Hope4Peyton

Ok, I said I wouldn’t do it, but I’m really bad at anything involving self-control.

Especially when it’s something good!

So, here’s my big news!! DA-Da-DA!!

I’m pregnant!!!!

Kidding. Total lie. NOT pregnant. Not even close to pregnant.  As far from pregnant as you can humanly be without being a man.  NO babies.

The bank finally agreed on our house offer.  We don’t have a contract yet, but they’re going to put one together and if all goes well….the planets align…ducks stay in a row…the proper amount of virgins are sacrificed…we’ll be getting a house.
Now, last time I did this, I got all WHEEEE! And I got you all whipped up into a great big frenzy of WHEEEE right along with me.

And then.

The house fell through.

THEN?

I ate enough Girl Scout baked goods to send at least four of those little cookie-pushers to camp.

In ITALY.

And I swore that the next house would be a 100% secret until the day we moved in.

REALLY? Have you met me? PFFFFt.

So, we have an accepted offer…because it’s a foreclosure house we have to get EVERYTHING done in 10 days: inspection, financing, appraisal…everything.

Holy crap. I’m a little light-headed just thinking about it.

But here is what I said I wouldn’t do…pictures of teh house!  Soon-to-be MY house.

*these are just a few of my favorites, so YES there are some cute little bedrooms for the girls…two of them in fact…but they’re pretty boring right now, so just imagine square rooms with closets and windows…and there ya go…and as you can tell, I REALLY love mah new trees*

*sigh*

I know, is pretty, right?

Cross your fingers.

**ps…I was told that calling Girl Scouts “brats” was offensive…so I have gently reworded.  I’m very sorry if I offended anyone that is the parent of a Girl Scout and for any future Girl Scout troop leaders that might come into contact with my daughters. They cannot be held accountable for their mother’s stupidity. Please forgive.”

I will generally and honestly tell you that my husband is smarter than me.

But there are so many different kinds of smart.

I’m more street-savvy smart.

Peter’s more intellectually-book smart.

I’m smart…in a make-things-happen-by-sheer-force-of-my-will-sort-of-way.

Peter’s smart…in a look-at-things-and-just-understand-how-they-work-sort-of-way.

I’m smart…in a if-it-goes-right-get-people-to-think-it-was-my-idea-all-along-kind-of-way.

Peter’s smart…in a if-it-goes-wrong-get-people-to-think-it-is-their-fault-kind-of-way.

HOWEVER.

AND, frankly, MOST IMPORTANTLY.

I am smart….in a DO-NOT-turn-on-the-AC-fan-in-my-office-when-there’s-been-a-dead-rat-stuck-in-the-ceiling-recently-sort-of-way.

Peter….yeah. Sadly, not so much.

******************************

Care for some free ice cream?  I’m giving away some Haagen-Dazs over at the Mayhew Review.

**UPDATE!  Have returned from clinic with wonderful, beautiful, amazingly good counts, so my fears have been relieved for now.  I know that this isn’t the end of all my crazy, but it does mean I’m good for another month.  As if PMS wasn’t bad enough.*

Last night scary things happened in my house.

Peter and I bunkered down to watch a movie that involved flesh-munching, rabies-infected, zombie-like humans.  As a good friend let me know, there are certain things that it’s always ok to cheer if they die: Nazis, aliens and zombies.

I want to take this moment to AGAIN wonder why my husband, who gets queasy during ER and has been known to stand up and walk out of the room when I’m watching “Trauma: Life in th ER”, feels the need to rent these kinds of movies.  He’s not so good with the blood and gore and gristly body parts….let alone the creatures that are making lunch out of them.

Me?  I dig ’em!

Him? Not so much.

Yet, again, he asked me to watch it with him…repeatedly…mostly because it was dark and he wanted to watch it alone than any need to spend “quality time” with me. *imagine creepy music interlude here*

And yes, bodies were mutilated.

Yes, gallons of blood were sprayed, spewed and splattered.

There were even some fairly suspenseful moments.

However, THAT is not what kept me awake all night.

Awake all night, with my heart sort of pounding and my mind racing.

That wonderful experience was due to Peyton waking up in the middle of the movie crying. That her legs hurt.

Nothing ever, no monster under the bed, no evil in the closet, can make me break into a cold sweat faster than those words.

For those of you who are uninitiated to the full expanse of my craziness, let me fill you in.

The two nights before Peyton was diagnosed with her Leukemia, she woke up crying in the night of leg pains.

And I scoffed. I gave her some Tylenol and sent her butt back to bed. I was totally unaware of the cancer filling her body.

I’m not so lucky this time.

Her ongoing string of mild infections (pink eye and strep) over the past couple of months have been making me a little nervous as it is.  THIS? After finally calming down after last month’s nerve crunching fiasco in the clinic, is driving me to a full  blown panic.

She’s been sick, she’s had leg pains bad enough to wake her in the night.

Nothing to an average parent.  It’s cold and flu season.  They’re growing pains.  They’re inconveniences.

For a long hours last night…what will be long hours until we go to the clinic on Tuesday to get blood counts…they are symptoms and signs to a hyper-vigilant cancer parent.

Peter and I said the words to each other that parents are supposed to say.  We know that it’s probably nothing and her counts will be fine tomorrow.  She’s just tired and she walked a lot at the mall.

She’s fine.

And then we look into each others eyes and we know it’s there in the back of our minds.

Lingering.

Suddenly, the rest of the movie isn’t so scary anymore.

“I think I’d like to shave my head for Peyton.”

Thousands of people are participating in St. Baldricks events around the country.  Shaving their heads in honor of children who’ve batttled cancer, raising money for life-saving research.  If you’re interested in participating or attending a St. Baldricks event, you can get more information about one in your area on their site. (and you can see lots more pictures of the event we participated in on my Flickr)

My kids? Make me so proud.

And because they do, I thought I’d exploit share more of their shiny moments.

Mark of Manhood from Anissa Mayhew on Vimeo.

This Little Piggie the way you’ve never seen it before from Anissa Mayhew on Vimeo.

Those are the fruit of my loins.

Let me just say it again: P.R.O.U.D.

Nathaniel: Hey, mom, you know that in, like, five years I’ll be able to drive.

I SWEAR every time he says something like that I can feel another hair going gray.  It’s not even funny anymore.

Me: If you’re lucky.

Nathaniel: Dad says I can have his car then, and it goes really fast, so I think it’ll be awesome!

Dad apparently thinks it’s a smart idea to give a sixteen year old a car with a supercharger that hauls way too much butt for this mama’s brain to even consider as an option.  I’m thinking maybe a 1982 Geo Metro…and I’ll still probably want a Lojack system installed.

Me: Yeah. Um. Probably not.  If you’re so all fired-up to drive you can drive this van.

Cause nothing says COOL to a sixteen-year-old like a mini-van with stow and go seating…right?

Nathaniel: THAT would be AWESOME!!!

Me: errrr, whaaaaaa?

Nathaniel:  Just think of how many of my friends I could drive around in it and I could be the one to drive us everywhere and we’d have room for all our stuff and be able to do all sorts of stuff—”

Now I’m entirely positive that HIS idea of “stuff” and MY idea of “stuff” differed in every possible way.  He just doesn’t really think that way yet…I hope. But all of a sudden my mind flashed through scenes of him with six of his sixteen-year-old-hot-head buddies headed out into the night with a van that has all too much space and a back seat bench that folds down into a bed-like structure and OH MY GOD NO!!!  GEO METRO!!!  SCOOTER!!  SEGWAY!!  BUS PASS!!

Me: Please stop talking, Nathaniel. You’re making mommy’s brain fall out.

Nathaniel: Oh. Sorry about that.

Me: No, it’s ok, I’m sure you’ll do it again some time soon.

Sweet quiet.

And then.

Nathaniel:  Do you think I’ll have a girlfriend when I’m sixteen?

Like I said, SOON.

FAST FORWARD FIVE YEARS

Nathaniel: Ladies, step inside the Mayhew Mobile of Loooove! Oh, watch out for those spots, those are where my mom’s brain finally DID actually fall out of her head and I’ve just never been able to get the stains out of the upholstery.  Got any music preferences? Everyone likes Barry White, right?

***********************************

Which seems like an appropriate place to show off an award given to me by Jen at Sarcasm in a Skirt, and she gave it to me for “showing great attitude or gratitude”.  Which MAY or MAY not have been awarded before the post of how I threatened to leave my kids behind in an empty house without running water or heat in Georgia. Maybe. But she gave it to me and I’m NOT giving it back!

And I’m supposed to link to 10 other bloggers who are awesome and wonderful and show a lot of heart, but I’m going to twist it around and ask you to leave me a comment sharing a blogger YOU think has a great attitude so I can go check them out. Which is totally more fun for me and well, it IS all about me, right?  *snort*