bake sale for fighting children's cancer

Sometimes I don't win mother of the year.

More than just sometimes.

Tayler woke up one Saturday morning and informed me that she was fighting cancer today.

Okay...

Tayler does this.  When she brought home her snow cone maker (here) she started printing out fliers to come to our house and buy a snow cone for $1 to save the animals.  She put pictures of various endangered species on it.

I nixed it.  I wasn't comfortable with our address being plastered all over everywhere for strangers to show up at our house and give us money for a cause I didn't know how to support.  Does that make me a bad mom?  At first I didn't think so.  I was doing my duty to keep my family safe from strangers.  And I'm not at all comfortable with the idea of selling people things.

So on this Saturday, when Tayler told me she was fighting cancer, I didn't take her too seriously. 

"Oh yeah?  How are you going to do that?"

"I'm gonig to help with a bake sale."

"Is this a group that's putting this on?  Is it a part of something?"

"Me and my friends were talking about it at school and we want to do it."

Suddenly my walls went up.  If it wasn't part of an organization...
"Is an adult helping you?"

"No..."

And then I got mean.  Except, in my protective mother's eyes, I wasn't being mean, I was making a point.

"Okay, say I let you help with this bake sale (I was still doubting that it was actually even going to happen if there was no adult or organization to make it "real"), what are you going to do with the money?  How exactly is this going to help fight cancer?"

"I don't know..."

"Tay, I can't let you go." It was supposed to be at a boy's house.  A boy I didn't know.  No one was helping them.  Where were they going to get baked items to sell?  Who was going to watch them as they tried to sell things to strangers?  It was a fiasco and I didn't want my daughter to be out in it.

Tayler ran upstairs to her room where I heard deep heartfelt sobs coming from her. 

What point was it, exactly, that I had been trying to make?

Because I don't think I made it.

West, who had been sitting in the next room looked at me as I walked down the hall, on my way to Tayler.

"She's just trying to do something good," he says.

Having the pride issues that I have I replied, "but it isn't real.  It's not a real function.  And even if they do manage to earn money... where's it going to go?  Who's going to take care of it?  I'm not going to support adding money to another persons wallet because they let their kid have a bake sale in their front yard and then didn't know what to do with it."

I went up stairs where I found sobbing Tayler sitting with her back against her dresser, knees up to her chest, head on knees.

"Tay..."

What do I say?  I was struggling with my walls and inner issues and with the fact that this little girl just wanted to help those who were sick.

Finally I said, "Tay, if you really want to help fight cancer then you and I can sit down at the computer and google until we find a real way to help.  We'll find something that you can be a part of."

She numbly nodded. 

I went downstairs, not feeling any better about myself, when there was a knock at the door.

A little group of boys was on the porch asking for Tayler.  It was time for the bake sale.  I looked at that group of boys and thought, if all of these kids are pulling together to do this, then how can I say that  it's not real?

Tayler went to the bake sale. 

And me, being the horrible mother I am for breaking her heart, along with West, bagged up a bunch of cookies that we had just purchased at Costco that morning from the bakery and dropped them off at the bake sale.   Where I found a small group of third graders, including Tayler and Sean, who were so excited by every car that pulled over.  Tayler was all smiles as I handed her the bag of cookies.

"Thanks Mom!"  And she began to arrange them on the table that a much better parent than myself had set up for them.

  West and I went grocery shopping and I made sure I got change when I paid.  On our way home we stopped by that bake sale again, and bought our cookies back.

I learned a lesson that day.

A lesson that taught me that just because I'm older, doesn't mean I'm wiser. 

A lesson that taught me that just because she's nine, doesn't mean that she doesn't have plans for this thing called life.

And those plans are big.  And good.

Shouldn't I, as her mom, be the one cheering her on, instead of sending her sobbing to her room?

When Tayler came home she was all smiles.

"Mom!  We made $42.50!"  And then she handed me a heavy grocery sack. 

"What's this?"

"It's the money, Mom.  You said you would google and help me to find a way to help."

Those words hung heavy in the air for me.  I had expected the "hosting" parents to do, or not do, something with the money.  And yet here Tayler was, handing it to me with high hopes.  Man that girl's heart is solid gold.

I can't even begin to tell you how foolish I feel for fighting her on this, and I was determined to make it up to her.  So I emailed my friend Jennie, who's daughter is in remission from cancer, and I asked her what I could do with this money, specifically for fighting childhood cancer, being as these kids were the ones who pulled all of this together.

Right now Jennie is earning money for her Cure Search Walk for Children's Cancer team.  She gave me THIS LINK to donate to her team where "the money (raised) will fund and support collaborative research to find a cure for all cancers affecting children."

Jennie also shared this video with me to show to Tayler.



Tayler is donating to Cure Search.

Can you?