Sit right back and I'll tell you a tale.

Don't hate it too hard, it's still in the beginning stages. Constructive criticism is welcome.

Past Due

"You probably don't want to know the things I can do to keep your attention." he said. He couldn't have been more than 19. I don't know if you're like me, and have thought of these things, but you never think you'll say what actually comes out of your mouth when surprised with a stranger in your house in the small hours of the night. I believe I told him something like "Please don't take my TV." Never mind my daughter, Ellie, sleeping upstairs. I was trying to keep my breathing parallel with the tiny snores I heard coming from her baby monitor. I just didn't want to focus on the young man sitting across the kitchen table from me. He was so god-damned normal. Short, dark, curly hair and big green eyes offset how he was keeping his mouth. I wouldn't say he was frowning. He was just sort of not emoting in any direction.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

I suppose I should tell you about how far back we lived from the road. I should mention that my husband worked nights. I kept odd hours because of the hours he kept. Well, I kept as odd of hours as I could with a 2 year old in the house. We had just moved to this house 4 years ago. My husband said a fresh start begins with fresh air, and I believed him. Ellie was proof of that I guess. I was doing dishes when I turned around to be greeted by my gentleman caller. He just walked up behind me and pulled the headphones right off of my head. I don't know why I didn't scream. Maybe my subconscious knew no one would hear anyways. Maybe I felt safer because I could hear Ellie snoring away on the monitor and knew he hadn't hurt her yet. After I dropped and broke my grandma's coffee mug, he walked between the sink and I and slowly ushered me to the seat furthest away from the kitchen door. He never touched me, just kept walking towards me, not saying anything. He took the seat across the table. We sat in silence for about 20 minutes before I mentioned the TV. Then I got ballsy and yelled that if he's not going to talk I'm going to refuse to believe he was even real. He sort of smiled and then said the line I suckered all of you in with.

I folded, unfolded, and folded the dish towel in my hands after he spoke. God damn if I couldn't feel every single muscle in my body when he started digging in his front pants pocket. It pains me to say it because it's so cliche, but it's true. Time slows to a crawl in times like these. It turned out he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. I almost cried I was so relieved. He lit a cigarette and sucked up a whole lot of smoke and then blew it at the window, fogging it up.


"You're going to tell me about yourself."
"What?" I managed to squeak out. He repeated himself. "I'm 30. I live in a small town. I'm a mother and a wife. I have one child. I-" I was glad when he interrupted because I hadn't even breathed I was so nervous.

"No. You're going to tell me everything." Smoke poured out of his mouth as he spoke.
"Oh."

I didn't know where to begin. Don't get me wrong, it was as fresh in my mind as if it had happened this night instead of 5 years prior. It was just a mass of images in my brain. I wanted to sort them out before saying anything. He had been such a difficult baby, from conception. I didn't sleep because he didn't. My husband was picking up overtime to get away from the crying from both of us. He was so tiny. Never thought I could hate something so damn tiny. I can't rightly say I was even aware of what I was doing until it was silent and I was so relieved. That relief made my stomach turn. Maybe more than the relief made my stomach turn. I know the vomit on the floor led the cops to believe I was in shock and I didn't remedy anything they said that was wrong in regards to cause and effect. What always struck me as funny is I didn't sleep much after, either.

The young man across the table finally smiled. I didn't even get a chance to say a word. I kid you not, he was acting like he could read my mind. We stood simultaneously. He got really close to me. His eyes were at my level and he just looked at me for awhile. My legs felt all watery, but I didn't break his gaze. I couldn't give in to shock anymore, I think I had used up my share that's allotted for a life. It was so, so quiet. Silent. I knew that silence. My legs righted themselves and I pushed past him to climb the stairs. I couldn't care about him anymore. I don't tell this part much, because I don't know if it was real, but I swear it was like his body broke apart when I ran into his shoulder.

"You had to know this was coming!" he yelled up the stairs after me but I barely heard him. I thought I was going to knock Ellie's door off it's hinges with the way I tore it open. It didn't matter though. It didn't change anything. I don't care how fast I got up the stairs. There was a little girl lying in bed in her Buzz Lightyear pajamas, but Ellie was long gone. They don't look like a sleeping doll when they go, you know. Don't believe that if that's what they tell you. They don't.

My husband and the rest of the world didn't look at me the same after that. I don't really want to get into that, though. You know what? I don't tell most folks this either, because I'm not sure if it was real either, but when my husband was dragging me from her room, I saw her window was smoky, and someone had written "See you around, Mom" in it with their finger. But that can't be real, right?

TV's flashing blue shapes on the wall.

It's a comedy of errors, you see. It's about taking a fall.


I'm using Elliot Smith lyrics to relate to Yo Gabba Gabba. Folks, my life has come full circle.

Today was supposed to be a day of cleaning. Dexter was supposed to go visit his Grandma. When she takes him it's usually from around 9 or 10am, and she keeps him until 4:30 pm. This is so nice, and not only because of all the free time. When we were living with them, she actually said she couldn't watch him so we could go grocery shopping because, and I quote, "We're watching Lost, and you kind of have to pay attention to that." Basically, I had to take my infant son out in the cold and rain so she could watch a recording of a tv show. A recording she could pause, if she wanted to.

Ok, I better not let this spiral into how selfish and irresponsible everyone but Steve's Grandparents have been his entire life. I should focus on how nice it is that she's trying now. It'd be nice if she could get a handle on the fact that she gets fall-down drunk twice a week, but I am under the assumption she's sober when she's with Dexter, so I can't fault her at present.

In more local news, I'm considering opening up an Etsy shop. Does anyone know if this is worth it? It's going to be crocheted stuff. It's probably going to get lost in the sea of great things on Etsy already, but if I'm going to be crocheting anyways, why not try and make some money while I'm at it, right? Does anyone have any Etsy advice for me?

Anyways, as I was saying, today was supposed to be my day to get things done. Steve's mom called and said she was sick, so I was stuck with my still messy house, and a 17 month old that won't sleep, no matter how much I bribe/rock him. He took a half-hour nap today. He woke up 3-5 times last night. I lost count. :(

I'm sitting here, trying to not care that everything is everywhere and focus on the little things I was able to get done. I'm telling myself she said she'd babysit this Friday, so I can definitely get things done then if I'm too tired to get them done when Dexter goes to sleep tonight.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

I've heard some feedback from some folks. It was something along the lines of "I like the crochet stuff, but I miss your normal posts."

I've finally decided to get my crap together and start a for-real, serious crochet blog. It's located here and hopefully I can update it rather regularly. I guess I felt like just reprinting patterns I'd only read and copied didn't seem like enough to focus a blog on it. Now I've branched out into adapting and creating patterns so I will have more varied things to post.

Now this blog will mainly be about mine and Dexter's stay at home adventures. I guess it's sort of a companion blog to his picture-a-day blog.

Birthday

I'm going to be 26 soon. Where has all the time gone?

If you readers are the gifting type, here are some options:

Super Super Cute Crochet by Brigitte Read

Toys to Crochet by Claire Garland

Stitch N' Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker by Debbie Stoller

In lieu of any present giving, take these as recommendations for books to get. They all look full of awesome patterns and worth what they cost. (Which isn't too much)

Been very busy lately.

Amigurumi have begun to rule my life! That second picture is what I sent for a secret Santa gift exchange on the parenting forum I frequent. The 4th picture is the beginnings of a whole mess of animals I've been commissioned to make for my friend's daughter. Her list is in the background. There are at least 20 different animals on there. :D Everyone is saying I should sell them on Etsy, but I run into the problem that I make one animal and don't want to make it again for awhile. I guess I could do things made to order instead of having a stockpile saved up.

I need to look into the legality of posting the patterns for these, otherwise I'd have included them in here.

Our house

in the middle of our street, has needed some repairs. They include but are not limited to:

Brand new drywall in the downstairs bathroom
*New tanks for both toilets (half done)
Attaching the kitchen sink to the counter instead of just having in rest on it
De-gunking the kitchen drain
New drywall in the basement
sealing the basement from further flooding
*new outlet for sump-pump
*Replace water heater
*Replace water meter
Scrape stupid wallpaper borders from 2 bedrooms
Fix porch railing
*replace locks
*fix various leaks (half done)
get rid of mold in basement and downstairs bathroom
replace plate on front of fuse box
*replace kitchen sink faucet
Fix master bedroom door so it actually closes


I'm sure there are some more things I can't remember at the moment. We have to replace the doors, but that's more because we hate having HUGE windows in the middle of ours. We'll probably replace the interior doors as well because we don't really like the $20 crappy plastic ones they've put on there. They're all white and for some reason it's driving me nuts.

This whole situation has made me realize how infinitely valuable my father is as a human being. He is being so helpful and I absolutely love him for it. He's the best dad ever. If my grandpa lived closer we'd have this place in ship shape 2 times over by now. :D

We have a house! Dexter has his own room! We have room to have another baby in a couple years! We are homeowners and we got this place for a steal!

I'm excited, and not only because Dexter decided today was a good day to give kisses. :D

*just* a housewife

(bare with me, it's a long one.)

A while backed I dated an alright guy. I choose someone else over him. This resulted in him trying to compensate for the loss. This compensation included him telling me he knew that the new guy was going to hurt me (funny, it never resulted in any further certainties when I asked how). It also included his telling everyone he knew that I just wanted to be a housewife. He said it with such disdain, like it pained him physically to utter the words. I shouldn't be surprised. This is all coming from the guy who admitted he talked down to me because I hadn't gone to college. (Where has that fancy math degree taken you?)

What's so terrible about wanting to be someone's mom? What's so terrible about wanting to be the one to cook and clean? If this were 50 years ago I'd be praised for wanting this. I could never be "just a housewife" sitting on my ass eating chocolates or something similar. Why can't a housewife be intelligent and worthy of the same intellectual allowances of someone who paid for a degree just so they can get a job not using it?

The only time I've ever been sure I was doing the right thing in life was when I was keeping house for Julie and Clay and doing things like teaching Patrick to write his name, or showing James the finer points of masterpieces like Peewee's Big Adventure? (James' aversion of Large Marge notwithstanding)

I like being responsible for making someone into a great individual. One could argue I should've been a teacher then. I don't think I could deal with putting so much effort into so many folks and seeing them turn their lives into shit and become boring and dull. I'm better with small groups.


As long as I'm ranting, can I mention how completely ridiculous it is to post a rambling livejournal entry about how perfect everything is going to be when you have kids, only to follow it with an entry talking about how you love having the freedom to just pick up and leave whenever? Kids change EVERYTHING and even the most stable relationships get chewed up, spit out and stepped on. Get ready for the ride of your life sweetheart, and don't forget to throw any and all expectations out the goddamn window. When you're up at 1:30 am for the fourth night in a row and your kid is doing everything they can to just stay up and hang out, you get time to think and find out what kind of parent (and person) you are. When you're losing 10 pounds because you can't keep anything down but water in the first few months of pregnancy, you find out just how fast all your ideas of "only eating healthy" go flying out the window you roll down at the McDonalds drive thru.

*semi-unrelated note: never having had a fight in your entire relationship doesn't mean you're meant for each other, it just means you're with someone who never cares about anything enough to argue about it. Trust me, I've been there and walked all over that trying to get some kind of reaction. I'd much rather have an argumentative HONEST guy anyday.*


College doesn't make you a better person. Having kids is something you can create an outline of some very open guidelines for at best. If your life is full of concrete values and unwavering opinions on How It's Going To Be, then do yourself and your future offspring a favor. Don't have any. The lack of control will destroy you and the desperate attempts to regain it will destroy them.

For example, some things I was NEVER GOING TO LET MY KID DO:

1. Watch lots of tv
When you're on the 2nd straight hour of running around after a screaming baby, you'll welcome an hour of them sitting, laughing, and being enthralled and overjoyed at Yo Gabba Gabba or Sesame Street or The Backyardigans. You might even resign yourself to the fact that they like their TV friends better than you at the moment.

2. need to be rocked to sleep

Babies cry, and you never realize how animalistic and instinct driven motherhood is until you find a friend's baby crying cute and tear your hair out when your kid barely even whimpers, let alone flat-out balls-to-the-wall WAILS when you try to teach them to fall asleep on their own.

3. You know what, I'm sure I had a list years and years ago. I'm sure it had tons upon tons of rules and restrictions on it, but my regulations have relaxed and changed so much since I had him that right now my only rule is I won't let my kid be forced to be anything he doesn't want to be. I know this sounds silly to most of you, but I can safely attest to the fact that babies probably know better about How It's Going To Be and What They Want more than college graduates or wise aged folks do.

Put that in your pedantic pipe and smoke it. I wil be a housewife, and I will revel in the fact that I will watch my children grow and stil be able to carve out time to expand my mind, should I choose to.

And the guy I chose, the one who was accused of never questioning me or making me strive for greatness, he pushes me everyday to finish medical transcription school. We speak of the future and returns on investments and what that could mean in a few years. It could mean I could follow the other path I felt comfortable on and start a business.

Moral, if you must have one,

You don't know anything, so stop pretending we had some intense connection when you closed your mind off to any option besides COLLEGE!! And the great $30K waste.


Oh, and you, quit thinking things will go as planned and start taking out insurance policies on your relationship if you really are planning on procreating. I've known stronger couples barely make it through the first year.



For everyone else, we're in talks and planning out our closing date details. Bring on the townhome and rooming with the Kellys. :)

Now someone come hang out with my wide awake son so I can sleep.

I promise I will crochet again and post about it soon. I made some purses and have a newfound love of adding buttons to things. All in due time they will be posted here.