Hope4Peyton

We have hair!

Peyton has developed a unique sense of fashion. I don’t fight it, as long as she’s clean and dressed, I can’t complain. But we’re starting to get some mighty funny looks when she goes out in a dance outfit with ballet shoes on her feet to the grocery store.

Yes, she wore this outfit all day yesterday!

Last night was our school’s Skate Night, where we go roller skating. Did I mention that my kids on skates are about as graceful as rhinos on stilettos? Good times! Nathaniel had a pair of rollerblades that he got for Christmas and has worn all of 3 times. He did really well though, he was painfully slow and awkward, but he gave it his best and by the end of the night he was slightly less painfully slow and awkward. Rachael was a mess. If I fell as many times as she did last night, I would be in a permanent body cast. But every time she got up and hit the floor again. They enjoyed spending the time with their friends, which was the biggest point of the night. Now they are both eager to take skating lessons so that next year they can actually talk to their friends as opposed to waving at them as they speed skate on by. I will admit that neither one of them was helped by my or Pete’s complete lack of skating tutorial. I wore flip flops in a room full of students with roller skates on…i’m lucky to still have toes, for the love of Joe!

Today we went to the Children’s Cancer Center for Lil Tales. Over the summer the place was packed to the max with all the kids and their siblings, and now that school has started, we miss seeing a lot of our friends who’ve gone to preschool and big kid school. It’s awesome to know that these kids are heading back into lives with all the normal things that kids are supposed to be doing, but we miss seeing their faces. As we lose some of the kids who are back in school, their places are being filled with newly diagnosed kids. I’d much rather they just have to close down the Lil Tales program because there are no kids to come. I know the Children’s Cancer Center would be thrilled to close their doors.

I had a meeting today with Liz Brewer and Natalie Brock from the Brandon Foundation. They are a phenomenal group who are reaching out to families dealing with cancer in their lives in the Brandon area. They were fun to talk to, and it takes a certain amount of humility to just throw all your household problems out there for people to know. But they are very understanding and they want so much to help and do what they can to alleviate the strain any way they can. They know that in the face of cancer treatment and all the time, energy and money that it takes, you have to set your priorities and often house repairs just fall to the side. I’m excited about the ways that their “Angel Companies” are going to be able to help us, it’s a huge relief to know some of these things are going to be taken care of and such a blessing that it’s happening through the amazing compassion of strangers. Again, humbling, yet a powerful way for the Lord to show us that He’s looking out for us and taking care of us.

The kids are enjoying school…whether they admit it or not. Nathaniel has already shown his issues this year, I got an email from his teacher and I was like “It’s the first week of school, are you serious?” But because his 4th grade teacher was also his 2cnd grade teacher, I know her very well and it’s wonderful to already have a good relationship with his teacher. He’s the smartest kid, he has an amazing brain but he also has the scattered brain of a 9 year old boy. After talking to Mrs. McDaniels, we were able to agree on a potential fix for getting his mind back on track and keeping him focused on the class. Good luck with that!

Rachael’s rocking and rolling….she’s a talker…was anyone surprised by that? I told her teacher that she comes by it naturally, but hopefully she’ll be able to curb that during class. Again….good luck with that.

I got a letter today from Flashes of Hope, they are the group that took the amazing black and white photos of Peyton and me at the clinic. They hook up with area photographers who go to hospitals and clinics with hair and makeup artists and take the most beautiful photos and then provide the families with free pictures. They are being featured in Parade magazine (usually in your Sunday newspapers) and on Parade.com sometime during September. They have 80 of their pictures being shown online between August 29-September 30. This is a way to promote what they are doing for families and to highlight the issues of childhood cancer during the month of September….WAY TO GO, Flashes of Hope! Peyton is going to be one the 80 featured children!! So, make sure to check it out, and I will be posting the link as soon as it’s available, of course. The only thing I have to say is that out of all those wonderful pictures, they pick my least favorite one….blah blah blah…but I think it’s an great honor that they picked her to be featured and I’ll just suck it up that they won’t airbrush me into Lucy Lui…the kid is a supermodel in the making. I’m pretty impressed with her because in the past year she’s been on tv several times, the newspaper, now a magazine….she’s holding out for the big screen in Time Square.

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
—Anissa

Today was such a mixture of fun and overwhelming sadness.

I woke up with a raging case of “This house is a mess, if I have to live with you heathens one more minute I may explode!”-itis. So we cleaned house a bit. It’s still a mess, but it’s a bearable mess and that’s all I ask out of life. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but I have to not want to tear out my own eyeballs every time I look at it.

After cracking the whip and riding the kids like a third world dictator, I took them out for lunch! I’m a generous despot.

Penny Hawkins, I love her for many reasons, but this one is just tells the kind of person she truly is.

Hannah Deal, the little girl I’ve posted about who has stopped her unsuccessful treatment and is now just living out the rest of her precious time at home, lost her garden to the Florida heat and the family just didn’t have time to deal with it. Penny took it upon herself to organize a team, to get donations, and spearhead a group of us to go over and plant a new garden for Hannah. It was hot, I got filthy, and it was one of the most tremendous things I’ve done.

When Lisa told us that they had come to the decision that they could do no more for Hannah, my heart was just devastated. What, as her friends, could we possibly do? We can’t help Hannah, we can’t take away the pain of her impending death, we can do nothing. Then Penny just gave us this “thing” we could do….it felt like a physical way to show her how much we love them, how much we care, what we feel for them. So, we went, we played in the dirt, we planted those flowers and made a beautiful little garden of love for Hannah to enjoy.

On the drive over I watched the clouds come in, I had to drive through this mad rain storm and I just prayed that the Lord would provide us a break in the weather to plant this garden. As I drove off the highway, I drove out of the rain. These huge, dark clouds hung over Lisa’s house and we worked fast. We had a nice number of people to help, so it didn’t take too long, but we got it done and not a drop of rain fell on us. Just minutes after we planted the last flower and we stood back to look, the sun came out and just shined all over us. How is that for a direct blessing? We took pictures of Hannah with her garden, and we felt full of her happiness and smiles.

On the way home, I had to cry. My heart just hurts, it aches for Lisa, because Hannah doesn’t understand what’s happening, but Lisa does and she knows what the future holds for her baby girl. I remember the gut-aching feeling when the doctor told me that Peyton had cancer, that moment of pain so fierce that my ears rang and my throat felt closed and I can only imagine what Lisa must feel daily. Rachael asked me why I was crying and I told her. I explained that Hannah had cancer, a different kind than Peyton, and I told her the truth that her little friend she plays with at Lil Tales and family group was going to die. She understood that. Her face was so sad, and she held my hand and she told me “Then it was a good thing we made her garden today.”

I hope that you all are always loving those precious to you, that you never miss an opportunity to hug and kiss, that you never take for granted each moment that you are gifted.

Can you guess what my special contribution to the garden was?

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
–Anissa

Peter had to work last night, he worked through the night and slept for a while on the couch. We had plans for the afternoon, so around 9:30 I had to start waking him up…gently….very gently. Poor Pete. He didn’t want to wake up, and I know he didn’t want to miss out on our plans. I leaned down and whispered the three words that tell about the strength of our relationship, that are a cornerstone of our very marriage, three words that tell him how much I love him….

“Fantasy Football Draft”

I could have said “House on fire” or “Rabid beavers approaching”, but nothing gets him stirring quite like the fantasy football draft. He spends time reading, researching, preparing and organizing for this day….it pretty much starts 10 minutes after the Superbowl. Honestly, if he attacked everything with as much intensity, Bill Gate would be scared for his job and we’d be packing to move into the White House. This is one of Pete’s greatest joys.

Fantasy Football involves drafting a team of players from different NFL teams onto “your team”, and based on how they perform each week you get points. If your team has more points than your opponent’s collection of players, then you win…there’s playoffs, a Fantasy Football Superbowl and a trophy…you get your name on it…this is the BIG time. It’s a borderline cult….like Scientology or Amway…only it’s fun and usually involves beer!

I was never a big football fan. I grew up in Indiana where from the time you are old enough to sit up you are trained that Basketball isn’t just a sport, it is THE sport. If you saw the movie Hoosiers….that is really how it is. I wasn’t a good basketball player, I wasn’t even a good basketball watcher. I wasn’t a big sports player at all, I was an intellectual….none of that nasty sweating stuff….(note to my sister, you can stop laughing now!).

For a long time after Peter and I became a couple, I referred to myself as a football widow. Which basically meant that from September to January, I saw Peter only on the times when there wasn’t a game playing, a post or pre-game analysis being shown, if there wasn’t any highlights being shown, an injury update, or (GASP!) ESPN dared to show footage of another sport. Petey likes his football.

So, it became a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” strategy. I became involved in his favorite pastime, I joined his fantasy football league, I started watching the games, I actually started LIKING it! He is slowly turning me into a guy…any day now I will start scratching myself in public places and growing hair on my back. Fantasy football is primarily a guy thing, I am the only wife on the league and they actually let me into the "guy's room" -yes, that's what they call it, the GUY'S ROOM-the first year they actually considered asking me to do my draft from the hallway so I wouldn't breach the sanctity of this room with my ovaries.

But this is one of the reasons that we work. We compromise. I started liking football and he watched 3 seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy”….it’s a fair trade, I guess.

Plus, I firmly believe there is a good chance I’m going to kick his butt this year!!

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
–Anissa

Peytonism for the day–

"You have to eat something healthy before you have junk, right?" <–loosely based on the fact that I make her eat something healthy before she can have junky snacks

"That's right."

"Did see me eat those strawberries?"

"Yes, I did."

"Can I have some?"

"Have some what?"

"Junk, mom, can I have some junk now??"

Well, not a whole lot happened. Not much to tell. So I'll fill this blog with pictures of Peyton enjoying a box full of fun stuff that came from Sherry Tucker today.

Oh…and video of Peyton singing…and dancing…and just being her normal goofy self.

What a way to start the weekend.

I full on plan to save this for her first date, her high school graduation and her wedding day.

f.r.o.G.
–Anissa

**Ok, in case that was a totally obscure reference…Gabrielle Reese is a rocking beach volleyball player.

Nathaniel didn’t make the volleyball team. He was tough about it, though. He was comforted by the fact that only 1 4th grader made the team, and he’s genuinely happy that his friend made the team. Last year he would have been in tears and a mess, so I’m really impressed by how well he took the news and how mature he was about his disappointment. Instead, Nathaniel and Rachael will both be playing soccer….in the Florida heat…running outside…in the heat…heat like the surface of the sun…and they’re happy about it! I’m such a wuss, the only time I run is from the air conditioned car to the air conditioned building.

Peyton spent the day at Grandma’s house, playing and being spoiled within an inch of her life. I think the sooner that she is able to get into school the better for her, she really needs to make friends her own age and learn to interact with kids outside of the Children’s Cancer Center again. The CCC has been a lifesaver throughout her treatment, because it’s been her only real source of playmates.

I struggle with the idea of getting her back into school, for all the same reason I’m sure most parents in our position have. Will she get teased? She’s going to get exposed to so many germy little hands. Will she struggle to make the benchmarks? But I also feel compelled to give her the normalcy she’s missed out on for the past year, I want her to go to preschool and be with other kids her age. I think when she does she’ll start to be a little less clingy, which would be a great thing. When people talk to her, I fear that she’s going to try to climb up my leg and back into the womb.

The big worry for me is to figure out how I’m going to go back to work when she’s ready to go to school. For the average mom it can be hard to work because if your kid is sick that is the first priority. What place wants to hire a person who comes in and says “I’ll work for you and do the best I can, but I can also call you at the drop of a hat and be out for a week.” Yeah, I don’t see a lot of job offers swinging my way. I know that it’ll work out, that the right job will open up at the moment I’m supposed to go to work. God works good that way. I’m still considering going back to school, but it’s all a matter of timing and confidence in where Peyton is in treatment.

A company called Dynamic Painting came out today at the request of the Brandon Foundation. They are a group here in Brandon (obviously!!) that works with families dealing with cancer, not just pediatric cancers, and helps to take the strain off the family by providing household services. We have a deck in our backyard that is falling apart and we just haven’t had the time, energy or money to deal with it. We pretty much tell the kids “don’t fall into a hole” and let it go. The Brandon Foundation gets companies that will donate time or services to families like ours and they match them up with a need. So the guys came out today and decided that the whole thing needs to come up and go away and a new decking be put down….that’s AWESOME! I am so excited about it and so thankful for the generosity and compassion that these businesses display.

f.r.o.G.
—Anissa

ps…don’t forget to sign up for a walking team for the Cure Kids Cancer Challenge on September 29th in Brandon!!! If you can’t make it that day, sponsor the Mighty Mighty Mayhews for the event.