I've never been more of an, er, donkey

I have always been Republican and proud of it. Granted, I consider myself to be a very liberal Republican (no overturning of Roe v. Wade on my schedule but wouldn't catch me attending a pro-choice rally either) but still, quite elephant-like in my political leanings. I guess I've always attributed Democratic qualities to slackers, twirlers (my pet name for the Deadheads & other such concert going, spinning-in-front-of-the-stage-until-I-want-to-puke-and-I'm-only-watching-them folk my husband used to hang with) and people who didn't know any better. And then came Senator Barack Obama.

The man inspires me. Listening to him speak gives me goose bumps. I listen to his speeches. The simplest of them are expansive and global yet appeal directly to the small town heart in each of us. Everyone talks about his charisma. He certainly has that. Long before the Kennedy's jumped on his band wagon I had been telling Daddy-O that Barack Obama reminded me of how everyone talked of JFK's charismatic presence. (Bah, on all that Clinton = Camelot hooey! Although the Clinton White House could certainly have used a few more chastity belts!)
Daddy-O has been skeptical and very slow to come around.

Oh, I also like the man's politics. Mostly, I love that he's a different kind of politician. I like that he thinks Americans are smart enough to be told the truth about what it takes to run a Country. And that he wants us to know that truth. And best of all, that he believes that once armed with knowledge, we Americans will make the right decisions for our Country and for ourselves.

There is a hidden benefit to that kind of empowerment. Ownership. Ownership of our political system. Ownership of our Country. Ownership of our future. Ownership of our present. Perhaps that mutual ownership is all that's needed to bridge the racial divide that splits our country? This is the only country in the world with hyphenated titles: African-American, Mexican-American, Cuban-American. I've never heard anyone call themselves a Canadian-American or an Australian-American. Perhaps when there is more Trust and Ownership in our political system everyone living here will actually feel that this is home. Maybe then we will all just be Americans.

Can one man do that? Can Barack Obama restore the people's faith in government? Can he cut through the decades of deceit and half-truths that have grown from the seeds sown during Watergate? Can he bridge the divide between the blue & the red? The elephants and the donkeys? Can he do it? I don't know. But I know that when I think of listening to him speak for the next four years as President of the United States I feel warm inside, and safe, as if all things are possible if we only believe.

Make me a drink and pass the ice pick

D has been channeling a vacuum cleaner all day long - apparently one with a 2 pack a day habit and a motor badly in need of servicing. And when I say all day, I mean ALL. DAY. LONG.
He woke this morning with a pretty decent vacuum imitation. That lasted through breakfast. Shortly after breakfast I was weary of the vacuum noise - already beginning to sound like a grumpy bear. So I broke out the Play-doh. We made balls, and squares and circles and pretend cookies. But the cookies led to crumbs and, uh-oh, out came the vacuum again.

I can't figure out how to get him to stop. I ask him to stop. Nope. I tell him to stop. Nothing doing. Use his quiet voice? Now it's a Cessna, not a vacuum. Let's go to your room and be a vacuum. Humph. Someone taught that child how to walk and open a door. Let's sing some songs. They're all sung in Froggy's voice from Little Rascals. I give up and retreat to the bathroom for a few minutes of peace and muted environmental noise.

B had his buddy over for a play date. So I packed all the kids up and took them to McD's praying that the vacuum would stay home. Alas, no such luck. He vacuumed with unfettered joy all the way to town. He vacuumed in between bites of chicken nuggets. An 11 year old girl actually walked by us and said to me "Can't you make him shut up?" OK. After I picked my jaw up off the floor and got over the nerve of some people's kids, I guessed she had verbalized my feelings exactly. It just sounds much better in our own heads then coming out of some punk kid's all-knowing mouth.

And yet, for 12 hours today, my poor ears were subjected to a heinous amount of industrial noise issued from the mouth of my otherwise sweet, enjoyable child.

For your own listening enjoyment...

Does anyone know how to make it stop??? Because I'm about a half hour away from shoving an ice pick in my ear to stop the pain!!!

Good luck, good rest and good riddance!

The day has finally arrived. Tomorrow is the day we've all been praying for. Susan, WhyMommy to some of you, will finally have her double mastectomy.

Tomorrow marks a different direction for Susan's life. After tomorrow, she will be cancer free! Susan has fought a long and hard battle to get to this place, never thinking of herself but of her kids. The trauma of losing her breasts is, I'm sure, a small sacrifice for the pleasure of watching your children grow to adulthood.

Yet it is a trauma still. It's a trauma just as hard to digest as our soldiers returning from war minus various limbs courtesy of IEDs. Only her injury is courtesy of Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) and hers will save her life. Susan is a warrior also. She fights the good fight every day and battles an enemy that is invasive and insidious for the benefit of those who come after her - her children, my children, your children and grandchildren.

A warrior's battle is not without sacrifice; sound sleep, sound body. Yet Susan has willingly and bravely fought this battle against IBC, thinking continually not of herself but of those who come behind her. She has fought tirelessly to inform the world of the underhanded nature of Inflammatory Breast Cancer. She is a hero. And tomorrow is her reward!

So, WhyMommy, I wish big cyber hugs for tomorrow. I'll be thinking of you all day. Get lots of good rest afterwards... and good riddance to IBC! Good riddance to chemo! Good riddance to cancer!

Please, if you have some spare time, stop by and wish her some luck before she heads into battle.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I know because I've tried.

So, a friend at work had told me a while ago about this article called "Don't Waste Your Cancer" by John Piper. She mentioned it to me after I had introduced her to this post by PunkRockMommy. I finally looked it up on the internet.

Geez, what did I ever do without the internet?

John Piper is a very smart man. He very eloquently put into words something I've been lamely trying to relate to people for a while now. So, here is "Don't Waste Your Cancer" by John Piper.

MINNEAPOLIS (BP)--I write this on the eve of prostate surgery. I believe in God’s power to heal -- by miracle and by medicine. I believe it is right and good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it is healed by God. He gets the glory and that is why cancer exists. So not to pray for healing may waste your cancer. But healing is not God’s plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I am praying for myself and for you that we will not waste this pain.

-- You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.

It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, He permits for a reason. And that reason is His design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, He can stop it or not. If He does not, He has a purpose. Since He is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design. Satan is real and causes many pleasures and pains. But he is not ultimate. So when he strikes Job with boils (Job 2:7), Job attributes it ultimately to God (2:10) and the inspired writer agrees: “They ... comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). If you don’t believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you will waste it.

-- You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). “There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel” (Numbers 23:23). “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

-- You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.

The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians. Some count their chariots (percentages of survival) and some count their horses (side effects of treatment), but we trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:7). God’s design is clear from 2 Corinthians 1:9, “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on Him.

-- You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.

We will all die, if Jesus postpones his return. Not to think about what it will be like to leave this life and meet God is folly. Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning [a funeral] than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” How can you lay it to heart if you won’t think about it? Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Numbering your days means thinking about how few there are and that they will end. How will you get a heart of wisdom if you refuse to think about this? What a waste, if we do not think about death.

-- You will waste your cancer if you think that “beating” cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.

Satan’s and God’s designs in your cancer are not the same. Satan designs to destroy your love for Christ. God designs to deepen your love for Christ. Cancer does not win if you die. It wins if you fail to cherish Christ. God’s design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help you say and feel, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And to know that therefore, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 3:8; 1:21).

-- You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.

It is not wrong to know about cancer. Ignorance is not a virtue. But the lure to know more and more and the lack of zeal to know God more and more is symptomatic of unbelief. Cancer is meant to waken us to the reality of God. It is meant to put feeling and force behind the command, “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6:3). It is meant to waken us to the truth of Daniel 11:32, “The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” It is meant to make unshakable, indestructible oak trees out of us: “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:2). What a waste of cancer if we read day and night about cancer and not about God.

-- You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.

When Epaphroditus brought the gifts to Paul sent by the Philippian church he became ill and almost died. Paul tells the Philippians, “He has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill” (Philippians 2:26-27). What an amazing response! It does not say they were distressed that he was ill, but that he was distressed because they heard he was ill. That is the kind of heart God is aiming to create with cancer: a deeply affectionate, caring heart for people. Don’t waste your cancer by retreating into yourself.

-- You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope.

Paul used this phrase in relation to those whose loved ones had died: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). There is a grief at death. Even for the believer who dies, there is temporary loss -- loss of body, and loss of loved ones here, and loss of earthly ministry. But the grief is different -- it is permeated with hope. “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Don’t waste your cancer grieving as those who don’t have this hope.

-- You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.

Are your besetting sins as attractive as they were before you had cancer? If so you are wasting your cancer. Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination -- all these are the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack. Don’t just think of battling against cancer. Also think of battling with cancer. All these things are worse enemies than cancer. Don’t waste the power of cancer to crush these foes. Let the presence of eternity make the sins of time look as futile as they really are. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:25).

-- You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.

Christians are never anywhere by divine accident. There are reasons for why we wind up where we do. Consider what Jesus said about painful, unplanned circumstances: “They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:12 -13). So it is with cancer. This will be an opportunity to bear witness. Christ is infinitely worthy. Here is a golden opportunity to show that He is worth more than life. Don’t waste it.

Remember you are not left alone. You will have the help you need. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).
--30--
Copyright 2006 John Piper. Used by permission. John Piper is the pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn. For more information, visit www.DesiringGod.org.

I couldn't agree more.

When it rains it pours

It's been a rough week for some people I know.

My cousin has finally seen her specialist, her very own "Dr House". She definitely does not have MS. He thinks it might have been a stroke 3 years ago that caused her problems. He believes there may still be a partial blockage or a slow blood leak that is causing her to continue to decline. She will be undergoing a large battery of tests and will get the results next month.

When she heard "House's" diagnosis she turned to her mother and said in a very small voice, "You mean I'm going to stay like this forever?" It just breaks my heart.

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The best man at our wedding, Steve, lost his father last weekend. Daddy-O and I went to his memorial service on Wednesday. Though I had only met Bill a time or two, it was one of the more difficult services I've been to. And also one of the more enjoyable. Bill was a larger-than-life man. He packed the house and brought out the best in everyone. I'm sorry I didn't know him better.

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Perhaps worst of all, is Judy. She has been recently diagnosed with IBC. That's hard enough to deal with when you're the mom of a 6 year old. But today she received some particularly difficult news. She could use some support.

And I'd be grateful if you added them all to your prayers.

I hate it when that happens

It's nice to know that it's not just Americans that are gun shy about terrorism and bombs and stray, unaccompanied packages and such these days. But really, shouldn't one take the location of said suspicious device, and perhaps the probability of it being a terrorist target into consideration before calling in the bomb squad. Or maybe even, gasp, call the home owners. I'm just sayin'.

The sun.

As I carried D out of his bedroom the other morning we paused in front of the wall heater to warm ourselves.

"Oooh. Can you feel da sun?", he asked.

I always do. I always do.

The ABCs of preschool

I sincerely hope the first 11 days of 2008 are not going to set the tone for the entire year because I have been entirely too busy and waaaaaay too broke. On the other hand, some good things are happening around here.

D started preschool this week. While he's not 100% sure he wants to go before he leaves home, he seems pretty ok about it once he's there. Our WonderSitter is acting as an aide for him (hopefully only for a month or so transition period) which is a blessing. He enjoys most parts of the preschool day, especially outside play, with the exception of circle time. For some reason it really distresses him whenever the class sings. And he loves singing. I'm not sure what the issue is.

In other D news: He has become a complete mina bird. And not in a good way. He and I will be playing on the floor just happy as can be... when D will pull back and burst out with a boisterous, "Got damt!" Nice. Fast forward to preschool where his teachers are Teacher Kelly and Teacher Janet. When D says "Teacher Janet" is sounds just like "Teacher Damt". Nice. Perhaps we don't really need preschool. He already knows his alphabet. Just how cute is this little man? And smart. Don't forget that, damt.



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In non-toddler news: I got my port-a-cath out on Wednesday. It feels good to have the last connection between myself and chemo severed. I hope I never have need for it again. The nurse asked if I wanted to take it home with me. Ick. Why would I want to do that? No one asked if I wanted my boob in a jar. Now that would have been a much more interesting conversation piece. Don't you think?

Happy New Year v.2008

I am playing along on a universal meme from Sherry of Sage and Thyme. I really like the subject matter.

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Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

• Share 5 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog. or

• Share the 5 top places on your "want to see or want to see again" list. or

• Share 5 things you never pictured being in your future when your were 25 years old.

Tag a minimum of 5, maximum of 10 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

The tagees have a choice of which they want to do.

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TOP 5 PLACES I WANT TO SEE

1. Africa~ I have always wanted to go. I want to see the animals migrate on the Serengeti.
2. Yosemite~ Daddy-O and I have never been and it's virtually in our backyard. It's shameful.
3. Great Britain~ The history, the architecture, the warm beer (not so much).
4. Egypt/Israel~ The great pyramids, to experience the Bible "on location"...
5. New Orleans~ pre-Katrina. alas, not in my lifetime, I fear.


5 THINGS I DIDN'T PICTURE IN MY FUTURE AT THE RIPE OLD AGE OF 25

1. Breast cancer~ I put too much stock in my family history
2. Being married to Daddy-O but still being great friends with the man I dated at 25 (& his wife).
3. Having a handicapped child. I thought life would be perfect, of course.
4. Working for the government for almost 18 years and counting.
5. The role the Internet would play in my life.

I would like to tag Susan, Kim, Sarah, Canape, and well, I don't know any other bloggers well enough to tag them. Somehow it feels all impositioning and such.

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In other news, we had a bit of a rager here last night. There was copious amounts of alcohol consumption (I made my first Chocolatinis) and much partner groping. Generally, a good time was had by all. As proof I submit these photos into evidence.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Welcome 2008!