Hope4Peyton

**Updated to add: This article is running in the Tampa Tribune highlighting my crazy mad addiction to social networking and my internet…MY internet, ya’ll…so, go read it and check out that cute kid in the picture.**

The kids and I…sadly no Peter…got to attend a Christmas party at the Children’s Cancer Center sponsored by the Tampa Bay Buccaneer’s defensive line.

I got one word for those guys:  GINORMOUS!

Oh, and really spectacularly nice. And so sweet with the kids. And generous with their time. And more than willing to listen to every story and meet every person there. And I can’t count apparently.

It was funny, watching these little kids’ eyes about fall out of their heads…not because of the celebrity status of these guys…but in amazement of the sheer magnitude of them.  One toddler was watching them walk by and his little head was thrown so far back so he could actually see the players that he eventually lost his balance and just went right over and WHAMP flat on his butt.

The Buc’s players hold a place in my heart because we got to meet them last summer during Peyton’s wish trip to Orlando.  Now, truly?  Buc’s training camp wasn’t really part of Peyton’s wish trip, it was Daddy’s part of the wish trip, but we all still had a blast.  Peyton got to be a Fan-Of-The-Day and after training, we got to meet every player, who stopped to say hello and sign autographs and mingle with our family.  Pete was FLOATING!

At the Christmas party, watching these enormous guys interact with all the families clamoring around them for photos and autographs brought back some serious memories of the last time I’d seen them…Peyton bald, chubby from steroids, just finishing up her radiation, and so happy.

The Christmas party saw a new little girl…a healthy little girl with a head of hair and no cancer in her body. It was awesome.

These are fighters.

Courageous warriors.

They wage a war most couldn’t.

They are the first line of defense in a fierce battle.

They give it their everything.

Bodies that take a beating in every effort to defeat their opponent.

Pain doesn’t stop them.

They get up to face it down again.

They don’t give up.

They don’t back down.

They never stop.

Sometimes they feel beaten.

They suffer losses.

The victories are that much sweeter.

Fighters.

The other guys are just football players.

The Boy Child: Is ‘ho’ a bad word?

Me (after some deep breathing and a few muttered curses directed at his father): Not if you’re a farmer.  They use hoes all the time.

The Boy Child: Oh. Ok.

A moment of quiet and….3….2….

The Boy Child: Is there any other time it’s a bad word?

How deep do I really want to go into this one?  Am I truly going to go there?  I should have been a truck driver, living a life of quiet solitude, out on the open highways of our country…being the Snowman to someone’s Bandit…not fielding these conversation grenades my son keeps lobbing at me.

Me: Yes.  If you use it to describe…a…er….woman…it’s not nice…it’s a bad word…umm…just don’t ever let me hear you use it or I’ll throw something sharp at your head, got it?

A quick nod lets me know that the message has been heard and acknowledged.

Wow. That wasn’t so bad. No, it was not. I can totally handle these tough questions!  I AM SUPERMOM!  Watch your step, I’d hate for you to stumble on my cape.

The Boy Child: What’s it mean? Why is it bad?

Oh, KILL.ME.NOW!

Me: It’s just means that someone is sort of a bad person.

The Boy Child: Like a murderer?

Me: No! No! What are they teaching you at your school?

The Boy Child: Bad like how?

Me: Would you like to go to journalism school someday?

The Boy Child: *blink blink*

Me: It’s a word for a woman who dates a lot of guys all at the same time *edited for child sensibilities because I am SO NOT going into the cash handling side of it, not on the threat of death*

The Girl Child pipes up from the back seat: She’s a cheater!??

Thank you, Carrie Underwood, I hope you develop a nasty rash.

Me: Yes, that works as well as anything, it’s a word for a woman who cheats a lot. Let it go.

The kids quiet down and I can hear them mentally munching on that little tidbit of knowledge.

The Girl Child: So, why do people cheat?

Me: HEY, GUYS! There’s Dairy Queen, let’s get an ice cream cone.

Everyone: YEAH!

Tackling the tough questions?  EPIC FAIL!

Someday, ask me when my drinking problem started and I’ll probably direct you to this post.

**HA! THAT got your attention, didn’t it?  It’s also a raging lie, but this babylicious post is courtesy of my friend Steph @ Problem Solvin’ Mom.  Seriously? If your babymaking parts don’t do a little dance after seeing all this yummy goodness you are just a ROBOT…dead inside…completely inhumane! I am on my way to Alabama right now (sans kids) to spend the weekend with my husband. Alone. Just me and him. No kids.  Whatever will we do with ourselves? Heh. Thanks, Steph, for giving my readers something sweet and wonderful in my absence. {{HUGS}}

Do you ever wonder how much of our kid’s likes and dislikes come from taking our lead? My daughter, Sweetpea, is definitely her own little person. She has what I consider to be an adorable, outrageous personality – some traits are definitely from me or her Dad, and some totally her own.

She has recently become partial to frogs – she has a frog lovey that she’s just started to show a preference for over her other loveys (prior to this any old doll or blanket would do, just as long as she had something to hold) and she points out the frogs to me in all of our story books. She has 3 plastic bathtub toy frogs that she carries around with her through much of the day. Wonder where she got this affinity for frogs? I’m wondering if it might have started here:

Or, maybe here?

The evidence is inconclusive at best as to whether we had anything to do with it, but I have my suspicions.

Skeptical? What about her love of apples and strawberries? Maybe all kids are partial to fruit…it is sweet and delicious, of course, but I’m wondering if this had anything to do with it?

Need a close up to better decide?
Mmmm, whats not to like about that, huh? I have to say, I’m not sure if it’s berries and apples I’m craving now, or maybe another baby…

On to my point, before I forget it! My husband and I are at odds on almost every movie that one or the other of us loves. He likes scary movies, I hate them. I like chick flicks, he hasn’t watched one since we got married… I have never liked Bambi, Pinocchio, Mary Poppins or The Wizard of Oz – hubs says they’re classics. (sounds like something his mother told him, huh?) It will be interesting to see what kind of movies Sweetpea likes.

One thing we can agree on when it comes to holiday movies – The Year Without A Santa Claus is the best ever…Sweetpea seemed to like the characters when we posed with them last year.
Hangin with Heat Miser
Chillin with Freeze Miser.

I’m hoping she enjoys watching the movie with us this year – I’ve already scanned the TV schedule for when and where we can check it out.  Hubs does a great song and dance along with the Miser brothers…I’m going to do everything I can to get it on camera this year.  I expect Sweetpea will be dancing right along with him – at least I hope so!

Not feeling the Christmas love?

Having a hard time getting your holiday groove on?

Are you made of BAH-humbug?

I got your fix.

Watch it!

I dare you not to smile.

Oh, and if you watch all the way to the end of two minutes, Peyton gets a little “Outta my spotlight, kid!”

So proud, so very proud.

You’re in my spotlight! from Anissa Mayhew on Vimeo.

Monday.  Now with PAIN!

I got the new Jen Lancaster book “Such A Pretty Fat or Why Pie Is Not The Answer” and started cracking up before I’d finished the first full page.  Cause she is MADE of funny!  Go NOW, buy and read.  Not that she needs me to promo for her, but seriously, your life is lesser if you haven’t read her yet.

And then it was still funny, but then it stopped being so funny….because it was all about how she realized how her perception of her weight and how magnificent she was started to change because she decided to lose a hundred few pounds.

Which got me to thinking how I haven’t been in good shape since that brief fling with the YMCA between the births of Rachael and Peyton where I was a dedicated exerciser and worked out 4-5 times a week. But I got pregnant again, then I had that inconvenient stroke and then Peyton was diagnosed and I am an admitted comfort-bored-pointless-always eater.  I’m a nibbler. A snacker. A late night muncher.

It’s all bad.

And I now have more muffin-top than a Paneras show window.

Paneras cinnamon rolls…YUMMY

I officially weigh more than I ever have in my entire non-pregnant existance.  It sucks.

Do something about it, right?  I WILL!  I have that gym membership I talked about that I keep “forgetting” to cancel…when in reality, the reason I haven’t canceled it is more about the fact that they won’t let me do it over the phone, I have to go in person to cancel it and the last thing I need to see is some twinkle-toed Feel-The-Burn Barbie giving me the once over and saying, “Really? You think YOU should cancel your gym membership?”

Then the snickering would start and I’d have to leap over the counter (grossly overestimating both speed and agility on that one, folks) and punch her out and it would be too close to exercise and she would have won.

They would probably charge me for personal training time as well.

Then to top it all off, I got a half hour lecture about motivating myself to work out over a plate stacked with bagels and cream cheese.

Cream cheese….nom nom nom

From someone who looks fantastic, while crammed between two people who are all jutting hip bones and hollowed cheeks…lucky for them, I was a sweet, fluffy buffer between them so their defined collar bones didn’t accidentally grind together.

Grrrrrrr

Did I mention that I am planning to attend Blissdom in February and BlogHer ’09 in Chicago this July?  I didn’t attend last year because I was too new to the whole blogging thing to understand what it was, but I do remember pictures…a LOT of pictures were taken and posted all over the internet.

Pictures. Of all my rolls and chins and bloat.

Consider me motivated.

I put on my Nikes and dusted off my sports bra.

I synced up my Ipod with mass amounts of high-energy music.

I walked in the gym this morning where the girl behind the desk did the once-over.

She smiled at me and said “Have a good workout”.

I didn’t take a swing at her.

I did have a good workout.

Thank you to that extremely hot guy who lifted weight right in front of me, you got me through that last ten minutes on the elliptical machine.

I feel like I’m growing as a person.

I turn 35 on February 1st and I have a goal to be down one full size by then.

Two sizes by July.

I will not answer the call of the Lay’s potato chips while getting caught up on “House”.

I will not dread swimsuit season this year.

I will buy myself a new wardrobe when I’ve reached my goal size and I will throw away my fat pants (which are, as of this moment, my every day pants).

I will stay motivated by my need to be healthier and physically fit, not some narcissistic, unrealistic mental body image.

Dear readers, I am on a mission and you are going to be forced to go along with all the inevitable whining and moaning and complaining that will accompany it.

May God have mercy on us all.