The Weekly Kit: Cutter Kit

This one's kinda dark, guys... Also, I don't know what a cutter kit is, only that the Hedgehog saw a note about it at work a couple weeks ago.

Chapter One: Positive (Part 1 of 2)

 This is the first chapter of the book, apparently the name of the book is In The Presence of Hope... I really wish I were in the presence of hope right now, but I have to say, after you read this, you'll feel like you're In The Absence of Hope, which is apparently the sequel to this book.

I was standing in my high school theater’s bathroom. I had picked this bathroom because I knew no one would be in here in the middle of my lunch, while the one off the lunchroom would be filled with many, many other girls and that would not be good for today; not for this. (Of course it's empty, technically it's the bathroom that's supposed to be used only by the people in the theater. How did you get in? Did the teacher let you in? Also, if a few more words were added in and this was split up, it would sound a lot better...) I was staring at the clock on my cell phone. Two minutes had passed, one more and I would look(, or;) but I was so scared to look,(. or;) what if it said what I thought it would? (This whole next part should really be another paragraph...) I was a straight A student, and not just straight A but a 4.0 student. (... Hun, a straight A student is a 4.0 GPA student, there isn't a difference. Also, this sentence so doesn't fit...) 11:05, three minutes had passed,(.) Slowly (Technically correct if it were a new sentence.) I looked away from my phone and at the test that I had placed on the bathroom sink,(; or .) I stared, what it was saying was not registering in my head, yet it was so very easy to read. (... Pregnancy tests are easy to read...? Also, she could've used a : here.) Pregnant. Clear as day. But (While according to grammar rules, starting a sentence like this is incorrect, when writing you should always write so it feels natural and easy to read, and when in first person like this is, you write in the character's voice... so I'll let this one slide.) I couldn’t be pregnant, I was not (Remember the writing in the character's voice thing? A conjunction would have done that and made it feel right, instead the 'was not' makes it feel stiff.) even sixteen yet (Fifteen year olds can't get pregnant?), and we had always been so very careful. (I feel like the following should be another paragraph too...) We had always used a condom and I was on birth control (, and) I had not missed a day,(. or ;) I was to (too) paranoid for that; (Second time she uses a semicolon and a period would work better. Also, to make this sound more... true, I guess you could say, an explanation of how she got pregnant while on birth control having never missed a day and with a condom every time would help. Like, "I was worried because it had broken and now I was two weeks late." You know... something. Sperm doesn't just magically wiggle out through the latex.) I’d had to be certain that this wouldn’t happen, (. or;) I was only fifteen and how could I be a straight A student with a baby? (Single mom's in college pull it off, and with supportive parents it's not as hard as you'd think; but at that age when you're that immature and just not ready, it can be almost impossible if you don't step up and shape up.) How could I get into veterinary school? (... Eventually? There's things called GED and online classes.)

I picked up the test and through (threw) it in the trashcan. I was sure it was wrong, that the test had somehow been defective; but then that was why I had gotten this test, the expensive early response digital test pregnancy test, (Test test test, did I mention it was a test? I used the digital test pregnancy test to test my test! Sorry... Also, : or ;) I had not wanted a wrong answer. (Most pregnancy tests have a 3% margin of error, and several things can cause false positives and false negatives. In fact, having an embryo that's already on its way out of your body can trigger a false positive. It's correct because technically there's an embryo, it's false because you won't be pregnant in a day; also, since the thought flow ends here, this could be the end of this paragraph.) I turned away and walked back to the lunchroom(,) grabbing my things (The way this sentence reads now, she grabbed her things while walking, not grabbed her things, then walked away... Also, it could be interpreted as the lunchroom is grabbing her things.), (;) it had to be wrong, it just had to be. (While I know what was wrong, you should always say if it isn't in the sentence already.) I was walking slowly, slower then I normally did(, or ;) but it just seemed so unreal. (The pregnant thing, or the walking slowly thing?) Was I really pregnant? (Thanks for clearing that up.) My hand went to my lower stomach, (;) could there really be a baby in there? And how on earth was I going to tell Dougal? (Okay, this name makes me laugh, but when she gets to descriptions a few more paragraphs down, it makes sense: Dougal in an anglicized version of a Gaelic name meaning black stranger.)

“Anarsa!” (I looked it up: anarsa is a Hindu pastry most commonly made of powdered rice soaked in water for three days.) I looked to my right and saw Dougal looking at me from where he was sitting with a couple of his friends who didn’t mind sitting with the two of us. (So glad he has friends who tolerate you.) I walked over to him realizing that I had walked passed (past, in this case; if she'd said she had passed their table while walking, it would be different.) our table. “Are you okay? You were gone for a long time,” he said quietly to me as I sat back down next to him and looked at what was left on my lunch tray.

(Not actually a part of this story...)

“I’m okay, just out of it today,” I responded as I picked up the chocolate pudding that was sitting happily on my plate. ( I liked this sentence so much, I drew a picture!) I smiled at him as I plunged my spoon into my pudding (Cute pudding, nooo!You were my friend! Seriously though, with the way she wrote it was happy, and then "smiled at him"... Was she smiling at the pudding before she murdered him? And plunged... plunged is such a violent verb for pudding eating...), (.) Dougal was the most important person to me, (:) he was my best friend(,) and if that pregnancy test had been right, then he was also the father of my baby. “I was just up late last night studying.” I said as I put the pudding in my mouth. (New paragraph!) Instantly I regretted eating it (I'd regret eating that happy pudding, too...). I jumped up and was at the nearest trashcan barfing my guts out (Don't know what's wrong with this sentence? She didn't jump up and run to the nearest trashcan, she jumped up and the nearest trashcan was already there.). All of my doubts about really being pregnant were squashed in that moment. I never threw up unless I was very, very sick(,) and sick I was not. (It could have been the pudding, most people throw up right away if something tastes bad... or screams in pain as you shove spoons into their brains and eat them...) The nausea that I had been having the past few weeks had finally boiled over. The nausea(,) plus the fact that I was three weeks late(,) was the whole reason I had taken the pregnancy test. (It takes a full week normally before an egg is considered implanted and you're officially pregnant, looking at this she could only be pregnant two weeks at most, and while morning sickness has been reported as early as three weeks, it normally starts around four or six weeks or sometimes not at all.)

I looked away from the trashcan to find that Dougal was standing beside me(,) his face filled with worry. How was I going to tell him that I was pregnant? He was not ready to be a father yet and I certainly was not ready to be a mother. “I’m okay,” I whispered and leaned against him(,) burying my face in his chest and closing my eyes.

“I don’t believe you.” Dougal said quietly to me “come on, let’s get you to the nurse so that you can go home and get better.” He wrapped an arm around me and we started walking to the nurse. I wanted to tell him that I should stay here and go to class, that it was just morning sickness(,) but I just could not. I could not tell him that I was pregnant. My mind ran through my options,(; or .) I could have the baby and Dougal and I could raise it; but what if Dougal left me? What if two years from now he were to meet someone better than me? What would I do then? I would not be able to do this on my own, I would not be able to have a job and go to school and raise a baby. (All of this makes a lot of sense... until you learn that she has two very highly supportive moms... Would they really abandon her to do that all on her own?) So maybe I would be better of (off) giving the baby up or maybe getting an abortion. I had always been pro-choice but I had never thought that it was the right option for me. But maybe abortion would be the right option for me; I had never thought I would ever get pregnant in high school(,) let alone in my sophomore year. How on earth was I going to be a 4.0 student if I had a baby? I would have to completely change the plan that I had for my life, becoming a vet would be completely out of the question, school might not even be in the question. (The wording here is awkward...)

I was pretty sure I was much to (too) selfish to give the baby up for adoption. (You don't want anyone else to have the baby, but you're willing to think about abortion? Because that makes so much sense: if I can't have the baby, no one can.) And then there was Dougal (; or . or , or... I don't know, the wording is too awkward after this, the and throws it off.) and (This and has no place being here.) I knew that he would not be okay with adoption, he would rather raise the baby himself without me then to give the baby to someone else. (Wow, what's wrong with adoption? You're teenagers and you don't think you can do it on your own, but adoption is less of an option than abortion?) If I got an abortion then no one would ever have to know that I was pregnant, (. or ;) no one. I could just say I had caught some stomach flu and no one would second guess me.(;) Dougal would never have to know about the baby. But if I were to get an abortion then I could never tell Dougal, he would leave me in a heartbeat if he knew, (;) he hated abortion, hated everything about abortion. If he could erase abortion from the entire planet, he would. (Many people feel the same way.) He would never forgive me for killing his child, (; also, I fee like a because could be used here) that is how he’d always seen it, (:) as the murder of a helpless child. I had never thought of it that way, even after we had talked about our views on it.(;) But I do not want to keep that kind of a secret from him, I have never been good at keeping secrets from him and keeping something like getting an abortion would just be too much for me to keep from him.(Keep keep keep...)

The knocking on the nurse’s door brought me out of my internal ramblings, and I looked up at Dougal. (Before I start to edit this part, a word to all future writers: if you post your stories on the internet I will find you and relentlessly edit them. Just joking, but seriously now; when you write a story, always put little bits of descriptions throughout, not all at once. It flows better and means you won't have blocks of meaningless prose devoted to descriptions.) He was a few years older than me. (How old? If she'd connected this sentence and the next, it would've felt better.) He was a senior and had just turned eighteen yesterday. (And we aren't celebrating his birthday, why?) His eyes were brown, his hair was a dark brown(,) and he was about six feet and six inches tall; he was(,) to say simply(,) tall(,) dark and handsome.(Pfft, cliche alert! Also, as I said earlier, the name Dougal means black stranger. Way to pick a name!) I (,) on the other hand(,) had dark blond hair and green eyes(,) and was only about five feet and five inches tall (By the way, in the real world she's close to 6' and he's shorter and reminds us (my siblings and I) of a middle-aged policeman). Everyone said we made a cute couple(,) though I always felt like a dwarf in his presence(;) and when we first met he had intimidated me,(.) it had taken a while for me to realize that he was one of, if not the(,) sweetest guy(s) I had met. (New paragraph!) The door opened and I was again ripped from my internal ramblings. (She spends too much time in her head.) “Yes?” she asked looking between the two of us.

“Anarsa just got sick in the lunchroom,” Dougal said before I could move my thoughts from him and the pregnancy to explain why Dougal thought I should be seeing the nurse.

She sighed and looked at me “did you really?” she asked raising an eyebrow and (And not needed, could've just ended that sentence...) I nodded “do I need to get a janitor to clean it up? Or is there already one doing it?

“No, I made it to a trashcan.” I said quietly. I had never gone home sick before, well at least not since I’d started high school (. or;) I would tough it out and be (Stay would sound better) at school so that I wouldn’t miss anything and wouldn’t get behind. But since I wasn’t ready to explain to Dougal or the nurse why it wasn’t something to worry about(,) I was just going to (have to) accept that I was going (coming would sound better) home from school today and getting some rest,(; or .) which honestly sounded really good as I was very tired from my very late study session the night before and the shock of getting the positive pregnancy test seemed to have taken the last of the energy that I had out of me. (Are you tired from the study session and the shock, or were you already tired and then the test shocked the rest of your energy away? Punctuation, hon, even I don't know which one makes more sense here.)

“Alright,” the nurse said and walked back into her office(,) leaving the door open for Dougal and I to follow her in. Dougal(,) being the gentleman that he was(,) pulled out the chair in front of her for me. “What is your mother’s number?” she asked me(,) picking up the phone and hitting nine and (and not needed, another comma would've worked...) waiting for me to relay the number to her.

“960-480-1458” (Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa... Never, ever, ever, give out your real number on the internet. While I don't know if this is hers or not, or belongs to someone she knows, I know this is her area code...) I answered(,) and she dialed (Dialed what? Always put this, even if it seems obvious...) then handed the phone to me as it started ringing. This was one time I did wish that the nurse would talk to my mom and not me, I did not want to lie to her(,) but I wasn’t ready to tell Dougal(,) let along my mother(,) and I felt that Dougal really should know about the baby first. (How quickly she goes from "might be pregnant" to calling it "the baby".)

“Hello?” My mother said. (Well, asked... but most writers do things like this...)

“Hey mom, it’s me, (.) I’m in the nurses office because I got sick,”

“Oh Rissa, I’ll be there in half an hour,” she said using her personal nickname for me. (What? No "Oh, sweetie, are you alright?" Where's the dialog and the realistic characters?)

“Okay; thanks mom.” I said quietly.

“I love you Rissa.”

“I love you too mom, bye.”

“Bye.” she said and hung up.

I handed the phone back to the nurse. “She said she’ll be here in about half an hour.” The nurse nodded and said something that I was paying no attention too (to. Also, nice way to skip out having to flesh out your story and characters). I knew my mother would assume that it was just a stomach flu(,) but I wasn’t sure what she would do when it didn’t go away in the next couple days. (I don't know about you, but stomach bugs sometimes have lasting effects for weeks... Bloated belly, food not sitting well...) Dougal gently took my hand and we left headed back to the cafeteria for my things,(.) As we passed the theater my mind went back to the pregnancy test and I suddenly really wanted to have that test with me. (... There are so many things wrong with that... You want to carry around something you peed on? If I didn't know she hadn't done this in the real world, I'd say no one would be this nuts.) “Honey,” I said as I stopped walking. “I’m going to go to the bathroom in here,” I said pointing to the theater door, “Could you get my stuff and meet me back here, I’ll probably be a while.” (?)

“Sure,” Dougal said and gave me a hug before he went to get my things from the lunchroom. I turned and went back into the theater bathroom and looked in the trashcan,(;) the test was there on top of all the other trash, just as I had left it. I picked it back up and looked at it. (Ew... holding something she peed on...) Pregnant. (Fact: sometimes if a pregnancy test sits for a while, it gives false readings, the same goes for if it's checked too early!) Was what the little digital readout said to me (She needed to combine that pregnant with this sentence for it to read better.), but seeing it again now didn’t make it sink in any more or (make it) any more believable then the first time. My hand went slowly to my stomach and I looked in the mirror. What would I look like nine months from now if I decided to keep the baby and not get an abortion? Would I be like some women who never really got big or would I be like the women who look like they were having triplets when they were only having one; or somewhere in-between? 

“Anarsa,” Dougal’s voice said through the door, “You okay in there?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said(,) putting the test in my pants pocket (Her pee is now in her pocket...) and opening the door,(.) I smiled weakly at him and he just encased me in his arms. “I’m fine Dougal,” I said quietly.

He looked down at me as I looked up at him “I know you better then that, I know you are tired, and sick, and I know that something is not fine (Alright would work better...) with you. You can talk to me An, you know you can.”

“I know, I’ll talk to you about it some other time,(;) are you coming with me to wait for my mom?” (And skip class since they were at lunch when all this happened and she's going to be sitting around for thirty minutes?) I asked(,) changing the subject as I knew that I would just start telling him all about the baby if I didn’t(;) and I didn’t want him to know yet, not when I didn’t know what I was going to do.

“Yes, of course I am.” He said to me, giving me a tight squeeze. We walked back to the lunchroom and then out onto the benches in front of the school. “Just remember to talk to me when you are ready, I hate when there is something that’s bothering you.”

I smiled slightly at him and rested my head on his chest. He was always so very sweet. He really did care about me and that was something that I really did love about him. (Really?) I was glad that he was the father of my baby, (As opposed to...? And seriously, by calling it a baby at this stage, you're making it impossible for adoption or abortion to be options.) I was sure that he would be a great dad, that is, if I kept the baby. And if I was going to get an abortion(,) the sooner I got one the better it would be(,) for me at least,(; also, but) it would still destroy my relationship with Dougal and I really did not want to do that. I wanted us to be together forever(,) as lame as that sounds(, and it does sound lame, and sappy) and if I did keep the baby I knew he would step up, or at least I was pretty sure he would. (You can never be sure of men... And new paragraph!) I closed my eyes as I rested my head against Dougal, (;) abortion was my best option(,) but how would I really be able to do it? (Seriously... Abortion is better than adoption?!) I couldn’t drive, and I couldn’t have my mother take me. (You don't know about buses? You don't have friends you could trick into dropping you off near the building?) She would never go for that.(You might be surprised, most moms would be opposed to their little girls having to raise children, she might just, oh, I don't know: suggest adoption.) Dougal would never take me, not with his views on abortion, so how would I even be able to get the abortion? Maybe Adoption was better(,) but then I would have to tell everyone, and I would let my mother down so much.(Of course you would, having sex at the age of fifteen with an eighteen year old. That's illegal you know.)

The exciting conclusion to chapter one... at some later date!

Grammar rules to live by: too many to get into, all I can really say is punctuation, capitalization, an understanding of the English language, and a bonus rule called Fact Check.

Also, past and passed. You use passed when you're moving, but don't have a verb describing how you were moving, such as "I had passed the table" and you use past when you have a verb, "I walked past the table."

Also, a rule for aspiring writers: When writing in first person, always write as the character that things are being seen from; in fact, most of the time when writing from 3rd person you should pick a character in that scene whose views are painting the imagery.

And She Does It AGAIN Ladies And Gentlemen! Part One In An Epic Series On How To Write A Book!

Alright, when you sit down to write a book, there are a lot of things you have to have in mind when you begin, a lot of things other than just a basic grasp of the English language; you need to have a feel for your audience, lure them in with a catch hook.. The following is how NOT to write a book.

"Blogging: A school project that blossomed into something more"

(Ah, so I see we're already off to a great start! That is so not a title that leads me to believe that the entire following post will be based off of something you had to do in class; I so didn't get confused when the About Me popped up.)

So this is the first "post" that I wrote for the book I started a couple days ago that is titled "Blogging: A school project that blossomed into something more" (for now at least). I'm not really set on how I'm going to do the date and time thing yet, and I'm not sure if I want to have the title be above or below the date/time, but eventually I'll figure it out. This is basically all I have of the book so far and it is about a page in length. (A fake blog is a book...? You do know most publishers won't take anything that's been published on the internet, right...?)

August 25th 2012 6:15pm (Pffft, silly Kit! You should've known this wasn't her just blogging from the get-go! It's in the future!)

About Me; Part One? Maybe? (I don't know?)

Life is funny thing; you think that one thing will happen(, and for added bonus of flowing better, add an and) then something totally different happens. Like today, (The comma works sort of, but you could easily go with a ; here, or a : As in the following is an example of something that happens you didn't expect.) I was assigned to do this blog all year long for my English class. I’m not sure what all there is to write about,(; because you're beginning a new thought) I am the quiet person who doesn’t really insert herself (Since you're talking about neutral gendered people who don't like to talk in an effort to describe yourself, use themselves. Say it aloud. Herself sounds funny...) in conversations, I (like to) keep things to myself. This is probably one of my down falls as none of my relationships have lasted very long.

Anyway, my teacher wants us to go over our pasts for at least a while in these blogs.(Combine these two sentences, they don't need to be separated.) But first I think that what I need to do is introduce myself. I am Leah, (This could sound a lot better if it was just changed to "My name is", and it would look and flow better.) Leah Myrna O'Reilly-Matthews, (and) I am (conjunctions are your best friends, people) nineteen years old and (Remove that and as it's unneeded, give yourself a ;) I am in my second year of college, (No comma, and) my major is still in the air (End the sentence there.) I have (Get rid of that part and changed it to, There are) so many things that I would like to do its (that) picking what I want to do forever that (Remove the that) is the hard part.

The reason for my ("I have" would be a better way to start the sentence.) two last names is because when I was sixteen I was adopted, (No comma.) by an amazing couple named Laura and Pamela (... Okay, the first chapter of her other book isn't up yet, but I'd like to say... She seems to be on a "I have two mommys" kick. Nothing wrong with it, but I just can't help but see the theme...) ,(;) when they adopted me they wanted to change my last name to their last name, Matthews, but I wanted to keep my last name (because) it was one of the only things I had (left) of my parents. I say one of because I do have a photo album of me and my parents,(;) I used to have more things, that (but instead of that) I lost slowly (reverse these two and put a those) though all of the foster homes that I had (have) been though. The thing I remember most that I lost was a locket that my parents had given me the day of the accident.(;) But the locket wasn’t really lost(,) it was stolen,(;) but that is not something I am going to talk to the world about(,) not today at least.

The accident is how I became an orphan. (Really? With an ominous title like The Accident, I thought it was just the day you wet yourself at school.) My parents(,) Myrna (... Your mom gave you her first name as your middle name...?) and Drummond O’Reilly(,) were Irish (Awesome, thanks, make me regret being Irish...) immigrants, (remove the comma...) who moved over(here instead of over, because over means they moved slowly from Ireland to America over several years...) several years before I was born. So when my parents’ BMW was crushed between one of those Toyota heavy-duty trucks and an eighteen-wheeler (... Yeah...? So when it was crushed, then what happened? Ideally this should be changed to remove the "so when", and then this sentence combined with the next.). The back bumper of the eighteen-wheeler went through the front windshield of their car and they died instantly(,) or at least that is what I was told. I didn’t have any other family, not in the states at least(,) so I was placed into foster care (Wait... what? You always go to your closest family member, no matter where they live, and if something happened and you didn't it's because they didn't want you and gave up the rights. If they wanted you they would've gotten custody.) (End the sentence and make this a new one.) and since I was four and people don’t want to adopt a child that old. (... And since you you were four, what...? Also, are you nuts?! Not adopting a four year old because that's "too old"? Four year olds are ripe for adopting: they're past the terrible twos, fully into their cuteness, and you don't have to wake up all hours of the night changing their diapers.)

(Take the last sentence of that last paragraph and stick it to this one... Though it still doesn't make a lick of sense...) I bounced around from foster home to foster home tell (until) I was fifteen, when Laura and Pamela became my foster parents(,) and then adopted me. I had (have) been though a lot in foster care, (No comma.) and I am very happy with who my parents are now. I’ll talk more about the foster care thing some other day (I can't wait for this! She's going to make me fact check everything!), right now I have homework to do and my roommate hates it when I stay up past midnight with the lights on as(when) she has classes early in the morning. (... So you just don't care if you keep her awake?)

~Leah O’Reilly-Matthews

After you write something you should read it aloud to yourself to find out if you wrote anything awkward; also, be careful of tense changes. Would you tell someone, "Yeah, I had been through a lot." or "Yeah, I've been through a lot." ?

I Am A Horrible, Cruel, Mean, Twisted, Evil, Passive Aggressive, Vindictive Person (but I just can't stop!)

I stand at the apex of war...

I am a horrible, cruel, mean, twisted, evil, passive aggressive, vindictive person... but there really isn't much I can do to help myself; you see, once upon a time I had a temper just like my mom, and then one day... she was gone. When I realized I could never take back my regrets and the things I'd said, I decided I would just never have regrets over things I'd said ever again... except now I have regrets over things I don't say. This isn't about that, though: this post is about my love of looking for things that make me angry so I can sit and feel insanely alive as my adrenaline courses through my blood. I am, needless to say, a terrible person...

There are things that must be said.

 Especially I am terrible when it comes to the subject of a certain young woman named Cathrin... I won't even try to hide her name, she's seeking out attention all over the internet, so it won't matter if I hide it, you'll still find her... eventually. See, we used to be friends in high school, she was younger than me and a lot more immature even back then, but we got along fine... only she had, problems...

I still worry about her...

Like she was completely obsessed with a boy she'd met at 13 or 14 named Chris over the internet. He was 18 when she met him, and her parents had already had him arrested once for cybering with her over the internet. How obsessed was obsessed? She'd write fanfiction, horrible mini-novels, all with the same plotline: underage girl meets older boy, gets pregnant, loses baby.

I'm talking physically ill...

Oh, and I do mean bad fanfiction... She wrote a Twilight spin off called What She Didn't Know. It was from the point of view of a male vampire who was obviously based on Chris. He met an underage girl over the internet and got arrested, then tricked his family into moving to her town so he could sneak into her room at night and have sex with her. The name of one chapter was basically But What She Didn't Know Was That When A Vampire And A Human Have Sex And The Woman Gets Pregnant The Baby Grows Really Fast And When It's Born She Dies. It was probably the worst thing I had ever read, but I did because at the time, we were friends, and I fairly liked her... also, I clearly didn't understand what delusions are and how it would've been smarter to do something about it before it ruined her life...

"I'm pregnant with his spirit baby."

And why did she do this? Why did she write stories about 18 year olds getting under aged girls pregnant against the wishes of their parents only for her to write in a miscarriage? Because despite having never met him in person and the fact he lived several states away, she used to tell us, quite blatantly, that he had sex with her in her sleep and she was pregnant from his spirit. When, normally a few weeks later, she wasn't showing any signs of actually being pregnant, she'd give up and claim miscarriage. Of course, she never told her parents and never went to the doctor, so you can see how this made her stories untrustworthy... especially when she'd claim a miscarriage then a week later say she was two weeks pregnant... Oh, and the spirit babies thing, too..

Still mad she used them, though...

A few years later she was on Facebook and she had managed to convince an entire community of women who really had lost children that this had all happened; oh, and she managed to manipulate her parents into letting her meet him in person, and now she's married to him... When I tried to tell these women this, a lot of them believed me because they had seen the holes in her stories and how obsessed she was, but a lot didn't because, well, it's the internet and they don't know me from jack, and they couldn't believe that anyone would do such a thing. When Cathrin told me stop after slandering me for almost a week, I let it go... I felt awful that her delusions were accidentally being reinforced, but I let it go; there was nothing I could do anymore anyway.

Am I really seeing what I think I'm seeing?

During NaNoWriMo, though, I saw her name on the site, and I read her book summary... and my petty nature had me silently competing with her in an effort to write better quality faster than she could. It got me through the book quickly, and it let me vent some anger, and all was well... until I saw she made a page on FB promoting herself as an author... and then I saw she made a blog... where she had put up the first three chapters of her book... She's completely convinced she's a writer now; I consider myself a writer, and even I know I'm probably never going to get a book deal: when your average book is more than 500 pages, you tend to have problems getting published.

... I'm a terrible person...

She butchered the English language though and did so little fact checking on her source material that a paragraph in I felt like, well... like taking her hopes and dreams and grinding them into a paste beneath my heel and rubbing her face in it. It was just too good to pass up... So, instead of letting my rage and anger take over me... I'm instead going to play the role of editor to these three chapters. Follow along if you dare, if you don't... Well then, you can return to your regularly scheduled programming and ignore those posts.

Did I?

Butt Gremlins

 So the other day, the Hedgehog is just laying on the bed when he suddenly announced in a cheerful voice, “I have butt gremlins!”

“They go: ppppbbrrrrruuuupbt! That’s how they growl.”

Then he got  up, and as he walked away, he farted. “Oh, that’s Ted. He says hi.”

I Need A Job

Forewarning: I am angry. That is all.

I had been planning on writing this post out when I could think clearly about the events of the 11th when I had to watch both the Spawn and the Terror, and in fact was going to put it up today. After all, I had calmed down significantly since then and could think objectively about the whole day... Last Friday I was supposed to be paid. Now, if you read this blog, you might think I've been paid a couple of times since the first post on this blog... Well, I haven't. Today was only the second time I've ever been paid since I started watching the Terror.


The first time I got paid $85. Today? I got $80. I did the math on that... I'm still pretty much getting paid $8.50 a day to watch her kid.

Alright, deep breath Kit, don't get mad... just tell everyone what you planned...

On the 11th I had to watch both of the kids at the same time, and as you may know, the Spawn seems to think it's his job to terrorize the Terror and get her behavior going a thousand times worse. He was okay first thing in the morning because he was focused on his game, but... he beat it, and not 30 minutes after my post, he came out of his room and helped to cause near non-stop chaos for the rest of the day.

On top of their usual behavior of dashing up and down the hall and jumping on the couch, the talk of buttholes continued... non-stop... through every conversation... no matter what they were playing. Sometimes they changed it up and talked about dooky. I got them to stop for all of 15 minutes when I made up a game where they could only use five words to talk, all really weird words, like "ceiling fan"... That occupied them until the Terror kept on talking about poop and butts... I couldn't make it stop.

Before I move on, I will tell you the good things that happened: we all had a good laugh over the questions for the FAQ and my answers, and I had a couple of nice game conversations with the Spawn... There was even a kind of touching moment when I explained that when I was yelling at them to stop, I was yelling at both of them, not just him. They were both doing things that were wrong, and he should tell me when she was bothering him, so I could take care of it...

... You know, as opposed to getting a hard pillow and slamming it across her face while screaming at her.

That was pretty much the only good things that happened. The rest of the day was spent trying to make them play nice with each other, trying to get the Terror to stop trying to shove her finger up his butt, to leave him alone when he wanted to go back to play his game, to get him to share with her...

They had pillow fights and wrestled and stacked pillows on each other and jumped off of the couches onto each other, and for the most part... I let them. So long as they weren't screaming or arguing, I let them be and play with each other.

I could remember being six and playing with my older brother. My older brother terrorized me. We were both in Judo, so he called it "practice" and my aunt let him pound my head repeatedly into the floor or ground while they watched. Also, he was in football, and would use me as a target to practice tackling.

While the Terror and the Spawn pretty much screamed and hollered non-stop and made me wanna strangle something, they pretty much were having fun. Aside from taking an iPhone or iPod (don't own one and can't tell the difference nowadays...) and recording him talking and not sharing, and above incident where she was bothering him and he wailed on her, and all the times she tried to shove her finger up his butt, they played pretty well with each other.

Of course, that doesn't mean they didn't drive me nuts with the constant chaos, and the Spawn played his usual game of ignoring my authority and laughing at me when I tried to get them to stop, or getting way too offended and storming off... But talking with the Hedgehog cleared all that up later. You have to feel sorry for a kid who thinks everything's his fault.

So looking back on it, it wasn't as bad as it could've been... even though they made fun of me and hit me in the head with a pillow when my back was turned, said I had a "monster face" and that I was fat.

But my point is... would you deal with all of this for $8.50 a day?

And would you really pay the person who watches your precious child from 8am to 8pm some nights for 3 or 4 days a week so little...?

Creepy Conversation of the Day

(The color changes in the next pic... tried to find a more tile-y color...)

So yesterday wasn’t too bad of a day with the Terror… I mean, she was a real, horrible, Terror yesterday, but the Hedgehog had the day off of work so he was there, and his little sister came over for a while, so the Terror wasn’t focused terribly on me… Still, she pitched an ever loving screaming fit because the Spawn and the Hedgehog’s little sis wouldn’t play with her? Or something like that… So to punish her for being bad I put her in timeout like I always do.

Timeout is a chair in the corner of the kitchen. Sometimes she sits and whimpers quietly for five minutes, sometimes she sits and screams and tries to move and I have to bump it up to ten minutes… Guess which one she did this time?

Not pictured here: a weeks worth of dirty dishes, and sanity.

 Oh, and when she sits and screams, she does it purposely, meaningfully, emphasizing each individual scream. And if I make the mistake of looking back at her she stares forcefully into my eyes, screaming short little blasts of “ah”!

"Ah! Ah! Aahh! Ah! Aaaah! Ah!"

"AH! AAAAHHHH! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M SUFFERING?!"

Well, while ignoring her so that she understands this won’t get her her way, Hedgehog’s sister came out, saw her in the kitchen, and told her, “If you want out of the chair, just get out of it.” and so the Terror did so… I may have lied when telling this to the Hedgehog by telling him that his sister picked the Terror up and moved her, because honestly… his little sister is scary and intimidating to my “shy-just-getting-to-know-you-and-therefore-not-comfortable-speaking” stage I go through. Normal me would like her, but for now she’s loud and aggressive and yells a lot at everything.

… All I could think was that my authority had been undermined… Whether purposeful or not (and I doubt it was, though she had to know that the chair in the corner was timeout) it put a thought in the Terror’s head: she could get away with anything, timeout was no longer a punishment…

I know this because a few hours later she got into raw cookie dough and huddled in a corner trying to eat it quickly before anyone noticed… right behind me… while my back was turned… I who thought she was just being a weird kid staring over my shoulder making slurping noises.

And I could’ve prevented it, too, if I’d spoken up earlier in the day when the Hedgehog’s sister had given her a chunk of the cookie dough. I could’ve said, “No, that’s your older sister’s, I don’t think she should have that”, but instead I clamed up and worried about how if I spoke up she’d hate me… But the Terror suddenly saw that the cookie dough was something she could have, and she did so…

When she got yelled at for doing it, she crawled under the table and proceeded to drag herself across the floor, looking pathetic and shoving at anything within arm’s length…

In fact, the only not bad thing that really happened with her today was a creepy conversation we had. See, after the Terror woke up I asked what she wanted for breakfast. Normally she wants pbj, because she freaking loves the stuff, but for the past couple of days she’s wanted toast instead. So I toasted her some bread and was looking for a butter knife, but all the forks and butter knives were dirty. Well, thinking she could help, the Terror grabbed the only knife left and thrust it at me, so I had to talk to her about how certain things are only for adults… (Apparently telling her how cars are only for adults doesn’t work, because the Hedgehog’s little sister lets her drive sometimes… Seeing a trend here...)

While telling her about this, we had this conversation:

Me: Knives are only for adults.
Terror: But mommy uses them.
Me: Well, mommy’s an adult.
Terror: She uses this one on her toe!

I was caught so off guard, I lapsed straight into, “Ugh, ew! That’s so disgusting!”

I then, because you should never tell a small child their mother is disgusting, had to cover it up quickly by saying that the Terror should never do such a thing… but I couldn’t help but ask why her mom used it that way.

Terror: Because her toe hurts.

… And the knife solves this problem?!