As I'm driving on 75 this morning, traffic came to a dead halt at the I-4 juncture. I'm just sure it's a massive wreck and we'll be here for days eating candy and snacks hiding under the seats that have fallen out of backpacks and lunchboxes. I'm not too worried, I'm sure we could last for at least a week. As I get close I saw the most amusing thing. It looked like a human version of the game Frogger. Two guys were dashing in and out of traffic picking up metal pieces of something that were scattered across 3 lanes of traffic. They had obviously dropped boxes off their truck and they exploded like pinatas, sprinkling their tire-puncturing goodness everywhere. They would hang at the side of the road and then make a mad dash into stalled traffic, grabbing as many metal whatsits as they could hold (which were apparently quite prickly from the looks of pain on the men's faces) and then they'd run back and dump then on the weeds. They'd catch their breath and then do it again. Occasionally a car would decide that they just couldn't wait the 36.5 seconds it took them to run back across the road and would almost hit one of them. I had the joyful experience of seeing one of those cars get an instant karma smackdown because just a mile down the road they were pulled off to the sie with flat tires!!
We had to be at the clinic for a finger stick this morning. Because, really, we couldn't find anything else we'd rather do! The first thing I’m told when I get there is that the nurses have had a meeting about us and there’s been a decision made about our maintenance plan. I was a little worried because maintenance is at least 4 months down the road, so what could they have had to discuss now? Maybe they've decided we didn't need to do maintenance because she's such an exceptioinal child. Cindy tells me that they’ve come to the conclusion that although normal maintenance schedule would include a clinic visit every other week, Peyton has to go every week! I started to think, WHY!! And then Cindy says “Because we just figured we miss Peyton too much, so you guys have to come in every week to see us.” Now, torturous yes, but how sweet is that?
I, in turn, let the nursing staff know that because tomorrow is Peter’s birthday and we have plans for the day, Peyton’s CBC will not dare come back less than stellar. See, it didn’t dawn on me what I was doing today. We have been planning for Peter’s birthday all week. The kids are in school, our friend Chris Toth is babysitting Peyton, and Grandma will pick up all the kids and keep them in the evening….all so Peter and I can take advantage of some Busch Gardens tickets we were given. This is something we’re seriously excited about, we haven’t been to an amusement park together without kids since EVER! But it was all hinging on the results of that CBC, because I didn’t even put it together that if she needed blood or platelets, we’d be doing birthday at the clinic instead. Absolute killjoy, trust me. I love them, they’re awesome people, Shiekra they’re not. I told Cindy firmly, “Unless she’s down to the last few piddly drops of blood her body can produce, we’re not coming here tomorrow”. She laughed at me, because our nurses have the best senses of humor of anywhere on the planet, and said “Alrighty”. Peyton had “good blood” today, the CBC results were not great, but enough to get us through the weekend!
I met friends Kathy and Kim for a quick lunch and after we paid the bill, Kathy starts stressing because she locked her keys in the car. She knows this because she can’t find them anywhere in her purse. We tease her about the memory being the first thing to go. Come to find out, it’s worse than we all thought. She hadn’t actually locked her keys in the car, she hadn’t locked the car, in fact…..she’d left the keys in the ignition and the car running the whole time we ate lunch! I thought I was going to be sick to my stomach I laughed so hard. Nice to know it’s not just me. Yesterday when I was at the superwal-mart, I went out the “food” doors when I’d parked at the “stuff” doors….and I walked and walked looking for my car…it took me way too long to remember that I’d parked on the other side of the store….not as long as it took me to actually trek all the way over there! They need a tram system at Wal-mart. Getting old really stinks!
So pray for us tomorrow as Peter and I go to Busch Gardens, that we don’t fall and break a hip or something in our old and feeble years. We’re looking forward to a fun day together, and I am thankful beyond words for the people who provided tickets and childcare so we can go.
f.ro.G…..fully relying on God
—Anissa
ps…I truly considered shooting my radio today. There was a St. Judes marathon of "let's tell gut wrenching stories and make people CRY while they're driving so that next week we can have a Gieco marathon of commercials for all those people who got in wrecks!" It was wretched for me and I hope they made lots of money for the hospital's research and all those sweet kids who need the care, but can we NOT do it during rush hour on 60? Please?
ps.s. I had posted about how much we as a family loooove bubble wrap. I wanted to share that fun on to you all!
