The day I move over to the new blog.

I’ll also let you in on a little secret….I slack, therefore I am…usually.

So, check out the other site I’m launching with some of my very best bloggity buds.  It’s cool and funny and I like to think of it as the mothership blog that landed in my backyard and said “take me to your leader” and I was too lazy to send them anywhere else.

Thank you. For everything. For caring and reading and being a part of our lives here.

I hope I see you soon.

XOXOXO

Anissa and the whole Mayhew gang

My inner sixteen-year old said, “WHOOOAAA! That’s a dirty trick and an invasion of my privacy and don’t you trust me?” *insert ear-wrenching amounts of whining*

My outside mom said, “WHOOAAAA! BEST.IDEA.EVER!”

I mean, I want my kids to have some freedom when it comes time for them to start driving, but more importantly, I want their safety and the ability to step in if I see them pulling total douchebag moves like, oh, say, LYING ABOUT WHERE THEY’RE GOING TO BE.

Maybe that’s just me.

I’m getting to participate in what should be both a fun and interesting opportunity while in Chicago at BlogHer.  Ford is taking a group of us to their factory and giving us a tour of their production line, letting us try out some of their new technology and to show us how they’re handling the needs of consumers in quality, fuel efficiency, the environment and technology.

WHAT WOMEN WANT VEHICLE TECH AND QUALITY EVENT….which sounds great, right?  And I really would tell you that what I want in a car is decent gas mileage, enough storage space to haul three kids and all their misc crap, and reliability.

But, after reading some of the upcoming technology they have coming in their 2010 line of cars? Maybe I do want more.

Because you know what I want now? It’s called MyKey.  And for any of you with teenagers driving your car, you may want to LISTEN UP!

This is a safety precaution that’s going to be standard in the 2010 line of Ford vehicles…and it may be one of the best weapons in the war with your teenage driver I have ever heard of.

You, as the owner, can program the MyKey that your teenager *coughor husband*cough* uses…and it limits the vehicle’s top speed and…AND?….the max volume on the radio.

Dude.

Seriously?  I would have hated that as a teenager.

However, having recently known about a car-full of teenagers that died in a wreck caused because they were a) speeding and b) driving like morons….I can’t stop my kids from potentially being idiots while driving, but I will do whatever necessary to teach my kids to respect the fact that they’re driving a gas-filled bomb on wheels.

I could use your help here in telling Ford what women want in a car…what technology would you like to see?….are you more concerned with the effects on the environment?…are you worried about safety and reliability?…tell me what you want in a car and I’ll be taking those answers with me to Ford and letting them know what’s important to all of us.

Thanks!

**and again….I’m not being paid by Ford to tell you about this stuff….they are putting me up in the Chicago Sheraton for an extra night because I have to fly up early and they are feeding me while I’m with them for the event…no payment.**

***which doesn’t mean I’m not totally going to do my best to get them to sponsor me and some friends for a road trip, because WHY NOT?***

***or that I wouldn’t take a free car.  I’m not proud. Tell me you wouldn’t.***

I have these moments where I sit at the computer completely unprepared to write and then suddenly words just start pouring out of my fingertips, occassionally those have been my favorite posts.

THIS? Is not going to be one of those times.

Because holy canolis have I been the mad crazy busy.

We have been here a month and only one weekend has gone by that we haven’t had overnight guests. We’re setting the trend here, people.  We’ll leave a light on for ya!

I’m trying to get organized because I fly to Chicago next week to make a FOOL of myself with bunches and bunches of my blogger buddies. A fool? Nooo, I can’t believe it you might say.  You *might* say that, right? Ok, so I will admit that no one that has ever actually met me would say that.

I am going to be sharing so much information over the next week about my BlogHer plans and my BlogHer experience and OHTHEPICTURES…they will be coming. I have a whole thing coming up about the awesome companies that are either sending me to BlogHer or dressing me for it.

I know. Dressing me. For real!

For example? **Lane Bryant sent me to pick out a cocktail dress for one of the party nights…and I got this piece of YUM. To wear. Which I will every day for the rest of my natural born life.

There’s a whole Ford thing, HP, Yummie Tummies, and on and on…but gushing about all that’s for a night when I’m not about to drop comatose onto my keyboard.

Because I spend all day working on stuff that I can’t tell you about.

Go ahead, you can call me a nasty tease if you want to.  But I SWEAR it’ll be worth the wait.

Well, maybe not, but I promise there will be cookies, k?

**and for the sake of transparency, because people are all aflutter about naming brands and stuff, Lane Bryant did NOT pay me to write about their clothing. They did offer me a gift card to go and shop at the store and see if I found anything I liked for BlogHer. They’re just really lucky I found THAT dress!**

Today marks three years to the day that Peyton was diagnosed with Leukemia.

Our most craptastic anniversary.

Over the past 36 months, I’ve kept a Bible verse in the header of this site.

It was three years ago TODAY that verse came into my life.

I was curled up in one of those awesomely comfortable hospital chairs *snort*, just looking at Peyton.  All curled up in her large hospital bed, looking small and vulnerable in a way I’d never seen before. I remember tracking all the lines and IV’s that tethered her to the bed…whispering which was antibiotic, which one was fluids, which one was platelets…learning the words, memorizing the order, my mind holding tight to one of the few things I could understand.

Peter had gone home to be with the older two kids, Peyton was firmly in a drug-induced sleep, the room quiet and dark….and I let go.

I had cried off and on all day.

In the house, crumpled on the floor of our bedroom after telling Peter what the pediatrician had said.

In the oncologists office, watching them probe a needle deep into Peyton’s bone and hearing her pained cries.

On a bench outside of the clinic, absorbing the words that confirmed what everyone knew to be true.

Explaining to my family and friends that she had cancer..no, there was no mistake…it was true…I don’t know…I don’t know….I don’t know anything…but she has cancer.

The first night alone in that hospital room, in the kind of quiet that allows you to hear the beeps of every machine, the muted shuffles of footsteps just outside the door, voices murmuring foreign words…I cried.

I cried the tears of a mother begging God to not take her child. In all my years, I have never cried in such a way. I hope never to again.

There have been so many crying bouts, tears for Peyton, tears for myself, tears for my family, tears for the other children and families battling cancer and especially the ones that lost the fight.

But nothing compares to that first night in the hospital.

And God answered me.

Not in the way I wanted. I can be real honest in the fact that I begged and pleaded and demanded that He fix it. Take it away. Make it GONE.  There was nothing humble or respectful about the conversation I had with God that night. It was angry and full of my resentment for what he was doing to me baby girl.

He answered anyway.

When the nurse came in later to check on us, I asked for a Bible.

It was the sorriest Bible I’d ever seen.

It was a beaten up, wrecked book with tear-stained pages…torn in places…ripped in others…it was a well-used Bible. It was a Bible that belonged on a pediatric oncology floor.

I didn’t have anything in particular I was looking for, I wasn’t even sure why I’d asked. I had no intentions of really getting into any reading at that point.  I think I just wanted to hold it, to clutch it like a drowning man would swear to never let go of that last plank of floating wood.

And the Bible fell apart.

It freaking fell apart.

A whole chunk of it just FELL.OUT.ONTO.THE.FLOOR.

I remember thinking “Wonderful, the Bible fell apart, that’s got to be a GREAT sign.”

And I bent over to retrieve the scattered pages and my eyes caught one verse on one page.

Romans 12:12.

Rejoice in hope,

Be patient in tribulation,

Be constant in prayer.

I can’t say that it comforted me, that it filled me with the knowledge that everything would be OK and confidence that we could do this.

But that verse spoke to me and clarified that although there was nothing I could do for my daughter’s body, I could do these things….and God would handle the rest.

The years that followed have seen many conversations with God that reverted back to demands and anger….confusion at HOW this could possibly be what He wants spilling out more time than I can count.

But, always, that voice that lets me know that there’s power infinitely beyond mine that’s calling the shots and understanding what seems incredibly wrong to my narrow thinking.

Even though we’re on this side of that day…remission, good-health, survivorship…the 13th still holds incredible power over my heart.

It reminds me how fragile our lives are.

How large the lie that we control anything.

How quickly it can all change.

But my verse? It’s power is strong as well.

How big faith can be.

How powerful God is.

Although I will never tell you that my faith keeps the fear at bay or my anger under control, it’s what has kept me from giving up and allowed me to get out of bed every morning (well, most mornings).

It’s been what allows us to keep laughing, keep living thought it.

It always will be.

Pete gave me the I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that-and-I-think-you-might-be-utterly-insane-and-I-can’t-quite-believe-I’m-married-to-a-loon-like-you.

I know. That’s quite a look isn’t it? You should see it in action.

“Anissa. It’s been eighteen months.”

Well…it DID seem fast there at the end! Eighteen months or not, it was a strange mix of time flying by me and moments that couldn’t pass fast enough.

Part of that? Is my inability to cope with change.

I know, I know. I’ve really done noting BUT deal with uproarious change for the past few years and that goes a long way to how well I handled the whole job/move/lifechange.

It took me eighteen months to get a grasp on moving and actually embrace it.

EIGHTEEN MONTHS.

Well, I have another pretty significant change coming up.

Again, it’s been in the works for a long time, but the actual execution both thrills me and freaks me O.U.T.

I’ll be retiring this site soon.

There. I said it. I’ve alluded to it, I’ve hinted at it and I’ve known in my heart that it’s the right time to do this….but that’s the first time I’ve come right out and said it.

I’m going to stop writing at this site.

This site that has given me a place to dump my fears, my laughter, my happiness and my anger.  This site has been a place where I both gave and recieved tremendous support.  This site became a part of my family…it became a huge part of my identity.

When I started writing in this space, I had no idea where it would take me.  I was a frightened mother trying to make sense of concepts that were mystifying…cancer, chemo, my child’s mortality, my role in it, would we survive it, would she?

It was never supposed to bring in an “audience”, nor was it supposed to spark a creative need that had lain quietly inside me.  It wasn’t supposed to become my voice anymore than I was supposed to become a writer.

It all just happened.

Now I’m planning to move to another internet space.

A place that won’t be a daily reminder of the cancer that has BEEN our lives for so long.

A place that I’m hoping will let me start healing from the fears I live with every day.

A place that my two children not named Peyton won’t feel slighted.

A place that won’t make me feel like I’m holding onto it because I’m going to need it again.

A place that will allow me to talk more freely because there are things I’ve felt awkward talking about or sharing because this site is so much intertwined with the lives of other cancer kids.

I won’t shut this site down, it’ll still be live and available for any family that comes along searching for a flare of hope. I can’t say that I won’t ever write here again after I move to the other site.

But it’s time.

I’ll share the new site information soon.

In the meantime, I’m gritting my teeth and getting ready for another big change.

I hate change.

What?

Are you talking to me?

Are YOU talking TO.ME?

And I don’t mean that in a Robert De Niro sort of way, I mean that in a oh-my-holy-freaking-heck-I-am-partially-deaf-NOW sort of way.

Why would I be partially deaf you might ask?

I totally wouldn’t answer you because I.CAN’T.HEAR.YOU.

My friend Natalie drove up from Tampa and we pinky blood oath swore to take our girls to the American Girl store *kicks self in ass for not thinking of this idea first and raking in the unbelievable amount of $$$* for an afternoon of gleeful girly goodness.

The cause of the deaf?

There is a level of squealing that doesn’t just burst the ear drum, it actually makes the ear drum disintegrate into microscopic bits that travel up the ear canal, enter your brain and eat it from the inside out.

There are few events that can cause that sound to occur….boy band appearances and American Girl stores.

Should you be the unlucky witness to a boy band appearance AT an American Girl store? Run for your everloving life.

But for all the brain-eating squeeeing and rushing madly back and forth between clothes and accessories and books and movies and furniture and scooters and OHMYGOSHdidyouseethebackpackIjusthavetohavethatNOWNOWNOW! it was so much fun to watch Rachael just losing her mind in a shopping frenzy of indecision.

Did I mention that Rachael’s Kit doll totally got her hair done? In a chair? By a doll stylist? Costing $10? For a DOLL’S.HAIR. Seriously, by a chick who gets paid to live the dream of playing with dolls for a living.

That doll is so much better groomed than I am. Not FAIR.

*sigh*

No matter.

Because, in return, I got this:

Totally worth it.

Food.

Fireworks.

Fun.

Fiftybazillion kids.

We hosted.

We cooked a lot.

We ate a lot.

Bang! Boom! Pow!

Ohhh. Ahhh.

I are teh tired.

So, here are the highlights of my weekend. In order of age.

Elaine

Katie

Stephanie

Nathaniel

Rosemary

Rachael

Peyton

We had a pretty good-looking weekend, wouldn’t you say?

I’m not one of those online entities that rolls up into a little ball upon face-to-face interaction…I actually like people.  I have friends!

In fact, this is the year that my very best friend and I will offically have been friends longer than we haven’t….did that make sense? We’ve known each other longer than we haven’t in our total lifespan.

I have friends from three high schools I attended…middle school even!…friends from my single-wild-and-crazy days…most of my ex-roommates…even a few ex-boyfriends…I have mommy-friends AND daddy-friends…friends from the cancer world…I’m almost a better friend to Peter’s friends than HE is…blogger friends…I have LOTS of freaking friends! <—dude. ego much?

But the whole point of expressing how well-adjusted *snort* I am is to say this:

I have this strange non-urgency about making any more friends here in teh GEORGIA.

Ten years ago Peter and I and a wee bebe Nathaniel picked up our meager possessions and moved cross country from Florida to Colorado.  It was traumatic.  We had one car (that Pete took off to work every day), a tiny apartment (that he seemingly never came home to because he was off enjoying his new job where they had grown-up conversations and played foozeball tournaments on Fridays) and a new baby (who was staggeringly cute, but not so much a great conversationalist at that point).

There may or may not have been some curling-up-on-the-closet-floor type weeping bouts…followed by those wonderful, loving conversations that involve the words “I” “hate” and “you” and the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes.

I was desperate.

Desperate for people to talk to, women to connect with, someone to be a friend to me.

And I met a group of the ugliest, mean-spirited, back-stabbing gaggle of  wretches to climb out of the rotting crypt of girlfriendhood and waved my arms and screamed “OOOH MEEE!!! Pick MEEEE!!!”

It took a few months before I backed off and gave them the stink eye, letting them know in no uncertain terms that I thought they were totally and utterly C.R.A.Z.Y.  Which I might have said in THOSE exact words, directly to their faces.

Did I mention these were all the wives of the guys Pete worked with?

Yeah. Good times. Corporate Wife FAIL.

They made me appreciate the art of not having to have someone in your back pocket all the time.

I’ve made tons of acquaintances over the years, people who I enjoyed for the time we were together…but I’ve made some tremendous friends that I’ll hold onto forever….friends that are like the Louises to my Thelma, Ethels to my Lucy, the Daytime Emmy Awards to my Susan Lucci and my own personal brand of Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Sisters of my heart.

And thanks to the wonderful world of the interwebs, I have them….all day, every day, five thousand times a day in forty-nine flavors! Calls, texts, emails, IM’s, Skype, Google Groups, twitter, facebook, carrier-freaking-pigeons…I am NEVER alone.

I like it.

I’m good with the fact that I don’t have to see my people all the time for them to still be my best people.

So, it’s been three weeks here and I haven’t even tried to make more than mildly pleasant small talk with anyone I’ve met.  I barely make eye contact with the kid who hands me my Starbucks…I just can’t…it would feel too much like I’m cheating on Jim back at the Brandon Starbucks…I MISS YOU, JIM!

And I wonder if when I start meeting people I’ll even be interested in taking the time to get to know anyone.  Will it feel worth it to start weeding through to those particular people I’ll actually connect with?  I don’t even feel like I have the time, energy or motivation to go through another Colorado fiasco. Am I officially just too damn lazy to make friends? Or is there a point where your dance card is full and it’s OK to feel complete in the ones you have?

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

Oh, and on a totally different note, I’m also over at Deep South Moms today, irconically enough, writing about my newbie expectations of BlogHer09 and how I’ll be meeting lots of new people.

But it deserved space all it’s own.

Counts were INCREDIBLE!!

Still cancer free.

Possibly the best three words ever.

I so want to get this made into a shirt for her to wear. EVERY. DAY.

Yeah. My kid is that awesome!!

I dreamed that she relapsed and I couldn’t go on my trip. I was suddenly plunged back into the world of chemotherapy and treatment and being a fulltime nurse and you know what I did?

I spazzed out about not being able to go on to my blogger convention.

Oh yes.

My dream self threw a monumental hissy fit in the face my child’s disease and got ugly about not going to CHICAGO.

For real.

Well, not REAL, but in-my-dream-real.

And I woke up wanting to punch myself in the face.

Is it possible that I could truly be THAT selfish?

Is there a special place in hell for parents like me that resent their sick kid for being sick?

PUNCH.IN.THE.FACE.

But after thinking about it, searching deep, I had to admit that I would be monumentally unhappy if she relapsed and I missed the conference.

Why WOULDN’T I be?

It’s not just the conference, it’s the life we’re starting to have again.

It’s the world that doesn’t revolved around daily medications….making plans only to know that chances are good that we won’t be able to see them happen….having Nathaniel and Rachael’s lives turned upside down as their needs are always put on the backburner while we take care of the life and death issues Peyton faces.

It’s nothing exciting, but it’s just….simple….plain….normal.

Things normal families take for granted. Things it wouldn’t occur to them to even think of as extraordinary.

“WOW, we really ARE all sitting around the table having dinner again.”

“It’s been six months since we’ve been to the hospital.”

“Her hair might need a trim.”

Replaced with cancer…steroids…shots…surgeries…hospitals…watching my girl lose her oh-so-very-proud-of-it hair…with tears this time around…the pain and fear in her eyes…the pain and fear in mine…the unknown…the unthinkable.

Yup. Angry. I would be angry. I would be boiling with rage so fiery it would threaten to consume my very being.

And I think it’s possible that if I were able to channel all my anger into one measly missed trip?  I’d be entitled to it.

But it was just a dream.

And I still sort of want to punch myself in the face.