Striped Toe Socks

Camron came to spend some time with me and say good bye. He leaves tomorrow and probably won't be home until next October (2009). I'm so much sadder now than I normally am when he leaves. It caught me off guard.

For a long time he seemed to be trying to mold himself into the Air Force life. This time he was more relaxed, more himself. He has gone through that evolution and come back.. Maybe a little more grown up, a little more confident, but inside still the guy I love.

I don't want that guy to leave.

I hate that his life is so far away. I hate that his family drove him away from here. I had let myself forget, let myself get used to him not being here.

We hugged and kissed good bye, holding on, knowing how long it would before we were together again. Knowing that life would happen, with all of it's joy and sadness. It was an intimate moment, full of love and closeness and understanding. It broke my heart to let him go.

I'm in the dreaded time of waiting. In the fertility forum world it is referred to as the "two week wait". I've never wanted to be one of those crazy TTC people. Since I'm obsessive and a little crazy about everything else in my life though, I'm not sure how I thought I could avoid it.

I haven't blogged about this much at all. When I thought about writing this and any post really, I think about who is reading. My knitting friends, possibly my mom and maybe a few other people, but mostly my knitting friends. We are in the in between also. The not knowing just yet if we will be friends and become a whole or remain separate women who like to knit. On some of the smaller group nights, it has felt more intimate. I don't think this has so much to do with the number, as that those have been quieter nights when we can move closer and hear each other better. It's easier to share your heart when someone can hear your voice.

I never know how much to share with you all. I don't want to be labeled as the person trying to get pregnant, of course I'm so much more than that. The last seven months though it has been an almost constant thought. That's another part of what makes Sunday nights awesome, I am just me with you, well mostly I guess. If I start sharing this will I always think about it there? Will I stop flirting with cute coffee shop guy because I'm thinking about having a baby? It didn't stop me last week.


So I'm on the verge. Of deep friendship. Of motherhood or potential loss. Or of having a drink and some chocolate and moaning about cramps to my friends while I knit.

Jamie Lynne Spears gave birth to a baby girl this week. She is seventeen and her baby daddy is nineteen. I'm sure you've read this or this already, since it's been covered by the media since she first announced her pregnancy. I was not too familiar with Jamie Lynne prior to this, but my nine year old niece was. My niece, Christina spent the night this week and we were watching The Today Show while we got dressed. They announced the birth, did s short summary of the story and wished everyone involved well. OK, I get people are interested. What killed me was Chrissy clued to the TV. When she heard she wanted to know if the baby was a boy or girl and she watched the whole story with rapt attention. This is not by any means her first exposure to teenage pregnancy. She has three cousins who at eighteen or younger had a baby, one is now pregnant for the third time at twenty-two. Her mother has told her numerous time how hard that is, reminds her that isn't the life she wants to have. I'm not sure how much that really sinks in. Now someone she knows and looks up to on TV has a baby.

The other "wow this pisses me off" story of the week was the "pregnancy pact" girls. A group of girl at Gloucester High School in MA made a pact to all be pregnant together. Now seventeen of them are. The teen pregnancy rate at this school is high enough already to warrant free on-site day care for students. A luxury often not provided for working mothers.

I can't help but feel frustrated and saddened by these stories. My own issues in trying to get (and stay) pregnant aside, what is going on here?

Is it the "trend" of pregnancy that has boomed in the last decade to blame? In 2006 the pregnancy rate when up nationwide for the first time in fifteen years.

Where are the parents of these girls? All of whom are under sixteen.

The issue of handing out contraception in schools is a large one, but what about girls trying to get pregnant?

I'm trying to feel some sympathy here, I really am. I'm sad that the only way these girls think they will feel love is through having a child who has to love them. Mostly I just feel heartbroken for the babies of these little girls.There are so many people in the world who want a child and cannot have them. They want only to welcome a child into a home where they can not only be loved, but be provided for by stable adults.

What kind of society is my niece growing up in? What about my own children?

What happened to feeling ashamed to be fifteen and "knocked up"?

Thoughts?

Camron is home from Iraq and he'll be here all weekend with us.

More later......

Here is the more.

We've know Camron for about seven years. He cannot be described as friend or brother, he is both and yet he is his own special part of our family. We have seen each other through a lot of shit over the years. When he lived here the three of us spent most weekends together. Camron even lived with us when he was having some problems. He joined the Air Force two years ago. His base home is Elmendorf, Alaska, so needless to say we don't see him much anymore. In January he VOLUNTEERED (I'm pretty proud of him) to go to Iraq. He served six months over there and now he is home for less than two weeks. The guys are playing Lego Indiana Jones and I'm laying on the coach in a coma of happy tiredness.


I miss him so much. I'm happy he has the life he wanted, but hell I wish it was a closer life.

I read an article a few weeks ago called Settling for Mr Good Enough, by Lori Gottlieb. It's written by a woman who decided at nearing 40 that she wanted children even if she didn't have the father to go with them. She got a sperm donor and had her baby. Now she looks at couples a bit jealously, wondering if perhaps she was too picky, wondering if she should have settled for some of the decent guys she dated, but didn't feel passionate about. Her advice to other women? Settle.

I've given this some thought. It's difficult for me to relate to this, but I'm going to do my best. I got married young, far younger than I should. My husband and I have grown up in the last six years. We have built on the passion that drew us together in our youth and added stability, kindness and partnership to it. We are working on starting a family and I know J will be a good dad. I also know it will be hard, I'm sure I don't know how hard. So my own experiences are vastly different from the authors. I do have friends who have reached the age they started being nervous about never meeting "Mr Right" and settled for "Mr He Asked Me. In settling though, they ended up not with the partners they envisioned, but with men they didn't know as well as they thought.

I've shared this discussion with some friends, my mom and my mother in law. My friend Kim married young, full of passion. She and her husband struggled for years and ended up divorced. Looking back passion wasn't all she had hoped it would be. She now says she wouldn't settle, that she would rather be alone. My mother in law says she has seen many women settle, but not for the right men. Not picking a man for his good qualities, but picking him because he was there.

So what do I think you ask?

I agree with the author, BUT, I don't think the word should be settle. I think the idea is to pick a man based on who he is. If you want children, pick a man who will be a good father. Pick a man who is stable, kind, intelligent. Don't settle for just any guy who comes along, but stop basing your judgments on what he looks like. Is he shorter than you? So? Does he have some extra padding around the middle? If it is the goal for you to spend your life with someone, pick a good one. Pick someone you enjoy being with. This doesn't mean candle light meals and strolls on the beach and all night love making sessions. This means he is willing, no, HAPPY, to let you sleep in while he cares for the children. It means when your body changes after having his children he will only love you more. It means that no matter what happens in your life, good, bad and in between, you know you can count on each other.

If you pick a man who will be this to you, the passion will take care of itself.

What do you think?

Ok, Chris, since you asked.

Ug, I hate this question, I've only ever lived in Dayton OH, so boring I know

4) What would I do if I was a billionaire?
Buy a house with plenty of room for kids and dogs. Invest, so my money keep growing for the future. Travel and bring my friends and family with me. Hire a dog whisperer to train Molly.
Knit with any yarn I wanted. I would have a house keeper and she would do all the grocery shopping. Oh, and a car and driver. I would buy books if the library didn't have what I wanted. I would also buy a yarn store and hang out with my knitting friends all the time. :)

5) Who would you like to know more about?
All my Knit Night girls. I can't wait to see Lisa do this with pictures.

Thanks for tagging me Chris, this was fun!

I spent the day with my friend Joy and her twins, Ben and Emily.






We put them in their baby pool and it was so cute to see their reactions. Emily starting kicking and splashing right away, but it took Ben awhile to get the hang of it. He cracked me up when he reached over and snatched Emilys pacifier right out of her mouth so he could have both. I think they would have happily played in the water all day and Joy was grateful for adult conversation.

A good day thus far and thankfully we didn't get rained on.

Photos tell a story, they record a life and the events that have made up that life. This is true for my Mom. She has many albums full of pictures from her youth to her early days with my Dad and later the lives of my brother and I. I've always loved these pictures. Loved laughing at my hippie uncles in their wedding album, loved the pictures of them at "the lake", where my dad went with his family growing up and where my parents had their honeymoon. I love seeing my parents before they became my parents. Then there are the baby albums, my Moms growing belly, the picture where my day compares her stomach to the two car garage. Them smiling from the hospital room with cranky, old man faced me. Birthday parties, vacations, the entrance of my baby brother. Later proms and graduations. My life captured and contained in spiral bound albums that I still love to drag out.

I'm a total failure at pictures.

I have rolls of undeveloped film and I have never, that's right, NEVER, printed a digital pic. My kids won't have albums of pictures to glimpse my life before them. If they're lucky they'll be able to insert a CD, or whatever we'll have then, and peak into the past.

Hmmmm, maybe it's time to put those honeymoon pictures in my own album.

So, here is a picture from Christmas '06.




LtoR, Kim, Me, Mom, Christina, Deborah

Molly woke me up at 5:30 this morning for a potty break. I was awake for about three hours before going back to sleep. When I woke up J was baking cinnamon rolls, yummy!!! After breakfast we got ready and headed out to The Yarn Basket. I'm sad I missed this lovely yarn store in it's prime. I met a sweet lady named Yvonne who begged me to add her as a Ravelry friend, she is a self described "friend collector". I invited her to join us on Sunday Nights. I bought yarn! Too much yarn with no plan, but luscious yarn. I also got Stitch n Bitch Nation, a book I've seen many cute patterns from. If the sun ever comes back out I can take pictures of my haul. After that we went down to the old Roberts building in Miamisburg. (Yes, I've gotten to the age where I begin describing things by what used to be there) They have all kinds of booths set up with everything from used books and Tastefully Simple mixes to old wheelchairs. The vendors themselves seem to leave early, before noon maybe, but it was fun to look at all the stuff. It has an antique/flea market vibe. We came home and had lunch and a long nap and now Finding Nemo is on. This is the sweetest kid movie. When we were in Mexico I bought a hand spray painted picture of Nemo that I have been saving for a nursery ever since. I hope our kids like it as much as we do.

Remember swim through it, not over it.

Last night J cut his hair!!!! Pictures pending.