Hope4Peyton

Today is all about randomness.  No real reason, just lots of little bite-sized niblets of Mayhew goodness.

Sleep:

I had the chance to unload my kids on their Grandmother for the night and treat myself to a late night movie.  Movie was a no go…as SOMEONE should be skinned alive for not possessing the simple skill of telling time! I now possessed an empty house and all the time in the world.  I ran a luscious bath full of blistering hot water, sweetly scented bubbles, and a book that I anticipated would complete some empty part of me. I got in the bath and just sighhhhed in happiness.

45 minutes later, I woke up and the water was frigid, the bubbles had fizzled down to a waxy cloud and my skin texture put me on the short list for those California Raison auditions.  Unsatisfying in ways that I can’t begin to explain!

To make up for this travesty of relaxation, I went to bed practically giddy at the thought of a night of sustained, uninterrupted sleep! As my kids would not be dropped off at home until 11 AM, I was going to be sleeping long and late.

FOR REAL, people!  I woke up no less than 5 times in the night, trying to figure out what was so wrong…answer? It was too quiet. I can’t sleep without the fidgeting and squirming and all the heavy breathing in the house.  At 8 AM, I looked over at the clock, noted the time, took stock of the fully alert condition of my senses and shed a tear over the fact that I would not be going back to sleep.

My children are ruining me!
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Planning ahead:

My response to Peter, worried he’d get shot at during a confrontation? “Hey, if he comes in shooting, make sure to scream ‘Shoot to kill! Not to maim!’ Cause I get no insurance money if you’re in a coma.”

Was that wrong?
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Search Engine Keywords

One cool feature of StatCounter (which is the software that allows us to see how many people hit our site) is that it will tell us what keyword searches were used in a search engine to get to our site.  Some of these include:

“wetshirt tournament”
“Brad Richard scores”
“pepto-bismol for canines”
“EMLA cream past expiration date safe to use?”
“bum numb lotion”
“fanny paddled mom”

and my FAVORITE

“Peter Mayhew as +sasquatch”
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Stupid people at Starbucks

“What can I get that tastes like coffee?”

“Almost everything tastes like coffee.”

“Well, don’t you have like a coffee-flavored syrup or something?”

“No, we just have the coffee.”

“I want something that TASTES like coffee, but ISN’T coffee”

“Everything that we have that TASTES like coffee IS coffee.”

“But I don’t LIKE coffee!”

“But you want it to TASTE like coffee?”

“Yes.”

SPRWEWWERT!
That’s the sound my brain makes when it explodes and tries to ooze out of my ear.

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My and my Dearest Friend discussing last time we went out to the Melting Pot together

Me – Remember that time we went to Melting Pot?

DF – Ohhh yeah, we should do that again soon.”

Me – Remember that movie we were supposed to see after?

DF – Why didn’t we go see it?

Me – Because we fell asleep in your van in the parking lot of the Melting Pot, with our zippers undone, trying desperately to digest enough food to make it to an upright position again. We argued about which one of us had to try to roll over and get a phone to call 911.

DF – Oh. Right. Yeah, we should definitely do that again soon.  OHH, Maybe for my birthday.

Me – Because nothing says “Happy Birthday” like a stress-induced bursting of the upper intestines.
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Why Nathaniel will always be Peter’s favorite

Pete – I like being bald now

Nathaniel – You’re not bald, Dad, you’re thinning

Because the words NOT BALD and YOU’RE THIN strung in the same sentence make the clouds part and hosts of angels sing in Peter’s head.

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Another reason why Nathaniel will always be Peter’s favorite

Nathaniel – I want a Batmobile

Peter – (giddily!) Want to build one?

Nathaniel – In real life?

Peter – YEAH!

Nathaniel – Cool.

Because we should all have someone who lives to indulge our particular brand of crazy. Even if we have to breed them.

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And finally, the reason Pete HAD to get in the car and drive home this weekend to get loving, hugging smooches.

“I miss you, Daddy.”

Yes, those are tears. And yes, she’s 4.  Pretty expressive, huh?

My Dearest Friend came to visit and spend the night with her dear hubby and 3 outrageous kids.  All was fun and loud and bursting with activity…until it was time for them to take off to see the sister of Dear Friend’s Hubby.

DFH – I don’t know why you told her we’d come.

DF – I ASKED you first, before I even called her.

DFH – She doesn’t even talk to me.

DF – This could be that time, then.  They want to see us.

DFH – Hmmph

In trying to not be involved with this interaction, I watched DFH fiddle around with some of Nathaniel’s toys, little army guys just sitting on the table. The more irritated DFH got about the impending visit, the more he messed with the toys.

Until he’d done this:

Do you sense hostility in this relationship? You judge.

Family support group night at the Children’s Cancer Center.*

Sounds fun, huh?

Sort of has that “Let’s go shove glass shards under our nails and then kick puppies” kind of good time feel to it.

And I wouldn’t lie and say it isn’t a difficult place to be. Fact of the matter is, we are parents dealing with children of many different cancer diagnosis’s, we know that our outcomes will vary and the potential is there that tomorrow we could be comforting any of the people sitting around the table…they could be comforting me.

With the loss of children over the past few months, there is a strange emptiness there for me. Friends I expect to walk in the door don’t anymore.  It’s sad and I miss them.  I still talk to them. We call, email, grab meals….but this was our place, our nights to be together and they are missed.

Unfortunately, with each family that has to go to the bereavement group or families that are out of treatment and are able to move on (that ROCKS, that’s not unfortunate) there are new faces, new children, new stories to tell.

The children play totally at ease, never a concern for the bald head, the walkers or wheelchairs, the pale, bruised faces that scream “I’m sick!”…things that so often bring unkind or glaringly obvious stares and whispers other places…or, sometimes worse, that look of abject pity. Parents can talk with the knowledge that they are surrounded by people who GET their struggles and pain, that they have come to a place where they don’t have to guard their words and fears. Siblings meet other kids who are relieved to be out of the shadow of sick brothers and sisters.

We sit around with coffee, eating snacks and talking about issues. And the issues vary, they are physical, emotional, social, financial….they are about the doctors, the hospitals, the family, the relationships, the workplace…it is wrenching and painful, yet we are able to giggle and laugh and crack the most horribly inappropriate jokes. We cry together and we celebrate together.

I love this place.  This place that I would give anything to never have had to set foot in.  I wish it didn’t exist for the fact that children didn’t get cancer, but because they do I would get down on my knees and thank each person who makes its existence possible.

Thank you, CCC*

**Check out their site, click on the floaty cloud link that says “Siblings” and check out my crew!

“In most marriages there is a 50% chance of divorce. In marriages where there is a child with a life-threatening disease the rate goes up to 80%.”

Peter and I were sitting at our very first cancer group meeting of any kind at an American Cancer Society R.O.C.K. weekend in Orlando. At Disney World. Oh yes, we were sitting in the happiest place on earth being told there was an 80% chance that by the time we got our child to the 5-year survival mark, our marriage would be on the negative side of that statistic. Hubby leaned over at that point and whispered in my ear, “Please don’t leave me.”

As IF!

Not to say that there hasn’t been points when either one of us wanted to just reach over and slap the stupid right out of the other.

He’s been whiny, complaining and unhelpful at times.

I’ve been a horrific excuse for a wife mean, demanding and overbearing at times. (Shut it!)

And that was BEFORE we got cancer dropped in our laps. Yes, it all got worse.

There was a conversation between the two of us. I don’t remember exactly when, but it was early on into Peyton’s chemo treatment and I realized that I was being an absolute…well, there’s only one really direct word for it and I swore to my mother I wouldn’t swear on the site, so I can’t say it…but I was being THAT word. I felt so tired, so guilty and too tired to deal with the guilty.

I remember telling him that I was exhausted, petrified, overwhelmed, always on the verge of freaking out and losing it completely. I told him that I was giving 90% of myself to Peyton and her never-ending needs, 9% went to Nathaniel and Rachael and reassuring them they still had some semblance of a mother in their lives (although I’m pretty sure my brain was so fried at that time I was beyond being able to use any multi-syllabic words, so this is all paraphrasing)…that last 1% was for me and if I didn’t keep that 1% I would be nothing. I was going to be crazy and angry and because I couldn’t take it out on anyone….not the kids…the cancer didn’t care…I only had him. I warned him that he was going to take the brunt of all my frustration and emotional upheaval without getting anything back from me, because I was tapped out.

Do you know what this man said to me? With his 80% right to tell me I’m a lousy wife!

“It’s ok, I can take it.” That’s it. That was all he had to say. Just that.

This my marriage makes. Can I just tell you that for all his human flaws, the moments that he didn’t give me what I needed, the times I wanted to bury his head in the drywall in irritation, the arguments, the fights, the frustrations…THIS is my perfect husband.

I can’t tell you number of times he held me while I cried, shared his fears with me, listened to me go on and on and on about whatever. He’s held my hand through painful moments that threatened to break me, he tries his best to soothe the angry part of me that has to accept that this is the life we have. He makes me laugh when no one else possibly could. He lives with my crazy need to control everything, he forgives my mess-ups that trying to control everything causes. He accepts that we live 400 miles away from each other, endures life without his family in his home because he knows my fears and anxieties about a move at this point in our lives are more than I can handle. We share the heavy burden of parenting in crisis and we’ve made it this far.

So when people ask me how it is being a single mom with Peter not here, I have to think that I have more husband than most women who have a male body in their home every night.

The Bloggess is a bad influence!

Of all the people in the world, THIS is what I got.

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