Check Out This Cake!

So I've been hard at work on the Oh Bento! comic this weekend and all of today... Some funny stuff has happened, but honestly? The Hedgehog is funny so often that it's hard to pick something that he does and do a post about it... not to mention a lot of it is weird humor you just have to be there for it. Some of it is even hard to remember afterwards, no matter how hard I laughed at the time... So, instead... Here's something I worked hard on for the webcomic for you guys to enjoy.

Cerberus

FUDGE! I Thought You Sounded Familiar

So when I got home from lunch it was to find Hunny’s mom had sent me a message saying my dad had gone over to her house and had left his phone number… Considering I hadn’t talked to my dad since before I moved here in May, only a few days after his birthday, I was shocked. I mean, things have been difficult with my dad since I stopped living at home, and that was more than a year before I had moved in with the Hedgehog anyway. We're talking back before I still lived with the Home. In fact, at one point, I had told him that, unless he came to look for me, he might as well not even consider himself a father anymore because he certainly wasn’t acting like one.

Trust me, it was a hard thing to say, but it needed to be said. It was hard to get out, too, because my dad has these huge brown puppy eyes that just stare right into the soul, and it breaks my heart when he looks at me like that; almost every time he gives me that look it’s accompanied with the phrase, “You know I love you, right?”

Only the thing is… I don’t. Ever since the Girl-Fiend came along my dad hasn’t been himself… Sure he was the dad who let me go play in the street and run the neighborhood at the age of four, but he was also the same dad who promised me after mom died that, “I may whore around a little, but I’ll never marry another woman.”

Yeah right, dad. There’s something called common law marriage. You two have been together six years now. It’s official, you’re married to her.

Anyway, now he’s the dad who chooses his girlfriend over his daughter and who also does things like... gives away his daughter's dog without telling her; so of course I was surprised when suddenly he wanted to talk to me after seven months of silence. We talked for a little bit and he gave me my grandparents phone number so I could talk to them, but considering I know they hate me I don’t expect a call back on that message I left them. Mostly he just said he was thinking about me and missing me, and I told him about the blog and how that was the best way to check up on my nowadays…

The sad thing is, I think it was more guilt than love that inspired him to look for me; and you know what? Guilt is almost as good as love, so I’ll take it.

The funny part of this post, however, stems from the part where I went to call my grandparents and accidentally called him back…

Me: Hello?
Dad: Hi.
Me: It’s me, Kit.
Dad: I know.
Me: Dad told me to call.
Dad: I am dad.
Kit. FUDGE! I thought you sounded familiar!

The Dog Intelligence Test

So me and the Hedgehog were talking about the thoughts that must go through a dog as they’re failing the Dog Intelligence Test… It started off with what they would think when the blanket went over them,

"Where'd I go?"

"I only have one question: Do I eat the cup first?"

And it ended the cup test, where you put a dog treat under a cup, when the Hedgehog said something so funny that I laughed so hard I drooled on his head.

Inability to Learn + Complacency = Repeat Incident

 Something strange has been happening for the past week...

The Terror has been good...

... Not just good, either... but amazing...

She's started to learn her numbers to the point where I don't have to talk down to her in that annoying  voice I hate using when she asks me a billion questions about the time. In fact, she's gotten so good that all I have to do is point at the clock and she can tell me what the time is. Of course, she still doesn't  have the finer points of time down yet, but she knows that four comes after 1 and that she has to wait... She still doesn't understand what an hour is, but things have been better...

The Terror has finally begun to understand letters, too. She can finally sing her ABC's without getting really confused, and just yesterday she managed to read off the name of a popular kids show about two inventing cartoon brothers while I was flipping through the guide trying to find her the cartoons she was demanding. It amazed me so much I almost danced.

In fact, the Terror has been learning a lot of things lately, and has been amazingly adorable and not very Terror-like... It took an hour of struggling, but I taught her how to draw a triangle... Yes,  it was one of those things that broke my heart a little and made me wanna kill something, because spending an hour going, "Nooooo. Straaaaight lines, not cuurrrved..." just does that to you.

We even learned how to play pretend last week! She was so good, staying in the yard and playing with her dragons and unicorns as she played princess. She didn't chase after Noodles when he ran out of the yard, she was real good and stayed in the yard, running in every so often to announce, "I found another dragon!"

She was so cute I started calling her my little Chick Pea.

As the Hedgehog has blatantly told me, however, the Terror often has these moments... and they are short, as she quickly relapses into usual Terror behavior. I learned this the hard way, because yesterday I let her play in the yard again. I opened the door and the blinds and watched her playing, but right away I began to notice there was something a little different. She was running in and out constantly complaining about Noodles, and the more I told her to leave him alone and play, the more she complained.

Finally I went outside to tell her when he went to run off with a neighborhood dog to just let them play, it was alright.

The moment I came back inside, I looked out the window and saw an all too familiar scene...

So I ran back out and yelled without thinking, managing to get the Terror back into the yard... but then she started to do that thing that the Terror does that drives me nuts. She froze, didn't move... just stood there with her head bowed, face like that of someone who only speaks English now in a country where no one did. She looked confused, worried... so I told her to come inside...

 The Terror just stood there, blank stare on her face, looking at the ground without moving... I tried a few more times, and the finally, frustrated, yelled that either she came in or I went to get her, and she wasn't going to like it if I did. Another moment of standing there, staring with this confused face at nothing, and I finally went to go get her...

And that's when she took off running like a bat out of hell.

Oh yeah, I caught the Terror and I gave her ten minutes of timeout, but still... Why don't I learn?

Spawn, Brother of the Terror

… Right now I am only thankful of one thing, and that is the fact that the Spawn is very rarely around when I’m watching the Terror. You see, the Spawn is the older brother of my adorable little Terror that I must watch everyday…

"You're a *giggle* butt hole..."

And he is at that age where he thinks talking about butts makes him adult.

It's hard to believe my Hedgehog is the uncle to these two...

See, when the two of them are together he takes the chaos that I barely have control over and stretches it to a  breaking point, snatching it out of my hands and turning the entire house into a disaster area. No, I am not exaggerating either. The Spawn antagonizes her on purpose, knocking over the few toys she’s allowed to play with and telling her, and I quote, “You have a hairy butt.” Not only that, but he also starts doing bad things on purpose in an effort to make her act out even more, like jumping across the couches and screaming at the top of his lungs and running up and down the hall…

And I sit there, terrified, because I’m not sure where my boundaries are with this kid. The Terror I know all too well, I’ve learned when and where I’m allowed to act like her babysitter, and that’s pretty much all the time. It took the Hedgehog reassuring me though that I’m allowed to punish her when she’s being bad, otherwise I would just sit there in a panic.

I panic way too easy...

Yet her brother is older and whenever he’s around it’s almost always with his dad in the house, though his dad is always in the shower. The Spawn knows this. He knows I’m terrified of overstepping my bounds. He can smell my fear… he knows his dad won’t hear him being bad… He knows that because he’s older I can’t just stick him in time out or send him to his room, and that’s something that he takes advantage of. He stands up to me when I tell him to stop, laughing at me and making fun of me and getting the Terror to do so as well, because he knows that there’s no real stopping him, that the only person capable of really punishing him is no where nearby… And the Spawn proceeds to be as bad as he can in as short of an amount of time he can.

So he starts talking about butt holes, and getting his sister to talk about them, and when I tell him to stop he just laughs at me with this… this look on his face that I can't describe and can't be captured with badly drawn Paint drawings… Then he dumps his sister’s tiny little pets onto the floor and jumps onto the couch, screaming and encouraging her to jump with him, when I yell at her to stop he starts yelling at her too, then giggles madly when she stares to cry and whine and I glare at him. After that he starts running up and down the hall way, yelling, until she goes, too. All the while the Terror smiles and giggles like the most adorable child ever, calling after him happily, “Brother! Brother!” She's all too eager to follow the Spawn's ever move, openly defying me when I try to make them stop.

"Brooootheeeer..."

 Once the Spawn has started, he can’t be stopped. He’ll just grin and giggle in this tittering voice and insult me, the Terror cheerfully repeating whatever he says. The louder I get, the more he laughs and insults, and the more the Terror gets out of my control…

He even got her to stop eating to do all this...

 He tried something new, this time, though. When he heard his dad get out of the shower he raced to the end of the hallway and crowed triumphantly, “Daaad! Kit’s being mean to me!”

My heart fluttered wildly with fear, but I grinned, knowing he had messed up. While I still look like a teenager, I’m an adult, charged with controlling the Terror from descending  into chaos, and his dad knew that. So all I had to do was call down the hallway, “Yeah, if being mean means telling him to stop using bad language around his sister and to not jump on the couch!”

... What? I wasn't lying.

 … I won the battle against the Spawn today, he was grounded… but I know I haven’t won the war... Mostly 'cause the Terror was an even worse Terror after the Spawn left with his dad...

... Victory comes at a heavy price.

Conversations of the Day! Yay!

And now, real conversations we had yesterday! Some were frustrating, some were cute…

I'll try to do a post like this every morning after I watch the adorable little Terror. Inevitably some of these will be more of her more frustrating behavior, and some of these will be the just plain cute things she sometimes does.

Terror:  I’m thirsty! I… I mean, I want some covers.
Me: Then grab your blanket.
Terror: Will you give it to me?
Me: It’s right behind you.

Terror: I’m Noodles’ mommy, aren’t I?
Me: … Yeah… yeah you are…

Terror: We’re a puppy family!

Terror: Look!
Me: It’s a little sword.
Terror: *stabs* Does it hurt!?

… Yeah, thanks to her inevitable temper tantrum, this is all that happened yesterday worthy of repeating...

Consequences

Dammit! I hate it when someone tries to guilt trip me. It’s the worst feeling in the world! Especially when you have every right in the world to be pissed off and angry! No! Don’t give me that face! Stop looking at me that way!

I SAID STOP!

There are rules for a reason! The Terror may be a terror at times, but dammit if I don’t care about the little brat! No one can tell me I don’t, and I may not be family but I do my best to look after her! That means that I do my best to up hold the rules her mom’s set down, numerous though they may be, and when she does something bad, by the gods I yell at her for it and punish her!

This picture makes me feel bad and fat...

After having already yelled at her for wandering into the neighbor’s yard, which the little Terror tried to justify with a, “But Noodles made me do it”, I let her go back out. Big mistake. Why don’t people tell me these things? Someone should really tell me “Kit, don’t let the Terror back outside when she’s already fucked up.” No, no… I let her go back out to play…





And what do I see when I look out the window to check on her? The Terror walking in the middle of the street from somewhere up the road, holding the dog, after I’d already explicitly told her to stay in the yard and not leave it.

So yeah, I yelled at her, I explained about strangers and getting hit by a car and I made her go to her room, mind you I had to push her down the damned hallway because she wouldn’t go herself…



And yeah, I know, when I was a little kid I played in the road all day long, but that's because I had a dad who didn't really care all that much. My mom sure as hell cared, but she was in prison by that point and my dad let me run around the whole neighborhood. I lived in a trailer park in the middle of Redneckville/Drugytown and my dad let me play in the street, in the woods where people went hunting... Sure, nothing ever happened to me except for getting bitten by stray dogs and dogs in people's yard that I wasn't supposed to go into, but that doesn't mean something couldn't happen to the Terror!

… She’s standing right next to me now… dressed like a princess… must not allow self to weaken…

I refuse to feel bad, dammit!

Okay, so during the course for writing this post, she proceeded to sit quietly on the couch and play, until she asked if I would turn on cartoons for her. So I said I would, if she could tell me why I was mad. The terror gave me the most confused face you have ever seen on a creature, so I asked again if she could tell me why I had been angry and what she did wrong. The little Terror declared that she had no idea what I had even been saying.

Oh man, did I lose it then... "You're telling me no one has ever told you not to leave the yard? Or not to play in the street? No one has ever warned you you might get snatched up by a stranger? Or hit by a car?"

She stared at me, long and hard and confused, and then declared if I didn't turn on cartoons she would go watch them in another room.

Yeah, it's the same picture...

So I raised my voice louder. "Are you seriously telling me that instead of telling me why I'm mad at you you're gonna disobey me and go to another room and watch tv? You really don't understand why I'm angry with you? What you did wrong? That you could've been hurt, or worse?" Gods, I sound like a mom there...

She declared she was hungry, so I said no and restated my point, so she said she wanted me to let Colt in, I said no, so she declared she was thirsty, I said no... so she proceeded to try to squeeze the life out of Noodles.

... Yeah, the was dragged down the hall, screaming and crying, to her room for that.

Not sure who's being punished here...

The Dogs (and a cat)

Over at the house where I watch the Terror, niece of my boyfriend the Hedgehog, there are two dogs.

... Why can't I draw dogs?

A dachshund.

... Yes, I am that bad at illustrating Great Danes...

And a Great Dane.

... <3 this pic...

In an effort to keep up the fun naming game, for this blog I’m calling the dachshund Noodles and the Great Dane… Colt. Those are obviously not their names, but honestly, I'm making a blog where I routinely insult small children and their mother's, who are related to my Hedgehog. I happen to really love him, and I don't want to have to argue with him because I needed to vent a little. So yes, names have been changed to preserve the identity of the people involved and to save my relationship.

I have no idea why, but Noodles absolutely loves the Terror, despite all the horrible things she does to him…

You don't hold weenie dogs like this.

As for Colt? Well, he drools…

A lot

So unlike Noodles he stays outside, mostly, until the Terror begs to bring him in, and which point this happens…

This is what chaos looks like...

Needles to say if I can keep him out, I do so…

Awww... so cute when sleeping...

The first thing I do every morning when I arrive, before unleashing the Terror from her sleep is feed the dogs…

A couple weeks ago, after having had Wednesday-Sunday off, I arrived to find they were completely out of food. I figured they had run out on Sunday night and went on with the day, putting a couple pieces of bread out for them so they’d eat a little. Well, when I came back the next day, there was still no food… and there wasn’t for the rest of the week… I felt like the worst person who had ever lived, ever.

To tell the truth, I wanted to do something about it, but there wasn’t anything I could do short of calling animal control, and, well… This is the Hedgehog’s family, and I’m at the age where if I have a boyfriend, especially one I’m living with, I want his family to like me too. Who knows how long I’ll be around? I mean… what if I end up marrying him…?!

This is a thought that terrifies me...

So yeah, I just gave them some old food that was about to go bad and when I came back the next Monday, there was food. Still… I can’t help but feel horrible for them…

Oh yeah,  and there’s a cat.

He doesn't have a name...

He’s a stray, he hangs around, but seems to like dogs, doesn’t fight, and is overly lovey. Also, he's neutered.. The Terror loves him. She’s horrible with dogs, but she seems to know how to treat cats. Her mom’s allergic, though. Of course, the cat doesn't care. He darts inside every time the door opens.

So yeah, these are other things I deal with...