Hope4Peyton

The first two weeks of school have passed us by. Smoothly, with no big hurdles to jump…except that part where I got talked into accepting the role as a home room mom. Yeah.

It’s a tippy-toe dip back into my pre-Peyton-cancer life.

Before she got sick I was all about the PTA, volunteering to read in the classrooms, bringing the baked goods, making photocopies, cutting out stuff, doing whatever to keep the teachers happy because happy teachers mean happy classrooms.

Then she was diagnosed the summer before Rachael went kindergarten and Nathaniel went into second grade.

Hello, I’m going to drop off my kid, forget to bring their lunchbox, probably left their agenda on the kitchen table (remember to sign it? I scoff!), they may not have gone to bed until 10 pm because they came down to visit us at the hospital that’s an hour away, and they are probably going to cry at some point during the day because…..well, their life stinks. And ME?  I got nothing for you.

I had so many days when the kids asked me to do something, come meet them for lunch, bring in snacks for movie day, something. And I had to say no.  The PTF group didn’t even ask me to volunteer for any jobs because they knew I was going to say no.

But this year is a new start.  This year is the first year I’m really starting to see the light at the end of this chemo tunnel.  I’m making some baby steps and some groundshaking steps into freeing us from the restrictive lives we’ve inhabited for the past 2+ years.

I can be a homeroom mom.  I can plan a weekend where I’m going to leave my kids. I can see a future that spans farther than the end of the week. I can try to recapture that mom I was before.

Yet, REALLY? I can’t.

Because, I will always be the mom of a cancer child.  I will bear the scars of that forever.  The part of me that sailed through life blinded to the mortality of children died with Peyton’s diagnosis.  I can’t go back.  I can’t close my eyes to that.  Ever.

In a lot of ways her cancer diagnosis changed my life for the positive.  I try very hard to glean every blessing out of it I can or it could cripple me.  I know that living in the NOW is all we have.  You have to hold tightly to the joys that each day brings, because we aren’t promised tomorrow.  God has a great plan. I seek my place in that.  I don’t always like it. I often throw myself on the floor in a tantrum and rage against what He lays in my path.  But like any parent, he grabs my hand, gives me a good solid shake and sets me back on my feet.

The visual of my life as a darkened path, with light only coming after I’ve walked a step is so clear to me.  It’s scary, frightening, the end is shrouded in the darkness of the unknown.  I hesitate and falter.  But I have faith that the next step I take is the one that the Lord laid in front of me.

I will put my foot into the darkness and my heart will be enlightened.

Please keep the many children battling cancer in your prayers.  Consider being registered with the bone marrow registry.  Give blood.  Donate to support our team for the Cure Kids Cancer Challenge, where our team will be walking in honor of Peyton and in memory of the many friends who lost their battles.

THIS is for Karalyn, who said I had to post cute pictures of Peyton to make up for the skeevy spider. What? I need more reasons to post pictures of my kid? Are you kidding me?

Make a Smilebox photobook

Me – high pitched girly scream

Spider – What!?  I’m just hanging here.  Lady, you are outside, this is MY domain.

Me – Will you stick around for just a second so that I can go get my camera and take a picture of you?

Spider – Sure, why not. Is the lighting good over here? Or would you prefer I move over into direct sunlight?

Me – No, this is fine. Just give me a second, ok?

Spider – K

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Me – Thanks, spider, great photo shoot. You belong in September’s Arachnaphobic Digest.

Spider – Thanks. Hey! What’re you doing?!  LADY, Put that DOWN!!!! Don’t, I didn’t hurt——”

Me – putting down…and get this…the POGO stick that I used to kill the monster.

Pogo stick = dead spider.

Come on, PETA, say something, I dare ya!

Scene: In the van, on the way home from school, feeling mighty happy about the quality of education my kids are getting.

Nathaniel: Mom?

Me: Yeah  < — do you hear that quality mom dialogue?  Oh yeah. Listen and learn, my friends.

Nathaniel: What is a serial killer?

Me:  Huh?  What the heck are they teaching you at that private Christian school?

Nathaniel: What’s a serial killer?

Me:  Um…well….would you believe its someone who gets really angry at breakfast foods and decides to murder a plate of pancakes?

Nathaniel: Mom.  Really.

Me: Ok. A serial killer is someone who is not right in the head and they go on killing sprees of killing a certain type of person or killing in a certain way. Something is just very very VERY wrong with these people.  Is there a reason you’re asking this right now?

Nathaniel: No, just wondering.

Ok, now this is the point where my head is sort of exploding. Oh Holy Moly!  Did Ted Bundy have this talk with his mom?  Did Mama Gacy ever have the “what do you want to be when you grow up” conversation with little John Wayne (which, if you name your kid that, expect problems from the get go…I’m talking to you there, people who name your kids Apple, Zuma and Pilot Inspektor) and get the feeling that Johnny wasn’t going to be a dentist or a plumber?

Why is he asking me this?

But I’m totally taken off that mental path when Rachael pats my arm.  She looks up at me with these big eyes full of worry.

Rachael: Mom, am I wrong in the head?

Me:  I’m going to say no on that one.  Do you THINK you’re wrong in the head?

Rachael:  I really don’t like a lot of breakfast. Will that make me a cereal killer?

* sigh *

Mommy’s future as a career planner?  FAIL.

Every year I give Peter to his mistress.  She comes in the late summer and stays until winter.  She is coy and fickle, leaving him often frustrated and angry, but few things bring him greater exhilaration.

I share this with you now because the NFL season is about to start.  And I am about to say goodbye to him again.  Perhaps it won’t be such a jarring departure since he won’t be here most Sundays to rage and crow at the TV.  He will be cozy in his football love shack in Alabama, spooning with his pre-game analysis and post-game wrap-ups.

Early in our marriage I realized that if I ever wanted to have a conversation with my hubs during football season, I was going to have to talk his lingo.  I would have to be able to argue the benefits of the passing game vs the rushing game, I would need to recognize the critical moment its better to chance the 2 point conversion. I would have to move beyond cheering for the team with the prettiest helmets.

The things I have done to make this marriage work.

The year came when I decided that I would no longer stand to the side and allow my husband to be stolen away from me.  I would put up a fight!

I joined his fantasy football league.

For those of you unfamiliar…relish your blessed unawareness….fantasy football is a game.  You pick and choose real life players onto your “team”, based on their action on the field “your” players put up points. You are playing against another team with their hodgepodge of players, hoping that your team puts up more points than theirs…giving you the sweet victory.  It all leads to the fantasy football superbowl, a trophy and smack talk privileges for the rest of the year.

Yeah.

I do this.

I am the only woman in our league.  I am given permission to enter “the man room”…which, seriously, the first year they asked me if I’d be ok with making my draft picks from the hallway…ensuring the sanctity of the MAN ROOM. I worked my estrogen laden mojo all over that place, using coasters and making sure the toilet seat was DOWN.  Last year I took a crock pot of dip. Next year it’s a PowerPoint presentation on the benefits of manscaping. I’m breaking down the wall.

I just want you all to know that I have a kick-butt team this year.

I am going to bring home the trophy for all the wives out there, making sandwiches and recycling beer cans, listening to their husbands give their hearts and souls to a bunch of 250 pound men in tights.

Cool Stuff today @

We are officially a trophy family.

That makes my kids trophy kids.

I get to be a trophy wife.  Heh!

Ok, so REALLY? We are a trophy-painting family.  In preparation for the Cure Kids Cancer Challenge benefiting the Pediatric Cancer Foundation in September, the kids and I joined some other local families all too familiar with the childhood cancer life to paint pottery tiles to be used as awards at the event.

Peyton.

Breakable, fragile pottery.

Bottles of paint.

If this isn’t a recipe for disaster I’ve never seen one.

But it was much fun to spend the evening with friends, the kids painted beautiful tiles, I painted “an adult painted that?” tiles.   And they’ll land in the hands of people who devoted a lot of time and energy and money to helping us fund clinical trials and research projects in the search for cures and better treatments.

If you’d like to support Peyton’s Cure Crew and give a donation to our family’s team, you can click HERE.

I believe in my heart that we’re going to find the answers and children like Peyton will never have to face the uncertainty of cancer again.

Check out these pictures: The tile painting party

And then see my BIG PRE-K age Peyton in these pictures for Special Exposure Wednesday at 5 Minutes For Special Needs.

And let me take you back to 2 years ago and remember how FAR she has come. Steroided up, mouth sores, constantly sick from the chemo, bald…that smile was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.