied experiences and insights on being a Grandma (Oma), creating my special backyard space, as well as, my “retirement” career as a self-publisher of children’s stories. And perhaps a little bit on the 32 years I served as Executive Director for Keep Fremont Beautiful and the wonderful people who are sharing this adventure.

Dance Recital Season

5/28/2019

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            Both of my daughters took dance lessons growing up – both starting in Kindergarten.  The girls were 14 years apart in age. Sara was finishing her years of dance, just as Ramie was beginning hers. For over two decades each Memorial Day weekend centered around either the low-key dance demonstrations or the more “high performance” dance recitals! The end of May was an opportunity for our dance athletes to show off their new moves and refined skills.  
            It was delightful to see the little ones in their fluffy little tutu costumes, pointing their toes, galloping in circles, watching each other for cues and finally striking their frozen final pose as the lights dimmed. You couldn’t help but smile. It always surprised me how each class performs measurably better than the last – an additional year’s worth of practice, growth and discipline.
            When Ramie was done with dancing, I felt a little sad. I missed the end of May Dance Madness. No Dance Demonstrations – No Dance Recitals – No Nothing. May was lacking.  
            Luckily for this old Grandma, both Sara and Ramie were blessed with little girls who wanted to dance – hooray! That old May Dance Madness returned!
             Rai started dancing last year when she was in Kindergarten. 2018 was a recital year so that was special! Costumes, pictures, performances – we were right back in it! This year is the 40th Anniversary of Kathy’s studio so she decided to celebrate by having a recital again this year – bonus!  
            Rai takes dance lessons at the same studio her Mom (Ramie) attended. The same studio (and teacher) that her Aunt Sara attended! This has been a family tradition in our little town of Fremont and one that I know meant a lot to both of my girls growing up.  
            Sara would have loved it if she could have had her daughter take lessons from Kathy but the dance studio in Wahoo is so much closer to their home and more convenient. Luckily Gracyn’s dance recital was in the middle of May with Rai’s scheduled for the end of May – no conflicts!
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Practicing hairstyles for the recital
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            Not so lucky, was my last-minute thought… Wouldn’t it be cute to draw a “Freddy” ballerina and make a sticker for a vase? Presenting our dancers with flowers on performance night is another lovely tradition and what better way to let them know how much I value their hard work then by commemorating the occasion with a special “Fierce Freddy”.  (I tell you, that little frog can do anything.)
            I didn’t think of the Fierce Freddy vase idea in time to get it made for Gracyn’s recital but I will get the vase done for Rai’s recital. Gracyn did get flowers on her recital day and they were lovely. However, you can be sure that Oma Sue will be delivering an additional bouquet to Gracyn to celebrate her “fierce” first year dancing achievement and this one will be in a special vase.  
            Rai attended extra rehearsals this past Memorial Day weekend as she was selected to perform in the opening number! So, this week will be filled with more rehearsals, dress rehearsals and two nights of performances. I will post another blog entry on Rai’s recital next week, complete with pictures. (I’m such an Oma)
            For now, I would like to share some pictures of sweet Gracyn Mae and a loving testimonial offered by her mother (my daughter Sara) on her Facebook page.  
 
            Goosebumps, tears, pure joy. Seeing our girl dance in her first dance recital was amazing beyond words. I grew up dancing with a studio for 13 years, taking for granted my physical ability to do so. Ms. Megan and her staff have been a blessing, teaching Gracyn and modifying her movements to perform to her best abilities and keeping her safe in the dance setting. It tickles my heart to be in the dance and recital world again, 20 some years later as a dance mommy. This was such a wonderfully choreographed recital, proud of Gracyn and all the talented girls that made this an amazing performance! Congratulations to my tiny dancer on her first (and super successful) year of dance and recital. I pray she can continue to dance her little heart out!  (Proud Mama Sara)
 
            
            ​Colby and the boys were such good sports to support their princess and little sister on her big day. The program in Wahoo was a tad long and I think they have had their fill of recitals – so it will just be Sara representing the Smith’s at Rai’s event this weekend. As Grandma Alyce always said “I love you to pieces!”           ​
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What If

5/21/2019

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It’s not just a thing for lawyers and the FBI - I write contemporaneous notes. Especially when caring for Rai - always have. I wrote these notes after a conversation I had with Rai, just over two years ago. Saying no isn’t always enough for Rai… sometimes she needs more.  Here is a sample of “more.”
What if...
            Rai often asks me “what if” questions - usually after doing something silly and repeatedly.  Today she was bent over with her hands on the floor, hopping on one foot as she tried to do a one-legged handstand with the other foot - sort of flailing that lone foot off into space and bringing it crashing down with a slap on the hard wood floor.  Hands on floor, one foot down, one foot up, hop… repeat, repeat, repeat…
              I yell downstairs as I turn on the bath water  “Come on Rai - it’s time to take a bath and get ready for bed”... hop, giggle, slap...hop giggle slap... hop, giggle, slap... and then a change in the rhythm... CLOMP, hop, giggle, slap... CLOMP, hop, giggle, slap... CLOMP, hop, giggle, slap... 
            The bath is running, the towel is laying on the vanity, the mat is on the floor... CLOMP, hop, giggle, slap...  I open the bathroom door - Rai is advancing up each step - slamming both hands on the next step, kicking one foot up and hopping on the other foot to the next step and finally bringing both feet down with a heavy CLOMP, a two footed hop, a giggle and a two handed slap on the next step... finally advancing through the hallway and into the bathroom.  
            I stand in her way, anticipating that she would next attempt a full-fledged hand stand in the tiny space between the vanity and bathtub... she hesitated,  slowly reading my mind, she looked up from her crouched position on the floor and scrunched her little brow and asked me simply “What if I did a handstand in the bathroom” I motioned her to the toilet and said “Go potty and get in the tub” She repeated “What if I did a handstand in the bathroom?” I told her not to do a handstand in the bathroom.  She asked again “What if I did do a handstand in the bathroom?”
             I sat on the edge of the tub, turned off the water, faced my granddaughter and set about to create an explanation that she so desperately craved… 
            If you did a handstand in the bathroom, you would fall over and hit your foot on the toilet.
            You would scream in pain and say “Oma, I broke my foot on the toilet”.
            I would come running into the bathroom and see you laying on the floor holding your poor foot and you would continue screaming “I broke my foot, I broke my foot, I broke my foot.”
            I would say “Oh Dear - Let me see.”  I would then take your foot in my hands and move it this way and that way and you would scream “My foot is broken!”
            I would say “It sure is red and now your foot is swelling up - looks like you broke your foot”.
            You would scream even louder and it would hurt my ears, the tears would flow down your cheeks and the snot would pour out of your nose. You would be a howling mess.
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             I would say “Be Quiet Rai, I have to call your Mom.”  You would whimper softly while I dialed the phone and then it would ring and ring and after several rings it would go to voice mail.  I would leave a message “Your dingy daughter did a handstand in the bathroom and she hit her foot on the toilet and now we think her foot is broken - please call me!”
            I would hang up the phone, turn to you and say “Let me help you up - don’t put any weight on your broken foot”  You would take my hands and you would slowly stand up, making sure not to put any weight on your broken foot.  
            I would grab a tissue so you could blow your nose and when you were done wiping away the tears and blowing your nose you would throw the used tissue on the bathroom floor and I would yell “RAI - Don’t throw your tissue on the ground!” and then you would hold onto the side of the sink and bend over to pick up the tissue with one hand and I would hold onto the other arm so you didn’t fall over on your head because your broken foot was up in the air and you were so unsteady and we didn’t need a cracked head and a broken foot. You would be glad that you didn’t have a broken head too.
            Once you threw the tissue in the trash can, I would help you hop to the stairs making sure your broken foot didn’t get hit again. You would still be crying and making a big deal about your broken foot and that you wanted your Mom and your Mom hadn’t called us back.  So, I would have you sit down on the top step and have you put your foot gently down on the second step.  Then I would go back into the bathroom and get my phone and more tissues.  
            I would sit down beside you, give you another tissue and text your Mom the details of the broken foot and to let her know that I was taking you to the hospital emergency room for x-rays.  You would start screaming again and act like you were going to pass out - I would yell at you to get a grip and then would try to pick you up but would end up straining my back because you are too heavy to lift and I should have known better than to have tried that.
            So now we are both sitting on the steps - both hurting - both crying - both blowing our noses and my phone dings the text ding a ding. Your Mom has sent a text...All caps - WHAT???  I AM ON MY WAY - WAIT FOR ME - I WILL BE RIGHT THERE!!!  Now your Mom is upset.
            We are still sitting on the steps, still hurting, when your Mom and Kyle come rushing into the house.  You had stopped crying but when you see your Mom, you begin screaming again “I broke my foot, I broke my foot”.  Your Mom starts to cry because she is so sensitive and she doesn’t like to see her little girl hurting.  So now you are crying, your Mom is crying and I try to stand up and my back is hurting and I begin crying.  
            It’s all tears, crying, snot and pain... what a mess. Kyle just smiles but he is really scared because he hates the hospital and he knows this will not end well.
            Your Mom screams at Kyle to pick you up - he does what he’s told and carries you to the car.  Your Mom comes over and helps lift me up by putting one hand under my armpit and the other hand pulling my hand up and out.  I wince in pain but am able to walk to the car.
            Kyle takes us to the hospital.  We go to the waiting room and we sit for hours because they are so busy. Your Mom gets mad because she has lots to do.  Kyle gets mad because he was going to watch Nascar and they don’t have that channel in the waiting room.  Kyle doesn’t like hospitals so he goes outside to wait until we are finished.  
            We finally see the doctor and he orders an x-ray of your foot and an x-ray for my back.  The x-ray shows that your foot is broken and they put a cast on your foot and ankle.  My muscles in my back are strained and the strained muscles moved a part of my spine out of alignment.  The doctor says they have to admit me to the hospital for a few days and put me in traction.  That means I have to lay down on a special bed and they stretch me out. The nurses put weights on my feet and a brace on my neck.  I have to lay flat for at least 36 hours so my spine gets put back in the right place. 
            You have a cast on your foot and can’t go swimming for six weeks and can’t play baseball either.  You are mad about that.  I have to make sure I don’t lift anything over 10 pounds and can’t work in the garden. I am mad about that.   
             So, that dear Rai, is what would happen if you did a handstand in the bathroom?  
          You can see the wheels turning in her little head as she processes that scenario… finally she says “OK” and gets in the tub.
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A Facebook Post

5/15/2019

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    Facebook post from the morning of May 11, 2019 – 10:59 AM.  The following, unscheduled, Grandmother event occurred 12 hours earlier on the evening of May 10th.  An evening that will live on, in the infamy of Rai family lore.  
 
“Don’t you just hate it when your 7 year old granddaughter gets mad at you at 10:00 PM when you take the iPad away and tell her to go to bed and then she disappears and you go to find her and she is nowhere to be found and you panic and you look everywhere even in the shed and around the house and yell until you are hoarse and then you think maybe she tried to walk home so you try to call your daughter but it goes straight to voice mail so you jump in the car and drive over to her Mom’s so she can lose her shit so you aren’t losing your shit all alone and then you decide you need help so you call 911 on the ride back to the house and give them all the details and tell them to hurry and you arrive back at home and yell for her one more time right in the 911 operator’s ear and you hear this sweet little voice answer “what Grandma” and you yell in the operator’s ear one more time “Were you hiding from me?” and your sweet granddaughter says yes and you tell the nice operator that you found your granddaughter and you are going to kill her… ya, weekends with Rai took a dark turn…Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mothers and Grandmothers out there and try not to stroke out.”
 
   I have shared lots of stuff about little Rai on Facebook, using the social format as a journal of sorts. I have saved the posts thinking that I would one day write a book about our time together and perhaps inject some Grandmother wisdom amongst the various snippets of our shared experiences.  
   Many of the posts have been cute, endearing, idyllic – moments to be cherished while other posts have described times of a less than perfect environment.  Those posts have recounted everything from the incredible uprisings of a child entering the fabled terrible twos to the devastating destruction of a curious four-year old with paint and lipstick.  
   Over her seven years of existence, weekends with Rai have been filled with humor, fun, excitement, challenges and love.  Many weekends are exhausting but this past weekend was the first to bring me to a state of complete and utter panic.  Like I said, weekends with Rai took a dark turn but it was a learning experience as well.
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    I wasn’t sure if Rai understood the severity of the situation – if she truly realized the chaos she had created.  Oh, she hung her head in shame when confronted with the fact that she must have heard me yelling her name… but her saying she didn’t remember hearing anything wasn’t going to cut it for this old grandma.  
    Shaking her head meekly yes, when I asked her if she understood that hiding from Grandma was wrong, didn’t give me a lot of confidence that she truly “got” it.   So, the next morning I called the Police and asked if an Officer could come visit with Rai for a little “one on one” education concerning the laws against scaring your Grandma.  
    
   The Officer was professional and courteous but firm in his discussion of the facts of the case.  Rai listened and this time seemed to absorb the importance of not repeating the offense.  I also appreciated the fact that the Officer didn’t blame me for getting all panic stricken – he gently explained that a missing child is the scariest experience a parent or grandparent can ever know.  He asked Rai about the times she had been scared and helped her recall what that had felt like.   He helped her understand how scared I had felt when I couldn’t find her.  
    I shared with the Officer that I saw people walking on the sidewalk as I drove to my daughter’s house. I told him that I was scared that maybe someone had taken her.  He understood how I could have thought that.  The Officer then warned Rai of the dangers from strangers and that sadly there are people who live in our town who hurt kids.  
    He warned her of the dangers of hiding during a house fire.  He instructed her that if there was ever a fire she was to get out of the house, even if she had to break a window.  She said she would.  Rai was receiving a lot of information from a tall, imposing, gun toting, law official and she seemed to be “getting” it.  
    Raising kids and grandkids, for that matter, is hard.  Helping to raise Rai has been an adventure.  I do want to gather those Facebook posts and write the story of “Weekends With Rai”.  I told one friend I should call it “WTF is she up to now.”  I don’t have to decide the title yet – we can wait to see what future weekends bring!  The Rai Adventure Continues…
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​Reading the Book at MacMac’s School…

5/9/2019

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            I was invited to go to my grandson’s elementary school yesterday and read my book to the students. First my daughter, granddaughter and I had lunch with Mac, which was very good – and then I ended up reading the book four times to various combined classrooms.  
            I was a little concerned how the wide age range of students would react to the story, but honestly, they were all good listeners and so polite. The students and teachers made me feel welcome and I appreciated their hospitality. 
            I introduced myself to each group and explained how I first came to write this story. I explained my relationship with each of my grandchildren and how they influenced the frog characters in the story. Each presentation was different – after awhile you forget what you told one group and you wonder if you’ve said something twice…  I probably should have some notes to keep me on track. Oh well – maybe next time.
            In the first book, the three frogs make a raft out of Styrofoam and water bottles. I told the students that Rai and I made the exact same raft and tested it out in the bathtub to learn if it would work. They were delighted to learn that the raft had worked out in “real” life.
            In at least one of the groups, I told the story of my first experience with Styrofoam. This was back in the mid 1950’s and Styrofoam had just been invented. I explained that my Grandpa Joe owned a greenhouse and flower shop in Fremont. I told the group that some of the flowers were not grown in the greenhouse and were shipped to Fremont on the bus. The flowers would come cut for arranging - stored in long, wide, box-like Styrofoam containers with shallow lids and deeper bottoms.  
            Grandpa Joe got the idea that if we put several of these Styrofoam containers together, we could build a raft. Grandpa and my brother Billy made a raft out of the bigger bottom portions of the Styrofoam containers. Grandpa and I made a raft out of the smaller top portions.  
            When we took the rafts out to the cabin on Big Island, Billy’s raft did better at staying afloat while mine quickly sank to the bottom. I told the kids how the design of my raft had bothered me for decades. Sixty years after the fact, while making up a story for Rai, I finally figured out that I needed to turn the lid over and add air filled plastic bottles to keep it buoyant.   
            A full six decades after the initial engineering disaster, the problem had been solved. I explained how amazed I was that the answer to that old, old problem had come to me from a cute little frog with the biggest blue eyes you have ever seen. The kids look puzzled. One young man asked if tape had been invented back then. So ya – that happened.
            Anyway – I got a chance to talk about cooperation and competition. About friendship and kindness.  About perseverance and thinking things through. I got to share and get a much-needed teaching “fix” – thanks for making time for Oma Sue. Thank you, Mac for all your help with the first book and for being you!

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Team Gracyn Maeham

5/8/2019

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            I have mentioned in previous blog entries that my sweet granddaughter Gracyn Mae has muscular dystrophy. She was diagnosed with this progressive disease in August of 2017.
            On May 5, 2018 our family and friends participated in the Muscle Walk and raised money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Gracyn’s team (Gracyn Mayhem) was one of the higher producing teams and raised a significant amount of money for the cause.
            This year the Muscle Walk was held on May 4that the same location - Miller Landing in Omaha. The landing is on the Missouri River just south of the airport. It is a lovely area with lots of green space, a pond, picnic shelters, bathrooms and easily accessible walking trails. 
            This year we designed a team t-shirt – something we hadn’t thought to do in 2018.  Gracyn wanted a fierce tiger and she wanted the colors to be blue, pink and white. I drew the fierce, stare you down tiger, and the designer at the print shop added the copy in a very fierce font.  
​            We changed the name of the team from “Gracyn Mayhem” to “Gracyn Maehem” – to match the spelling in her middle name. (Mae was my mother’s middle name and I was so pleased that Sara chose to honor my mother and her grandmother by using the same middle name for Gracyn – so we just had to change the spelling.)
            The team looked great in our blue, pink and white fierce t-shirts!  And team “Gracyn Maehem” was again designated as one of the higher producing teams – hooray for us!  Now our goal in 2020 is to get more walkers.  
            The funds raised during the walk helps to fund the summer camps for kids who have muscular dystrophy. Gracyn is too young to go to camp now but someday she may want to participate and through these types of fundraising events, she will have that opportunity.  
            Funds are also used for research to find a cure. Each year there are speakers who share their stories concerning muscular dystrophy. This year a mother told the story of her young son and the diagnosis of Duchene Muscular Dystrophy. The child had been selected to participate in a clinical trial and the results were promising. The father had taken the child to Chicago for weekly infusions. The story brought a tear to my eye and hope to my heart.  
            A young woman who spoke last year, spoke again this year and announced that she had graduated from college. She thanked those in her support group – the people who have loved her and helped her reach her goals. She read a poem and inspired all in attendance. Again – a tear in my eye and more hope for my heart.
            ​I took some pictures of the people who love Gracyn the most. Her parents – her brothers – her grandparents – her aunts – her cousins – and some very close friends. If you are reading this, I hope you will consider joining our team in 2020 and help these kiddos go to camp and continue the work of finding a cure for this relentless disease.  
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    • Videos
  • Oma Sue's Blog
  • Shop
    • Puzzles and Misc
    • Book & Posters
    • Clothing
    • LOCAL PICK-UP ORDERS ONLY
  • Contact
  • Educational/Environmental Consultation Services