Click

So, the battle is just finding material now. I have mixed emotions because I feel a responsibility to my reader that I never felt before. I suppose when readers stick around for 7 months without a peep from me, one feels a certain burden to be entertaining, to be the best – but without tragedy, heartache and the other stuff that I don’t like to mention, this is just a girl, who goes to work, gets home late, watches show taped on the DVR while knitting and sleeps next to the man of her dreams before starting the cycle over again the next day. Sure I have a social life as well, and Audrey says the darnedest things, but for a while there I was living that crazy soap opera life. And finally the chapters are closing on that part, so I suppose it’s time to write it up like CH and I talked about.

Perhaps I’m just savoring the good life, appreciating the fact that I fall more in love with Steve every day and I’m still surprised by it, because I come from a world where love doesn’t last. But that’s okay. It doesn’t for everyone, and it’s nice to be surprised.

Still, I agonize daily. What do my readers want to read? Should I ask their opinion for this dilemma I have right now? Well, now that I’ve mentioned it, I might as well…

The Saturday before Halloween, Audrey and I were running billions of errands as I sought out the perfect costume for Steve for a party we were to go to that evening, and just as I was getting her out of the car to go into Target, she said, “I’m so glad that I’m a girl.”

“Ah,” I said to her, smiling sweetly down at my sweet little girl, “Why’s that, Baby Girl?”

“Because then I don’t have to touch penises!” she smirked.

After scooping my jaw off the center console and wiping away the immediate thought that her mind will soon change as I enjoy touching penises very much and I am a girl, I asked, “So when have you seen penises?”

“When Hera gives me and Jonah a bath when we have sleepovers,” she wrinkled her nose and hopped out of the Durango , “I see his penis, and it’s gross. I don’t want to touch it."

“Hera bathes you with Jonah? And you're both naked?" I am incredulous, shocked, incensed, but I try not to show it.

I go into the store with Audrey skipping beside me already forgetting our conversation. I had done anything but.

I called my mom and told her about it. She was shocked as well. I told Steve when he got home from work. He was shocked.

So the next day I decided to talk to Sam about it.

"...so I was just wondering if you could talk to Hera about that," I said, finishing sharing my concerns with him.

"Speak to who about it?" Sam asked.

"Hera." I said.

Click.

He hung up on me. I stared at the phone in wonder. Huh. So it begins. Our commitment to raising our daughter together.

A couple of days later after several emails from me, Sam finally wrote me that he and Hera discussed the issue. And that was that. So I wrote him back asking what was the result of said discussion. No answer. I wrote him again. No answer. I wrote him again. No answer.

So, internet friends, I put it to you.

1. Is five years old indeed too old to have nude baths with a male friend?

2. Is it wise for a person to attempt to parent a child every other week with no knowledge of the goings on in her life during the off weeks, which essentially means that you have nothing whatsoever to do with exactly one half of your child's life?

3. Okay, I'm just slipping it in, but does anyone else think it is ethically questionable for a teacher (Hera) to date a child's father (Sam) thus exposing her to family secrets and biases of which she would otherwise have no knowledge?