Hope4Peyton

The only thing that could have pried me away from a funnel cake

Because Pete has a love affair with Vince from Shamwow

Made with REAL Girl Scouts! *get that quote and you can have a cookie*

Every day is art class in my house…just as every surface is a canvas

Pretty much sums up how I feel after this weekend

I pinky-promise that this will be the LAST video of R2-D2.

Today.

Cause nothing says romance like watching two machines find their soulmate (seriously, I’m like E-freaking-Harmony up in here!)…or watching a robot hump the vacuum cleaner….or maybe whispering sweet nothings to it in Princess Leia’s voice.

Whatever works for you.

I’m not judging.

Crazy Robot love from Anissa Mayhew on Vimeo.

Come on, don’t you hear the bow-chicka-bow-bow?

I am just sick this morning.

SICK!

Not EWWW-sick like I was last week during that nasty bout of stomach flu, but absolutely 100% heartsick this morning.

Why, you might ask yourself.

Because I had to be a freaking parent this morning!  And it sucks. And I hate it. And I resent my kid right now for MAKING me have to be a parent this morning.

Not just a parent, but the MEAN parent, the one with the make-you-cry punishment that will not only ruin his day, but could very well ruin.his.life.forever.and.ever.and.ever.

To fill you in on the backstory, last week Nathaniel got busted when his progress report came home.  My son is smart.  Now, I know that all parents seek to highlight the positives about their kids (the little punk leaves his socks all over the house and has started to have that pre-teen funk smell marinating around him), however, Nathaniel is one of those wicked smart kids that anything learn-y just seems to come very natural to him.  The kid doesn’t have to study to make straight A’s, he doesn’t have to work at it to do well…and thus, has become incredibly lazy and just takes for granted that he doesn’t have to put out any effort to continue excelling.

And mom calls bullshit on it.

So, last week when I got a gander at the progress report, it showed that he had a C- in his Bible class.  (Private Christian school, remember?) A, A, A, A, A, C-.

WHaaaa–?

Then I looked at what the grades actually were.

5 test scores: A

5 homework scores: F

I lost my mind, people.

My kid apprently feels that doing the homework is a complete waste of his time because he still got A’s on the tests, so obviously he can learn the material without having to do all the tedious writing exercises and, just to be clear, can use that time to chat around the class.

Ok, let me stop right here for a second and tell you how hard it is to argue with that logic (not the chatting part, but the useless busy-time homework that has no impact on his learning, but whatever, it’s the assignment and you WILL. DO. IT.)

THIS? Is all Peter’s doing.  I had to study for every grade I ever got….I HAD to work to pass.  Peter, not so much. Obnoxiously fact.  (So, the tendency to scatter socks all over the house is not the only annoying gene he passed down to Nathaniel) It comes easy to them so the working part seems superfluous.

But, the mean parent handbook says that I have to force my kid to actually DO his homework, whether it has any bearing on his grade-getting ability or not. End of story. Forever and ever. Amen.

*I did not mean to quote a Randy Travis song, it just sort of rolled out*

His punishment was loss of his cell phone. Not grounding, permanent loss.

Grounding has proven to be an epic FAIL with this kid because, by all that is wrong and unjust in the world, this boy is patient.  He can endure as long as he knows there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. If he KNOWS he can get it back, then he can just wait it out. He will quietly, and without complaint, persevere thoughout his sentence and then gleefully pick up as if it never happened.

So, last week he lost his brand new, shiny Christmas present cell phone.  He was upset.

I, then laid down the groundwork for any future mishaps: If he got another F in a homework assignment for simply failing to complete it, he would then lose his Gameboy…PERMANENTLY.  We would physically give it to someone else.

It scared the bejezers out of him because he loves that DS, bordering on obsession.  It is his greatest joy and most prized possession.  He is a gamer at heart (Daddy’s genes at work AGAIN) and when he’s not actively playing, he’s thinking about playing or planning out what he’ll do next time he plays or counting down the minutes until he can play again.

It’s a constant struggle to balance what he should be doing with his desire to play.

With this in mind, I beat him over the head with the threat of permanent loss.

HA! I put the fear of Nintendo in his heart.

Then.

This morning.

A week later.

F on an assignment.  He forgot to do another class’s assignment, so he had to use his in-class time to complete THAT work, so he didn’t turn in the homework he was supposed to be doing during that time and NOW? Another F.

I am required to pony up on my threat.

I’m staring at it right now, sitting on my desk, his Gameboy. That he handed over with tears and a gut-wrenching expression and the demeanor of a mother abandoning her child on the doorstep of an orphanage.  Goodbye, my sweet love, I will never forget you.

Mah heart!

And everything inside me rushed to say, I’m sorry you screwed up, let’s have another chance and try harder this time.

But holyfreakingmoly, it’s only been a week since his last punishment and I KNOW it’s not going to get any better with another chance (because THIS is about the eleventy-millionth second chance) and then I’ll just be angry because he didn’t follow through on his promise to do better and eventually, I WILL have to make good on my threatened punishment.

Here, I sit, feeling like the world’s worst mother because I don’t want to have to enforce this one.  I hate being the bad guy and knowing that my kid’s at school right now, hoping I’ll get hit by a bus or doing the “I hope I die cause then she’ll feel bad because she treated me mean” mantra.

I’m wishing I’d threatened something less severe, but I also know that THIS will get through to him.  I’m wishing the last punishment had impacted him in a way that shook his 11 year-old brain into awareness that I’m dead serious about this.

Right now, I’m wishing I wasn’t a mean parent and this wasn’t part of my job.

Cause it SUCKS for us both.

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IPod Touch – giveaway – STILL!

People will ask me, “How do you keep UP with all those sites you write?”

My honest answer is generally, “Have you seen the condition of my house?”

And I ain’t lying on that one.

But it’s not as much heavy lifting as you’d think.

First of all, this blog is the only one I write full time on my own, the review site is only written about 4-5 times a month as I get specific projects (although the pimping of the reviews is a full time job of it’s OWN) and I post for 5 Minutes for Special Needs once a week.

A good portion of my time is spent Twittering about chocolate-covered bacon updating my Facebook status about how much I love the Cha Cha Slide networking and shameless self-promotion *HAI! Have you entered my contest for the IPod Touch yet? No? Are you still here?*.

Because the thing no one told me was that part of blogging was becoming your own marketing and PR team. HOLY crow did I not understand that. Because you can be the most amazing writer to ever put fingertip to key and if you don’t bust your butt to let others know about it, no one will ever read it. *The shameless self-promotion does not include nicknaming myself the “most amazing writer to ever put fingertip to key” but if you feel the need to call me that inside your head, that’s ok with me*

Like so many things I do, I tiptoed into this blogging world and then just fell in up to my ear tips.  Because I don’t do things halfway.  I charge in, blindly sometimes, and throw everything I have into it (well, except in regards to mopping my floors…I have yet to find the joy in that) and hope that it works out the way I wanted.

Sometimes it blows up in my face.

Sometimes when it blows up it showers me with candy and rose petals.

I’m never sure which way it’s going to go.

Some of you have been here with me from the very start. Those first sad days of this blog, when words were hard to come by, hope held us together. The years that followed as I worked hard to find my voice in the things I felt were happening to us, everything in my life felt reactionary.

Then came a point when I got to start taking action.  Pete and I talked about it TO DEATH, taking the blog in a different direction, both look and content.

Taking an adventure…seeing where it would lead.

I visited my hairdresser today (yeah, I got mah hair done, looks sassy) and he asked me what the draw was about being a blogger.

What I explained to him was that it was MY identity.  Something I’d sort of lost over the past years.  I was the kids’ mom, Pete’s wife and then I became a cancer mom and spent every drop of energy being HER, that person who had to find the strength, the patience and endurance to help bring my family through hell.

And I don’t resent her.  I love her.  I admire her because she reached down and found peace in places I never knew she could.

This is my time to meld all those pieces together and reconfigure who I am.

What I want to be when I grow up.

If I grow up.

My trip to Nashville opened my eyes to so much.  Parts of me that had been buried under the things I HAD to do, my ambitions and dreams and goals that I’d pushed aside to deal with the important things. All of a sudden, those things felt important again.

I want to write.

I have things to say, stories to tell..and they might not be earth-shattering, but they’re important to me.

I want to have things that are uniquely ME.

I want my identity to be about me and not just the people I love more than life itself…although they are the core base of who I am…it’s very circular, no?

Selfish?  Maybe to some.

But as things start to blow up around me, and I sniff to find the scent of candy and roses, it’s exciting.

And the heavy lifting is about to begin.

Attending the Blissdom conference has opened doors and possibilities that would have otherwise gone unrealized.  Opportunities to find out who I am, what I’m made of, what I’m capable of when I’m not just reacting, but seeking to make things happen.

I’m stepping back from my writing job at 5 Minutes For Special Needs for a wonderful reason: we are out of treatment and part of me feels it’s not the right venue for me anymore.  I will be staying on as part of the team because I fully believe in the tremendous community growing around it, but behind the scenes, helping where I can to make sure things run smoothly so more families can be welcomed.

I’ve joined the team of editors at Blog Nosh Magazine as a Race and Ethnicity editor, where I’ll be busy plumbing the depths of the blogiverse to find the voices out there waiting to be heard and shared. Not writing, but reading, discovering, widening the views and, hopefully, raising consciousness.

I have also taken on a writing position with the Silicon Valley Mom Group, writing for their Deep South Moms blog (because I’m a deeply southern woman, right?  Hey, it’s all about finding all the wonderful different parts that make the whole).

And in the super-secret labs, me and a team of brilliant geniuses scientists monkeys bloggers are brewing up something that I am ready to pour my heart and soul into…but that’s not for now…later…soon, though.

Do you hear that?

tick tick tick tick….

That’s the sound of something about to blow.

Do you smell candy?

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{Yanked from the Caffeinatrix because I was too lazy to write anymore tonight when she says it so beautifully}

Okay, on a different note, this is a shameless plug for the “Room of Your Own” session at the BlogHer 09 conference that myself, Tanis (from Redneck Mommy) and Janet  (from the Caffeinatrix, the blogger formerly known as IzzyMom) will be hosting. In order to actually be able to host this awesome room, we need you to say you will attend (like a pre-headcount to gauge interest).

Of course, you don’t HAVE to attend but you know, but we need your support anyway so we have enough votes to have our idea approved. You don’t even have to be registered for BlogHer to say you would attend. You’re just expressing an interest, presumably because it’s an incredibly interesting topic being presented by three of your nicest, coolest (and terribly modest) fellow blogging friends!

Please help us insure we get a room because, seriously, our topic is one that every blogger on earth can relate to and people clearly want to talk about it. And yes, I’m both rambling AND groveling for your support and your willingness to say that if you are/were going to be there that there is nowhere else you’d rather be than in OUR “Room of Your Own“.

Just click the link right below the title that says you would attend (because you ARE, right? Right?) *bats eyelashes*

Thanks in advance for your support 🙂

xo
Janet, Tanis and Anissa

Peyton – Will you get me a glass of water?

Me – Get it yourself.

Peyton – pleeeeease, mama?  I’m tired today *makes very put-upon face*

Me – (grumble grumble grumble but gets up to get the requested beverage) You know if you just pull up a chair you can get a drink whenever you want

Peyton – (mumble mumble) —vant

Me – WHAT was that?

Peyton – I LIKE calling you my SERVANT!

….and that’s when I banged my head into the wall to stop myself from throwing something sharp at her.

I call it a Mommy WIN.

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Just because I can’t post one of the MASTER without some of her minions.

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The IPod Touch giveaway is still going on!