Spring Fling is an event that our school holds each year to raise money for things like expansion, repair, special programs and it was today. Rachael’s dance class performed, Nathaniel ran around playing games and winning prizes like a maniac and Peyton flitted from business table to business table scoring swag like balloons, notepads, pens and candy. This was an opportunity for us to socialize with lots of friends and support our school at the same time.
It’s been a year where things have had to be sacrificed. I was used to being very involved at the school, actively volunteering for PTF, attending class parties to help whenever I could, last year I read to Nathaniel’s class every week, and just being able to give of my time to the school. This year I haven’t been able to participate in hardly anything, I’ve gone on one field trip for each kid and I’ve missed almost every class party they’ve had. Either Peyton wasn’t well or she was at the clinic or something came up to keep me from being able to participate. So, this was a day that we could take the whole family and show our love of this school family that has been there for us in so many ways this year. I wasn’t expecting for us to have a special blessing today, but then I never do and they continue to rain down on us.
Troy is a little boy in Rachael’s kindergarten class and his father is the preacher at Riverdale Baptist Church. His cousin Lauren Dion, middle-school age, had been keeping up with Peyton’s story through this website and she decided to have a fundraiser for Peyton. Lauren, with the help of her cousins, family and church had a yard sale and presented me with over five hundred dollars today for Peyton. This was such a touching moment, to watch all these kids excited to meet Peyton (yes, she inspires a Beetles-type hysteria wherever she goes) and to receive the money from this young girl with a hugely compassionate heart.
Stories have come in from parents of kids in all grades, those who see and talk to Peyton daily and those who only know her as “that little girl with cancer”. Kids who donate their snack money, kids who raid their piggy banks for pennies, kids learning the importance of helping others in need. I told someone today that I never wanted Peyton to get sick, I would give anything to be able to make her well right this second, but if she’s putting a personal face on cancer for these children in a way that is going to impact them forever, then there is so much good to come of it. We need to make sure they have compassion and love in their hearts and the CBCS kids, especially, have it in huge quantities.
"We laugh in the face of cancer!"
I have 40+ shoe boxes on my garage floor! That might sound like a strange hobby to some, but hey, don’t judge! Actually, the school used the shoe boxes for their poor man’s auction and they let me have the boxes so that we could use them for our Relay auction. Sweeeeet! I think that with all the places I still have to visit we are going to have more than enough items to use all those boxes and that is awesome all the way around! Our Team, who’s goal was to have 10 members, has 25 members today. I am so grateful for the friends and family who are coming to join us and make this day wonderful! It’s more than raising money for the American Cancer Society, or walking around a track, it touches me because these are people who are getting involved because they love Peyton.
So, I have to end this post and go referee a fight between Rachael and Peyton. I can hear them screaming in the bedroom like two cats dipped in hot wax. As you can see, because you’re still reading, I’m not all that concerned. The amount of noise they generate while fighting can be measured on the same scale as shuttle launches and hurricane force winds. I’ve figured out from the few words I can make out through the screams and wails that the argument is over a Ziploc baggie. I’m taking my time because I refuse to rush for plastic.
f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
—-Anissa
Ps….I have to share that Peyton’s getting pretty full of herself lately. Her new response when she doesn’t want to do something like taker her medicine or clean up her toys “But I don’t loooove it!” Yeah, well, welcome to life, kiddo.
