Go Blog Yourself

There’s a lot of pressure on moms. Pressure to be better than the moms of the past. Pressure to do it all. Well. Better than well. It starts with pressure to have the perfect birth and then God forbid you choose to be a stay at home mom, a title I think every mom secretly loathes, there is the pressure to keep a beautiful home, perfectly beautiful children, cook healthy, and inventive meals, volunteer full time at your children’s school, have a better body than before you had kids and a have a blog to prove it. Apparently it’s also en vogue to be a slacker mom, slacker homemaker, never cook or volunteer, as long as you are freaking hilarious. Blog still required.
Turns out there’s a lot of pressure to be the perfect mom to your dead child, too.
First, you must start a foundation in said child’s name, immediately upon their death. It must be fabulous and inspiring and worthy of mention on Oprah or Cookie Magazine.
second, you must run your first marathon or do your first tri. (At the very least you need to quick, drop the weight that you gained while living in a hospital, watching your child die, or, which you probably didn’t gain if you were the perfect cancer mom and kept up with your exercise regime.) You will need to form a team in your child’s name and you will need to raise large sums of money for the previously mentioned foundation that you formed.
It’s also important that you get in as many interviews as possible so that you can raise awareness for (insert disease) and (insert foundation). When interviewed, shed the appropriate amount of tears so that you look like the picture of the grieving mother that we want to see. We don’t want to see the grief stricken mom in her pajamas at 3:00 in the afternoon, on her fifth cup of coffee or 1st glass of wine, that can’t finish her sentence because she doesn’t even remember what she was talking about. Please, get your shit together.
And don’t forget, you need to write a book. You need to get it published in the first year or else it’s yesterday’s story.
I’m not being critical. I’m doing all of the above in one form or another. We are working on our foundation. I may, indeed write a book. I someday hope to ride in a grueling ride to benefit our hospital. Lord help me if I don’t lose the weight I gained while living in the hospital. Am I doing these things because of self imposed pressure I feel to honor Tuesday’s precious and much to short life? Is it pressure because that’s what I see other parents doing? Do they feel pressure because that’s what they see me doing? I am working on our charity because I want Tuesday’s spirit to live on. So that she is not forgotten. Ever. I want to see her name everywhere and I want you to have to see it too. (Yes, I get the irony. No, she wasn’t born on a Tuesday.)
But what about the mom who doesn’t want the Foundation or the marathon or the book or the anything that requires more of her than basic survival of the unfathomable? What does she do with that pressure? You can say that no one is judging, but I see the magazines in the grocery store check out (ok, so I don’t ever grocery shop) and I know that people are concerned that John Travolta is still so upset a year later and whether or not, for Marie Osmond, “the show should go on.”
I don’t know. Guess I’ll go work on the Foundation.

Thanks to all of you, Team Tuesday raised $16,285* for St Baldricks.

Thanks to Autumn Burke for making us all look so good!

*and counting, you have until the end of the month to donate if you’re feeling generous.

My name is Spencer. Tuesday is my sister. She died of cancer and I want to shave my head to make a difference for other kids with cancer.
Thank you for your pledge.

If you don’t know about St. Baldrick’s, you should.

If you haven’t donated to Spencer, you should.

If you haven’t donated to Team Tuesday, you should.

If you have healthy children at home, go hug them.  Be thankful.  You should.  And then go donate, because, really, you should.

If you want to go bald for Team Tuesday, you can (click on the green Participate with this Team link).

If you want to go bald for a child in your area, you can.

Emily, thank you so much for starting this team in Tuesday’s memory.  Joe, Grady, Kyra, Finn, Keegan, Kevin, Aidan, Brennan, Julian, Cole, Spencer and Mason, thank you for doing such a brave and honorable thing.  You are good people and you are making a difference.  You should be proud.  I know we are.

Julie and Autumn, thank you for your talents and kindness.

Come out to Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock on March, 19th at 2:00 pm.   Or find an event near you.  You should.

“Go tell it to your blog.”
I just overheard that on Phineas and Ferb, so, ok. Here ya go.

Nothing like a Bloody Mary and mashed potatoes for dinner to put me in a blogging mood.
It’s been a banner week for Neuroblastoma. Celebs are Tweeting and re-tweeting about it and FB’ers are FB’ing about it. It’s very in. Meanwhile, real-live families are watching their children in various stages of intense treatment, or dying from this disease. Or maybe they’re sitting in a trance on their couch because they tweeted and FB’d and watched it and lived it and are still a bit numb. It’s not so glamorous on this end. For us, it’s always “in”.
But I’m glad it’s out there. I think. I’m not Glad, but, you know, whatever. Thanks Tom and Ryan, and Gaga, (or do you prefer Lady?) and Kim (ok, is she really a celeb?) Thanks for spreading the word. We’d really like your money too. You can make a HUUUGGGGEEEEE difference if you cough up a little cash. There are thousands of kids out there with cancer. Aprox 10,500 diagnosed just this year. Your beautiful Hollywood babies might get cancer too someday. You have the power to do something big. We all really should try harder for a cure. A cure that’s not at as horrid as the disease.
Ok, rant over.

Since you’re here, let’s take a look at the rest of the highlights from the RV journey. This is after leaving Florida and heading to New Orleans. I loved New Orleans. I’ve been there for Jazz and Heritage Fest, but didn’t know how family friendly it would be. Very! Go there. Take your kids. Stay here if you’re in an RV. Tres Cool!
Texas, you win for best sunset.
New Mexico, you’ll always be a favorite of mine.

New Orleans, Louisiana

9th Ward

San Antonio, Texas

Kerville

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Roswell, New Mexico

“America, fuck, yeah!” Go see it. (America, not Team America, World Police)

So…
We’ve been back for 6 weeks and we are still searching for structure and stability. Because life moves fast, we had to jump out of the RV and in to school and work and whatever it is I do with my days.
Head down.
Just keep moving.
It’s good to be back. It’s hard to be back. Tuesday is gone. Her things are not gone.
Piper totes around twin dollies in a purse. Turns out all our dolls are twins. She only plays with them as twins. I’m glad she can heal thru play, but, oh, my heart.
Still one day at a time.
Piper and I went shopping last week.
She threw a penny in the fountain and wished for her back. I threw a penny in the fountain and wished it worked that way.

Layla Grace, Bethany, and Sydney are three little girls who are all in desperate need of prayer tonight. Three of thousands. Neuroblastoma. Tweet that.

And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one weak creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up.

-Charles Dickens