Leaping for Your Dreams

I stood back from the wall I had been painting. It looked great. Now we only had one more wall, the striped one. Seeing that she had chosen the room she had been in with her dad, we had to empty the entire room out before we could start painting. I didn’t let Anna out of helping. “It’s going to be _your_ room, don’t you want to be able to say _I_ helped make this?” I challenged her. That was the right thing to say as it energized her to move as much as she could.

She sat down on the tarp we used to cover the hardwood floors. “This is hard work!” I laughed. It was 5 pm now, we’d been working on the room all day. We had even painted her bathroom and closet in the blue she’d chosen. It was a nice way to unify the color scheme and her idea.

“Come on sunshine. Let’s get the purple on this last wall and then we’ll go eat and watch the game.” I mock swatted at her and got myself moving again. We’d been at this a long time, but we were _so_ close to done. I figured it was be easier on us if we started with purple on the striped wall as we already had that paint out. To decide how wide the stripes would be Anna came up with rolling a die. Before we could roll the first die, the doorbell rang.

I skipped downstairs to open the door. Geno’s family decided they wanted to go to Philly so shortly after we got home, they were picked up and taken to the charter flight. I was greeted by a large group of the girls as I opened the door. “Oh hey!”

Vero, Michelle, Christine, Maureen and Nathalie along with the kids were at the door. I ushered them all inside. “Anna! Company!” I shouted and was quickly rewarded with the pounding of her feet running towards us.

Michelle smiled. “We thought you could use the company and the help. If you don’t mind having extra kids around.” I looked around and grinned. The youngest kids were Zachary and Peyton Kunitz.

“I think we can handle having extra hands. We’re almost done painting the room but we’ll need help putting things together.” Anna herded the rest of the kids into the great room to which I just had to laugh.

Nathalie put a hand on my arm. “ ‘ow are you really Michaela? You have ‘ad a lot of shocks in a short time. You know if you need time, Mario will let you take it.”

The girls looked confused and I sighed. “The wedding happened because my brother was shipping out shortly. Then a few days after that, Anna had a temper tantrum and ended up hurting herself. That’s why her arm is covered in plastic right now, so the stitches don’t get paint in them. While we were at the hospital we found out that Anna isn’t 4 like we were told, she’s 6. Then we got news that Nik’s plane had been shot down.” I teared up again. “He and his entire unit died in the crash.” The girls gasped and I continued. “Fortunately Nik knows to listen to his intuition and insisted that not only were Geno and I to care for her while he was gone, but to adopt her in the unlikely event of his death. The Centre for Child Protection comes tomorrow to double check that she will be cared for properly and to do a sign off on our rapid adoption.” Tears were slowly trickling down my face. “As of this time tomorrow I could officially be her mom.”

I was quickly engulfed in a circle of hugs. Vero sighed. “So, we make sure t’is place looks perfect for a child. Show us w’at needs to be done in the room we will make it ‘appen around t’e game.” I wiped my face and sighed.

“We have everything upstairs. Anna, you need to keep an eye on Zachary and Peyton along with everyone’s help. You know what station the game is on right?” She nodded quickly and grinned. It amazed me how all of the kids welcomed her so easily. I led the girls upstairs to the half done room.

Maureen smiled. “This is a great color. Not too young or too old for her.” They looked around what we had already done with smiled and praise.

“Come paint my ‘ouse Mari. Marc will never do it.” Vero exclaimed as she checked out the bathroom and closet. “It looks like all you ’ave left to do t’is one wall.”

“Let’s tackle it then!” I laughed as Michelle looked around for the paintbrushes.

“It’s not that simple. Anna said she wanted stripes on this wall.” I pointed to the wall in front of me. The colors you’ve seen, the purple and blue along with white. While the bathroom is ready for the trim and moldings to be painted white, this wall will be more difficult.”

It was Michelle’s turn to laugh. “No it won’t be. We paint the white and let it dry during the first period, we come back and measure out the stripes and paint the blue ones. Let them dry over the 2nd period. Then in the second intermission we come up and do the purple ones. It should be dry fully by morning so you could to do the trim in here then.” I gawked and she laughed. “Reece wanted stripes in her room it’s how we did it. It actually worked really well.”

I smiled. “You’re the expert. We’ve got her furniture in the other room down the hall. It’s still boxed up.”

Nathalie smiled. “I shall gather the children and watch them. I shall even order something for dinner for everyone.” We all agreed to this plan.

Maureen and Catherine went to begin putting the furniture together, they were soon joined by Austin who told them that his mom sent him up to “be useful”. Michelle, Vero and myself got to work painting. Vero worked on the trim in the bathroom and closet while Michelle and I worked on the wall. “How wide do you want these stripes?”

I sighed. “We originally wanted them to be different widths making the wall a good focal point for the room, but I don’t think we have time for that, so how wide would you recommend?” I was mentally mapping out the floor plan for the room.

Michelle looked at the wall. “I’d say about 4 inches, that would give us about 30 or so which would break up the wall but not be too much.” We measured the wall and ended up with 12 purple stripes and 11 of the other two. We did the white ones first. It didn’t take nearly as long with Michelle helping.

Vero came out of the bathroom grinning. “I love that you painted the bathroom and the closet the same color, makes them so unified and look so good with t’is room! ‘ow can I help out ‘ere?” She walked around the room looking carefully. “What color is t’e window seat going to be?”

“I was going to paint it white so that it was a good contrast to the rest of the room. I’ve got a couple pillows for the top in purple and blue to closely match the room colors. I found, Anna doesn’t know this, but I found a blue and purple rug so that she’s got a rug in here and doesn’t slip if she’s running around in socks. I even painted a couple of the walls in the fort through the door. On Anna’s side, it’s purple the main wall is this blue. When we have another little one I’m not sure what we’ll do but we’ll make it work.” I was working as I explained.

Catherine came in and grinned. “We’ve got the furniture put together and even got the bed made. Austin is going to get Anna so she can see.” Up the stairs came the herd of children. “Oh look.”

Anna stood in her doorway. “I LOVE IT!” She shouted as she carefully came into her room. “Come see!” She waved everyone in. The kids piled into the room and all ooohed at the paint job. “We even did the bathroom in blue! It was my idea to do the stripes too!”

Reese looked at her mom. “Can I stay the night mom?” My eyes popped.

Michelle rescued me. “Maybe another time. It’s close to game time, everyone got their Pens gear?” All the kids cheered. “Then let’s go cheer the guys on to victory!” The kids pounded down the stairs to the television.

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The game was a down and dirty fight for both teams. We were fighting for our playoff lives and they just wanted to kill us off. Midway through the first they had more penalties but we had more goals. Dinner ended up being pizza for ease and well it made the kids happy. We were munching while watching the game.

The Flyers scored the next two goals which of coursed cause boos to resonate through the room. But about 20 second later Sid scored a great goal. Jordy added another about a minute later, which sent us to the first intermission up by 1.

Michelle and I ran upstairs to check on the wall, it was ready for the blue stripes as she promised. Of course the fans blowing in the room _could_ have been part of the reason… We painted the blue as quickly and neatly as we could and got back in time for the second period.

Three times the the second we had Power Plays and all three times we converted. Tanger, Jordy and Sully made out total midway through 7 to 3. The kids were pumped up and happy. In the second half of the 2nd, Duper and Jordy added two more goals making it 9 to 3.

Again in the second intermission Michelle and I ran upstairs and painted the purple stripes. We had more sets of hands, which helped. I was able to sneak into the room the furniture was in to get a good look. I rocked and made the furniture move, it was solid. The boys would be the final test of course but this was a good start. The girls came in and took a second look at their handiwork.

The third you could tell that they were desperate. Unfortunately for them Geno made it 10 to 3 four minutes in. There was a big fight midway through that made it 3 on 3 for 2 minutes. That was a bit nerve wracking for all of us, but Flower and the boys weathered the storm without an issue. In the end the house was rocking with our 10 to 3 come back victory. I helped Maureen get Zach and Peyton into her car as they were asleep.

I came back into the house and helped Anna get into her new bed. She was so excited, not only for the new bed but also for the win. “Mama, would you wake me up when Papa comes home?” My heart melted she hadn’t called Evgeni that to his face yet.

“No sunshine. You need to sleep. You can show him your room in the morning. Besides, even _I_ will probably be asleep when he comes home.” I tucked her in and kissed her forehead. “Sleep tight.” She snuggled into her new bed and closed her eyes.

I left the temporary room and checked on the real room again. It looked great. I was _so thankful for the help. I went downstairs and finished the clean up. While doing so I heard my phone beep with a text message. I checked it and had to smile. <2 goals for my 2 girls. Be home in 2 hours or so. Ya tebya lyublyu.>

I probably _should_ have texted him back but I wanted to hear his voice before I fell asleep waiting. I dialed and wasn’t surprised when he picked up. “Hey sexy. Incredible game.”

“My best girl, you watch?” I heard him moving through the locker room and could _almost_ tell where he was by the sound.

When it got quieter I answered him. “Yeah we had a girls night and watched. Vero, Michelle, Catharine, Maureen and Nathalie all came over with the kids and helped finish painting Anya’s room and put the furniture together. She wants me to wake her when ‘papa’ gets home but I told her no.” He gasped.

“She said… wow. I let she show me in the morning. Sid gave me news today that we will have to have people over tomorrow to watch Caps and Bruins. Says there is a big surprise during the game for us. That ok?” He got slapped on the back a few times, I heard.

“That’s fine. The appointment is at 2 pm so I really need you home by then from practice. I’m _so_ nervous about this.” I walked over to the couch and laid down on it.

“Everything be fine. I need go, get home sooner. Wait for me?” I couldn’t tell one of the night’s three stars no.

“Yeah, I’ll wait for you. Спешите домой моя любовь. (Hurry home, my love.)” I kissed the phone as if I was actually kissing him.

“Если бы я мог летать я был бы сейчас там. Увидимся скоро любимая. (If I could fly I would be there now. See you soon beloved.)” He hung and I began my wait for him. It had been a great day after all.