Mother Unexpected

Can you tell that I was pregnant?

Hold the phone. You heard me right. I was a pregnant bride. Wasn’t really planned that way, honestly, it was barely planned at all. I wasn’t prepared for the shit storm that it caused either. It’s funny how everyone else seems to have a say in something so personal.

There were a lot of things going on in our life. We found out we were pregnant with K-Kitten in February, we were looking for a home to buy for almost a year and being pregnant kicked that hunt up a notch. We had just found a nice little home on a half acre of land and put in an offer. After fighting back and forth offer after offer for another home we seen this one and decided it was worth a try. They were asking 65k which was outside of our budget, but we decided all they could do was tell us no. We offered 60k if they would put 3% toward our closing. They accepted.

Just after we found out they accepted our offer we got a call that my Mammy (my paternal grandmother) was on her way to the hospital. To make a long and agonizing story short, she had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and she never got to see her great-grandbaby. The day of her funeral… we signed on our house.

The next day Father Unexpected and I were sitting in my Mammy’s house and looking through her old pictures and things with my parents when we started talking about our plans to get married. We had been together for 8 years and it never really came up in conversation, mostly because it didn’t really make much difference to me if we had a piece of paper or not. FU suggested that we get married. I was completely opposed to the idea at first. Not only did I not want to get married only “because I was pregnant”, but I didn’t want to get married pregnant. Especially 7 months pregnant, I felt ugly and not at all bride material.

The Kiss

Finally we decided that we would go ahead with it. All I wanted was pictures and a dress. My mother made my dress for me just like I always envisioned that she would (although I had to rethink the style). In total we spent two weeks and $600 on our entire wedding. We had a very small ceremony at our state park where we grew up and an open reception/pot-luck at my mom’s home after. Our wedding ceremony lasted all of 10 minutes and I think that only one of us said vows. We didn’t record it, as this was something that apart from photos we wanted to remember ourselves.

I remember when we were planning everything that I got to where I didn’t even want to tell anyone that I was getting married, because of the conclusions everyone went immediately to. I’ve never had more people ask me if “I was sure” that I was doing the right thing. Just because I was pregnant didn’t mean that I didn’t love him the last eight years of my life and that it made getting married any different. We just faced the facts that paternity paperwork doesn’t exist when you’re married, and with a dependent there was no tax problems as a married couple that we would have been faced with had we been married without a child.

Now can you tell?

Why didn’t you wait? That’s probably the biggest question I get asked. I didn’t wait, because we didn’t want to. We didn’t want the added stress of having a new baby in the house and trying to plan something so monumental. We wanted to do something just for us before the baby arrived, we wanted to have this moment after so much heartache, if only to reconfirm our already unwavering love for each other.

Would you do it again if you could do it over? Yes, in a heartbeat. K-Kitten got to be a very big part of my special day. We danced with our unborn daughter at our wedding…. how much better does it get?

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My dedication to NaBloPoMo sucked this weekend. I just don’t do responsibility well on my few days that I have so few. I’m going to try to figure out a way to write the posts and schedule them for next weekend. Sorry, I’m pushing myself to do better

Already a gamer at heart.

It’s been hotly debated for… well, since I started playing video games at the tender age of 3, about the effect on video games and television on children. It’s one of those things that people tend to either be on one side, the other, or straddling the middle. You either feel that no television/video games should be seen by children, that it’s perfectly fine for children, or that there might be some things that can wait a while. I’m firmly on the fence about the content debate, but weather I would or wouldn’t allow K-Kitten to watch or play video games? I fall square on my ass in the YES camp.

When we are talking about content, K-Kitten will be much older before actively playing  a zombie game, not necessarily for the gore or violence, but mostly due to the fear factor. I can remember watching my dad play Doom when I was little. I LOVED doing anything with my dad, I was a daddy’s girl after all, even if it scared the be-jeebuz out of me. The gore never bothered me, the guns and shooting never bothered me, it was the monsters! To this day, those monsters still creep me out. Let me guess the list of baddies that will attack our young when we let them play video games.

Violent video games make children more violent adults. I can agree that there may be some violent play in your house, I can remember playing “Mortal Combat” on the trampoline with my cousins, but I think there’s a big difference between conscious play/roughhousing and actual violence. I never remember anyone being hurt playing our game on the trampoline or playing G.I. Joe using the culvert as the “trenches”. Looking at the statistics juvenile violent crime rates have been going down since 1993. Children are much more aware of the world around them than we might think, trying to protect them from ever seeing violence may leave them unprepared for the real world. Unfortunately, our world is filled with violence and hate.

Video games aren’t teaching our children anything worthwhile. Games aren’t the same as they were when the only place you could find them was the arcade. To play most video games now, even simple made-for-kid games, it requires a wide skill set and knowledge. We’re not talking about just hand-eye, but all forms of thinking as defined in Bloom’s Taxonomy. You have to memorize special key sets or combinations, work through elaborate puzzles and riddles, move quickly and deliberately, re-evaluate and create strategy, and apply personal sets of skills to complete tasks. Doesn’t sound like the brain will be gathering any dust to me.

Our kids will become social hermits and never leave the house again…. worse yet, they’ll never move out of MY house! Lets see, I can see how some children honestly would stay locked up in their room playing video games for the rest of their life. I could have probably done it, but I personally see a few fatal flaws. I didn’t have anyone that would cater to a self-destructive lifestyle, and life really wasn’t that boring. As a matter of fact, even when I was playing video games, most of them were Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) where I made some life-long friends, I think that counts as “social”. Some introverts may even call the interactions they have in their online worlds are more satisfying than face-to-face interactions, the relationships that can be formed can be just as integrated and intimate. There’s a real danger of pathological gaming, but in a study of 3,000, 90% of them did not show signs of pathological gaming or addiction.

Too many children are uninterested in technology, especially girls. I work as a computer network technician and I face that fact every day. I’m working in a male dominated field and it doesn’t appear to be changing fast. I want K-Kitten to grow up exposed to technology, to the fun and entertainment it can provide, to the intricacies and work it can perform. I want to teach her the difference between simulated violence and the horrors of real violence. I want to be close as she embarks on her own moral and personal building journeys. It is our job to teach, guide, and protect, but it’s not our job to shield them from all of life’s horrors and disappointments. Our goals as parents are to raise well-adjusted, independent, strong adults.

Since K-Kitten is a girl, I think it is especially important to show her the world from a different perspective (I’m not talking pink and frilly here people). I’ve worked my whole life proving myself, in my field of work, in my competence, and in my skill with everything from cars to writing. If playing video games is something she likes to do, we’re going to do it with her. Besides, research suggests that playing age-appropriate video games with daughters can make them happier, more connected, less aggressive, and less depressed.

Yup, we totally did Star Wars for Halloween.

Much like a soccer mom, but without the minivan and the mother-of-the year award. With all the concerns over all the not-so-nice-stuff that they say video games cause, people act like you’re a horrible mom for playing one of those violence inducing, fat-making, video things. Really, I just don’t get it. I wouldn’t take my kid with me to Mardi Gras and bar hop, but I just don’t see doing an independent activity from your child as all that harmful.

Father Unexpected and I have a large gaming background. We both played MMORPGs (like Everquest and World of Warcraft) heavily, and enjoyed PC gaming together for several of the early years of our relationship. At some points online interaction was the only means of communication as we were both working extensively (and he was able to utilize the internet while at his job) and it was more personal and immediate than e-mail. I had never heard of texting and cell phones were too expensive. FU didn’t even have one at the time.

When we first moved in together we bought a Playstation 2. I was a big fan of Kingdom Hearts at the time and played it through. FU played it some, but we never even bothered to buy a second controller to play together. We still had enough resources to play PC games together in the same house though. At one point when I was in college, I can remember playing Everquest for 8 to 12 hours a day, working my part-time job, going to class, then playing some more and sleeping here and there when I felt like it.

I’m sure a lot of people would say that I had an obsession, that it was unhealthy, maybe even call it an addiction. The fact of the matter is, I really liked the game. I was a poor, college student that would rather pay 15 dollars a month playing a video game than 10 dollars a day running the streets like my other peers at the time. I was younger, a little stupid, and had the time to kill. I got older, bills started costing more, gaming happened less. Eventually, I stopped playing because it cost too much and I just didn’t have the time to kill that I used to. Addicted? I think not.

I think it’s generally accepted in society that fathers will play video games. I think it’s viewed as a man’s “thing”, sitting on the couch playing video games while the wife cooks. Did you know that women gamers are trying to tip the scales? There are now more women playing pc/web based games than men. In my house, FU is more likely to be cooking dinner while I play the 360, I’m a horrible cook. But because I’m a mother, a working mother, that plays video games (that don’t exist on facebook) I’m more likely to be shamed and frowned at. I guess I’m supposed to be selflessly doing laundry, while playing patty-cake, while cooking, while vacuuming, and at the same time changing a diaper to be a “good mom”. Oh, how I hate the “good mom” card. The fact that I play video games alone is enough to be forever marked with the “bad mom” tag, let alone the fact that I play video games while K-Kitten is home and playing just fine by herself for a while.

Now, on the other side of this coin. I don’t play video games from the time I get home to the time I go to bed. We have much cooler things to do, like go outside and play tag while there’s not snow on the ground. Do I have better things to do besides play video games? Actually yes, I should be doing things like laundry and dishes, but really… I’m never going to be caught up on either of those things, I’ve faced the fact that I’m a horrible housewife and have come to terms with it. Father Unexpected may come to terms with it in the next 16 years or so. In light of this though, I actually had someone say that I shouldn’t be playing video games because my daughter “needs me” and they’d suck me into a black hole or something. Lady, there is no black hole, I know I tried to find it after entirely too much alcohol in college… and my daughter needs to not grow up like you. While she pretend cooks me a big meal, I’ll play my video game, then have imaginary cookies thanks.

Will K-Kitten be playing video games when she gets a little older? Hell yes! We will be playing together I’m sure. We’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

There is nothing wrong with a parent doing something that they liked to do before they were a parent. I’ve not neglected my daughter by not giving her my undivided attention for 30 minutes out of any given day. I get to bond with my husband over something we both enjoy. I get the satisfaction of doing something completely non-work (outside or inside the home) related for a little while.

And getting to dance around the living room, laughing, pointing, screaming “BOO YA! HEADSHOT!!” after sniping FU from across the map?

EPIC

No, I’m not talking about those extra five pounds that you wake up with the day after Thanksgiving. I’m talking about those little things that you pick up over your life, habits, mannerisms, that you keep going long after the first time. Those things that you’re not exactly sure why you keep doing them, but you do.

I remember in High School there was this thing that kids did. Eat their pizza with ranch dressing. It was disgusting. Well, I thought it was disgusting, and refused to try it for a very long time. Then it became so popular that they would have an entire tub of ranch dressing out every time they served pizza in the lunch line. Regardless of if there was salad that day. I decided it wouldn’t kill me to try it. I don’t think it was amazing, or even all that great, but I still do it to this day. Every time I take my two year old out to Gatti’s…. there’s ranch dressing on my plate.

I have a lot of things that I can think of that I’ve kept doing over the years, but the ones that stand out the most are always food related. I guess I just like food. There are a lot of things that, thankfully, I’ve stopped doing (like saying “Dude” after every phrase).

Something I just did today that reminded me of this. Arby’s curly fries with cheddar cheese sauce. For years in high school every Saturday was a band competition (yes, I was totally a band geek) and we would stop at a little place that had three restaurants. A McDonald’s, an Arby’s, and a Burger King. I always chose Arby’s and I always had a large fry with two cups of cheddar cheese. Maybe I did that because it was just at $5 with a small drink and that’s all I had to spend on each of these trips, who knows. But I still do it. No ketchup for me, give me cheese!

One thing that started much earlier than high school is me playing with my hair when I’m tired. I can remember my mother playing with my hair when I had trouble falling asleep and even now when I’m tired I’ll subconsciously run my hands through my hair.

I really wonder how many of these little things that I’ve picked up over the years that has me so set in my ways are things that came from my parents? I wonder what kind of habits I’ll be “accidentally” giving to K-Kitten over the years. I wonder what new habits I’ll pick up or if I’ll ever stop with any of the ones that I’ve got now.

Do you have any habits or weird things that you started one day in the past and keep on doing? Inquiring minds want to know. Mine.

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I’ve decided to participate in NaBloPoMo – where you blog every day for a month. This is going to be insane, but I’ve got to get out of the habit of writing and then deciding because I don’t have anything to say that’s not been posted five-thousand times (or so I feel) that I shouldn’t keep the conversation going. Hang on for the ride. This is gonna get crazy…

Life has an uncanny way of making it difficult to know exactly where you’re going, or how you’re going to get somewhere. I’ve been trying to make my home-based business work out, however with the CPSIA, everything I’ve worked so hard at is going to be illegal or too expensive to continue if something doesn’t drastically change with it’s current provisions on required third party testing. I have considered changing product lines, however, that requires more capital. Capital which I do not have, money that I can not get.

K-Kitten will be 2 soon.

My household has been one big ball of raw nerve-endings. By the next payday we’re lucky to have any money left. The company I work for currently is in dire straights apparently and money is not going where it should in regards to health savings contributions and individual retirement accounts. That money being gone, it has devastated my household. Even trying to look for another position is difficult, as I know that we can not afford for me to be out of work. We can’t even afford to have to take unemployment at 80% of what I’m currently making. Getting a second job for either of us would mean putting K-Kitten into some sort of paid childcare, completely negating the second job in all likelihood.

That brings me to my fork in the road.

Which path do I take to continue safely and logically for my family’s sake? Which risk do I take that will reap the most benefit for them? Each path has risks at this point. Staying where I am, hoping that things get better, toughing it out the best we can and hope that it doesn’t last too long, or trying to move on and hope that I can find a position with as much flexibility and pay as I can. Either way I have to have a lot of faith in the outcome. I’m not sure we can afford for me to choose the wrong path. I’m pretty sure at this point there will be no going back and trying again.

K-kitten has grown so much. I’m so proud of the sweet toddler she is becoming (even when she’s throwing tantrums). I can’t help but think about what would be the best for her in any case. I don’t care what it means in regards to myself, but that she is taken care of is the most important. That includes keeping a roof over our heads, water and electricity flowing, food on the table.

At this point, we’ve been getting by with the extra cash I’ve been earning from my various methods. Without that small amount of income, I hate to think how much more in debt or how many overdraft fees we would have incurred. I’m still looking, hoping, and trying to find the best course forward. Nothing in life is certain I guess, but what do you do when you have so much at stake?

… I keep stopping and coming back to blogging. It’s not that I don’t love to write, or that I don’t love to put information out there that I think is important. I just feel like I keep knocking on the door an nobody’s home. I know there’s hits out there and I know people find me, but I guess it comes down to feeling important. There are some amazing people out there with super followings, super wit, super information. I don’t want to be the copy-cat, I don’t want to make this a full-time gig. I just hope that I can help a few people along the way.

I think I know why I started blogging in the first place. I wanted somewhere to talk about the things that have changed my life so significantly that I could no longer stand along the sidelines and just wait for the game to playself out. Most importantly, I realized that women can and should be encouraged and empowered to become who they really are and stand up for that person they find. I started blogging so others could share, feel, and to become part of a group larger than just myself.

Sometimes I feel that I’ve not accomplished that goal, but moments later I remember that I’ve been touched by people that I’ve found through my research, articles I’ve read in my search for answers, and I’ve shared these people with my world (however small it may be). It makes it all worth it. My family makes it all worth it…

You, make it all worth it. I will continue on.

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I’ve been a little down and out and had pretty much decided to stop blogging before yesterday. However, I’ve realized that every little thing that gets out has it’s place in the world and even if I only reach one person, then the reason I started this whole venture has been fulfilled.

I’ve been missing in action for a while now. I’ve been stressed beyond imagination and trying to keep my life together enough to get by. I really should have been writing all this time, since these trials and tribulations are actually the things that I need to get off my chest. I’ve mentioned before how tight money gets at my home, and how I’ve been trying anything to make more.

I already work a full time job outside of the home, my husband does too, but our expenses and debt continue to climb even when we budget and try to make sure we live within our means. I wonder sometimes if it’s just me, and other times I figure that it has to get this way for everyone at some point or another. Life just has a funny way of doing that to people.

I’ve started to reach out to the search box on the lovely internets and find my niche of money making goodness in the world. Some ventures have been more lucrative than others and some have brought me nothing but grief so far.

Starting your own business.

Here we go. My biggest and most stressful venture so far. Starting my own business at home to hopefully make a long-term change from full-time work outside the home mom to work at home mom. I’ve invested several hundred dollars so far, gotten my doing business as license and tax papers, and started its website. I’ve rebuilt the website twice now, trying to be cost effective I’ve done almost all of the work and research myself. It’s hard. I knew it would be hard, but even then, I still don’t think I had any idea of what I was getting myself in to.

I’ve converted my dining room into an “office”. My dining room table is my work area, I have a sewing machine in there and all kinds of ribbon and stock for making my bows and dresses. I’ve tried to dabble in etsy.com and eBay. So far I’ve made about 100 dollars in sales and I’m facing my first state sales tax remittance.

I hope to be turning a real profit within two years. We will see how that goes.

Making money online.

This is something I’ve done for a very long time now. It’s never been particularly rewarding in the way of fundage, but I’ve made some money, so it counts. Mostly I earn enough to get free books or other used items for free. It’s enough to curb my “need to spend” at least temporarily. Here are a list of the sites that I actively use (I’ve tried a ton) to hopefully help someone else out that may be interested. Disclaimer: These are referral links. Referrals help you earn more, you don’t have to sign up under me, but I appreciate anyone who does (and you will someday appreciate anyone who would be kind enough to sign up under you).

• ChaCha! – Referral email : kkittensmom(at)yahoo.com – Depending on job, earn .10 – .20 cents answering questions or .02 for transcribing them. I’m not terribly active since my daughter was born, but I’ve earned over $50.
• InboxDollars – Earn money for reading paid advertiser emails, doing offers, and surveys. Cash out at $30 – I only do emails so it takes me a while, but I still cashed out my first check last week and I’m already back to $8. Sign up for a $5 dollar bonus.
• Swagbucks – This has become very popular lately! You don’t really earn money, but points. Earn them for doing offers, searching the internet, and daily activities. Even watching videos! Earn a $5 Amazon gift card with as little as 450 points (I’ve gotten 5 of these already, it helped pay for Christmas last year).
• Points2Shop – I really enjoy this one. Again you earn points (or cash on their sister site cashle), by doing offers, surveys, and playing games/contests. 1 point = 1 cent. You can save your points and spend them on anything from amazon.com! Which is just amazing. I’ve gotten three free books from amazon using this site. They have an amazingly active community and lots of people are earning a ton of free stuff! Offering 250 points to new sign ups.

Utilize your Smartphone.

If you have an iPhone, like to travel, and have a little spare time every now and again, you should check out the FieldAgent app. Clients add jobs to the service and Agents (you) can accept the jobs and earn money for completing the tasks. I really hate to give this one away, as in my area the fewer agents there are, the more jobs there are to complete for yourself (yeah, I’m a little greedy). However, it does require travel, some require purchases, and the app can be flaky.

The best part is, after your jobs are cleared, there is no minimum pay out. Have it sent to your Paypal as soon as you earn it. It takes usually about 24 hours to hit your paypal account. I’ve been using this app on a regular basis for about two weeks now and have already made over $100. Most jobs pay an average of $4. Disclaimer: I earn nothing for referring you to FieldAgent. They have no referral incentives. I’m simply sharing this as I believe this is an amazing opportunity to make a little extra cash if you’re lucky enough to have some jobs in your area.

Trying to make it all work.

Now I come to the really hard part (not going into making my husband spend less), keeping track, staying legal, and not getting lost. You can have too much to do and not enough time or patience to do it. If you’re really looking at earning a little extra cash with little to no investment, it can be done. If you’re looking for a handout, you’re just not gonna find it. Especially not here.

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So tell me, what do you do to earn a little extra money? Do you have any great sites you’d like to share? Have you had any experience with any of the sites that I’ve mentioned. What are your favorite ways to make and save money?

As K-Kitten gets older, and I get older, I keep wondering about what this next generation is going to hold for her and her children as they come. I walk outside and get in the car, drive down the street to buy gasoline that costs more than a gallon of milk, just to go to the store to buy a gallon of milk. You turn on the news and all you see is strife and suffering. Natural disasters have become bigger and more devastating. What does this leave for the future? What kind of values should I instill in my daughter when I worry myself if she’ll have a future to hope for?

The world has become such a dismal place, wherever you turn there’s poverty and starvation. Even in our meager household, we have some nice things, but we are far from well-off. Discrimination against gays, against people of different backgrounds, or gender, or politics. How do you ward your child from all the hate in the world while teaching them that it exists and it isn’t going away? How do you teach a child in a world of hate, to refrain from hating?

It’s not just other people now that hate, it’s instilled in our culture (in America) that we have to hate something. Hate our bodies, our hair, our weaknesses, other’s success, your own success or failures. Since my daughter and myself are women in this world, it particularly strikes me that women have so many things that they’re trying to break free from and often it is other women helping to hold them down. When we try to do what we think is right as mothers, we are told we are wrong. When we decide to birth at home or in a hospital, we are told that we are being unsafe and asking for trouble.

How do you teach someone to trust themselves and each other when this is how the world works?

I’m trying to make way for this next generation with my one child. I’m overwhelmed with the job ahead of me. I can only hope that she grows to love herself and her accomplishments, understand and listen to other sides of the coin, and be happy with the choices she makes for her own life. One day, I hope that her children and her children’s children live in a better world. A world that these new generations will be tasked to create, it is our task to make way for this generation, to enable them to accomplish big things, to help remove the roadblocks that our generation has faced, to help turn the tables.

Love, Trust, Understanding.

Maybe a heaping of pride and determination wouldn’t hurt.

… the breastpump that is. It has come time to put away the whirring cyclic pumping machine with which I have became all too familiar. K-Kitten is 15 months old now and I have no more need to continue to pump at work. Now, with that said, this is far from the end of our nursing relationship! She has her cow’s milk and water while I’m away at work, but nursing and cuddling together is still something that is very much part of our lives.

Just yesterday, I was reminded at how grateful I am to still be nursing her. Father Unexpected was packing a great deal of her infant things to take to my brother-in-law for their upcoming arrival. K-Kitten being the adventurous one she is, decided it was the perfect time to “help” daddy with the chore. It resulted in an infant seat to the head. After a look of shock at her father, she ran to me squalling. After some words of comfort and more tears we nursed for about 30 seconds and she stopped and went back to “helping” again. It was truly as if nothing had ever happened. There was no hugging and petting and pleading or convincing that she was ok. It wasn’t a 15 minute ordeal. A bonk to the head that resulted in not so much as a red place was placated in under a minute by the wonders of the boob!

It’s been a while now since I have faithfully pumped however, and I’ve not been able to put the monster away. I keep thinking to myself that once I put it away in the closet it signals an end to this wonderful relationship, like once I do this one little thing, it’s all going to fall apart at the seams. Well, it’s true that K-Kitten does not nurse nearly like she used to, but it’s far from over. Leaving that ugly pump sitting in the living room collecting dust is doing nothing to ensure we continue to nurse at this point and quite frankly — if I didn’t pay so much money for it, I would throw it behind the tire of the car and run it over. I am that happy to be rid of it.

So here I am, 15 months into breastfeeding, cutting ties to the breastpump, and hoping for many more months of nursing to come! Here’s to hoping for the best!

My brother-in-law’s wife is four months pregnant with their first baby. Over the weekend, Father Unexpected and I drove the hour upstate to visit with them. It was a relatively pleasant visit, but I found myself extremely distraught by the fact that she’s pregnant. I’m not sure if it’s her nonchalant demeanor or the fact that she and I come from completely separate worlds (even though we share a heritage — our parents (at least one of them) are from the Phillipines).

Father Unexpected and his brother are both polar opposites as well. FU wouldn’t be able to hold on to a nickel for longer than an hour and would have no recollection of what had become of that nickel the next day. His brother on the other hand, could eat for six months off of that single nickel. Sometimes I think that I would get along better with his brother than he does, but I tend to try to ally myself with his wife.

I want to reach out to her and offer my support during her pregnancy, but I fear she does not seem to want it. I fear for her experiences to be had, although I can not prevent them only encourage her to seek the information and make up her own mind. FU and I have prodded as much as we feel comfortable and hope they’ll reach out to us again for information or support. I just wish I had some of the resources they have available.

Larger city, more birth choices, he has a good job and plenty of rental income, she has the mere choice to make of where she would like to go to have this baby. Being from another country however, I do not think she’s even considered this fact. It makes my heart ache. I find myself craving another pregnancy. I want to do it again. I want to do it all over again, I want to do it again even knowing all the disheartening things I’ve learned since K-Kitten was born.

K-Kitten (Toto) With Dorothy and the Scarecrow -- Halloween 2010

Then I remember: We do not have the luxury of “spare income”. We don’t have 20+ rental homes and the ability to move or buy a new home on a whim. We barely make ends meet as it is. We barely keep the lights on and the mortgage paid. I don’t want to have to work two full time jobs with two children, I want to be able to stay home if we ever have another child. I want to get to see my children grow up, and not watch from my computer screen across town at work.

Hopefully someday soon I’ll be able to get happy about wanting another baby again. Right now, I want, but can not allow myself to have. I wish it were not so. I’m so painfully aware of everyone having babies soon and I crave to be them. I must be crazy, because I hated being pregnant.

Maybe it’s just the onset of the holidays and family being around more. Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment. I hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween. Now it’s time to get ready for Thanksgiving. I have a lot to be thankful for this year.