Word of the Day: wiseacre Patrick is spastic. One minute he's happy, making baby coos and looking around, and the next minute he's crying and screaming and hitting himself in the face. We don't know what he's angry about, so we're just letting him cry for periods of time in his bed when we're not holding him or playing with him. Although he's been holding up his head better and even starting to raise himself on his arms. I just know he's going to be crawling soon, and that's insane. Both JD and I crawled and walked early, and though I know that doesn't assure Patrick of doing the same it's seeming to give him an extra little push. I seem to have gotten into a little routine, and the time is going by rather quickly. I know I have to go back to work, and soon, but I just don't want to. And it's not even that I don't want to go back to the chaos that is the Holiday Inn, I don't want to go back to work at all. I'm disparing now that we're as poor as dirt and I can't stay home with Patrick. I never, ever, neverever thought I'd be saying that. I remember when I couldn't possibly imagine being a mother because I was afraid of and didn't like babies. Now, I'm not afraid of babies, but I still kind of don't like them. I think Patrick, adorable and cuddly as he is, is annoying a lot, if not a majority, of the time. But contrary to my repulsion at what comes out of him and my angry and sometimes violent feelings when he's crying insanely and unconsolably, I love him dearly and want to be there for him when he's crying and when he's angry and wants love and attention. It's seemingly contradictory to my nature since I usually get rid of highly annoying things in my life, but after reflection I understand now that he's not like everything else that bothers me. That should have been obvious to me, but there were a lot of things in my personality that didn't so much change as become more prominent, such as the motherly instinct that has always been there but in the background. Needless to say, my entire mindset has changed since becoming a mother, so much so that I want to never work again. Just one question, Ashley--why do you think what you're doing isn't honorable? It always seemed to me that one of the most honorable [read: you're able to be honored] things to do is earn a college degree. Therefore, I seem to have dishonored [read: not able to be honored] myself by not getting one sooner rather than later. I'm having to come to terms with the fact that my friends are graduating in the next two years and will be in the honorable position of a degree-holding job-seeking individual and that I have a husband and a baby and might never finish school. So, I don't think that having a family isn't honorable; on the contrary, I believe it's more honorable in the long run. However, my own family [read: my father] incessently pushed education over love or family, and I'm unfortunately still in that mindset, though it's slowly changing. Now the only reason I'm wanting to finish school and get a degree is to show my father that I can. I never needed it for what I really want to do, which is write books, and I actually don't know how many actual opportunities an English degree would give me since it's not a specialized degree. And now, since I don't really want to work at all, the only real reason for me to have a degree is for my own honor and pride, plus I can give my dad the smackdown and show him who's better at life. I just have to get used to my situation before being able to find honor in it. Though it's strange since I readily give honor to others in my situation--it's only different because it's me. In other news, my twenty-first birthday is in seventeen days. I told JD I wanted this [the blue one] because I've always wanted a corset. They're so beautiful. Unlike me. I know that looks don't really matter when it comes to important things like being a good person, but sometimes I just want to feel pretty. And I don't. I should take a shower. That might make me feel better. About everything.