Would YOU let this woman homeschool your child?

I generally wake the kids with a minimum of sensitivity, a light thrown on and a quick “Get up, get up, get up” will do the trick. But this morning I felt compelled to jump right in bed with Rachael and snuggle down with my cuddle bunny. If you can get past the hellacious morning breath, she’s all warm and cozy and one of the sweetest ways to start the day. Since I’m the bearer of my own ferocious morning breath, we were both tucked in with a blanket between our mouths, grinning at each other.

“Hey, what do you say we just let you skip school today and we lay here all day and not do anything?”

“No!! I can’t do that? Then I won’t learn anything. I HAVE to go to school.” <–SO NOT MY CHILD.

“Well, maybe we should just quit school forever and then we’ll sleep in every day and not do anything ever again, then we can lay in bed forever!”

“Noooo! If I don’t go to school then I’ll be STUUUUPID, mom. I have to go to school. But, you could homeschool me, then we could sleep in every day.”

“I don’t think THAT will keep you from being stupid.”

“Well, then we should probably get out of bed, huh?”

“Yeah, probably.”

She’s already more motivated than me. I love that kid.

Peyton, however, put up a grand fight at school. She did great getting dressed, getting out the door, getting into the school….right up until about three steps from the door of her classroom. “Wait! Do you mean all this getting dressed and driving me to school with a backpack business was because you were planning to make me stay here?” She proceeded to crumble into the consistency of wet tissue paper and curl into a ball in my lap. She magically made her whole face turn magenta and made spots appear all over her forehead, but I managed to leave her there. Leave her there curled up under her table. Crying. UNDER her table. Yes, I left to immediately accept my award for parent of the year! I stood outside the building, where the teacher knew I would be standing for 10 minutes in anticipation of her spontaneously combusting after which I would be needed to return to scrape her charred remains off the ceiling.

Luckily, a classmate’s mom came out and let me know that she had calmed down, was no longer crying, had emerged from under the table and was begrudgingly putting together a puzzle. Not happy about it by any means, but had gotten past her “Girl, Interrupted” phase. She stayed until 2:45 when I got the call that she’d woken up from her nap crying and wanting me and I took off thrilled that she’d made it almost the entire day!

She’s doing much better than she was over the end of this past week. Thank you all for your powerful prayers. Her color looks better, she’s already feeling better from the steroids even though her appetite continues to amp up. She’s still tired and a little more emotional, but she no longer looks completely drained and wiped out. She is complaining tonight that her back and her legs are aching, so I gave her some pain meds and she’s all smiles after that kicked in and she had a nice warm bath. I did notice that she had a bunch of eye lashes come out this month, not so many that you’d notice from looking at her, but I kept noticing them on her face. I guess the body just handles the chemo meds differently from month to month, and sometimes the buildup all hits at once.

Please keep prayers going for the many children fighting this cancer battle, for the survivors who live to be the shining examples of hope, for the lost that inspire us to fight harder and harder for a cure. I ask for special prayer for Mathew Gliddon and his family as they face this next uncertain phase of treatment following his second relapse. I add the request for prayer for Emily Lester. She is a sweet 18-year-old young woman that we’ve had the pleasure of meeting that was diagnosed with ALL Leukemia at age 12. She completed treatment, but relapsed and received a bone marrow transplant at St. Jude’s in 2006. They found out this past weekend that Emily has relapsed a second time and she is being send to St. Jude’s again for treatment. So many need our prayers, it’s hard to single out just two, but please keep these two names, Emily and Mathew, in your conversation with God tonight.

f.r.o.G….fully relying on God
–Anissa

Don’t ask what happened to these pictures, the camera was on the wrong setting and everything came out a little hazy…just squint a little and turn your head a little to the left and they all look fabulous.

The classic toothless 6 year old picture, love it!

This is what happens when you get your hair cut by committee!