Over the past two months I've managed to get roughly 30 cover letters written for jobs I feel I'm qualified.  Judging by the response I've received in return I am the only person that feels I am qualified.  Cover letters are a menace.  You don't know who is going to be on the other end reading so the tone of your letter could be a huge hit or a disastrous miss.  I have been many personalities in cover letters.  I've been humorous, business-serious, less than enthusiastic and over eager.  I get less than enthusiastic when I'm hard on myself, knowing my letter is going to be unanswered anyway.

Writing a cover letter is not an easy task.  And you can't just have a well-written generic letter saved  for quick send-off.  Different jobs call for different skills and the letter needs to highlight those skills.  I got skills.  Tell me what you want, I'll tell you what I got.  Ugh.

And then the cover letter gets sent, and you think of things you should have said in addition, or you regret the tone you chose, or you wonder, "Did I remember to change the address from the last company I wrote?"  A cover letter is never good enough.  I don't know why the resume can't speak for itself.  We all know anyone can say anything in a letter and it's not a real reflection of the personality of the writer.  Don't we all know that?

But I'll admit my cover letters do tend to be hurried, just like my blog updates.  My blog posts could be better written, but they're usually written while Clara is napping and Lxkas is watching Thomas.  To have these two events occur at the same time is pure luck.  Right now Thomas and Toby are on an adventure but Clara is stirring in her bed.  I'm on limited time here.

There is one project I'm working on in which I'm taking all the time in the world.  I'm writing a story that started developing in my head last summer.  A complete story is sitting in my mind waiting to come out on this computer screen.  I wrote the first chapter and sent it to a couple of good friends of mine, because I told myself that if they said it sucked I wasn't going to waste any more of my precious time writing it.

Well, I got mixed reviews.  Friend 1 flat out told me it was unoriginal and my style sucked.  I appreciated her honesty and told Friend 2 not to bother critiquing it because I was going to find better things to do with creative juices.  Well, turns out Friend 2 sees something promising in my story because she has inspired me to keep writing.  She gave me a couple of suggestions, I did some revisions, and we feel the story is on its way.  I'm two chapters in now.

It's a story about culture and the complex relationships of women.  My main character struggles with living in the present because of the past and her grandmother is a huge part of this struggle.  Also, she's growing up in a time of rapid change, where roles of the sexes are changing, the family structure is changing and the environment in which they live is changing.  In case you haven't guessed yet, my character is Cherokee, and she doesn't know it yet, but she's going to be walking the Trail of Tears.

I don't know what I'm going to do with the story when I finish it but I do feel I want to finish it just so I can say I did.  If it does suck completely to hell and back, at least I tried.  If it's okay and mildly entertaining, I'll upload it to the internet so maybe a couple of people will take the time to read it if they like.  If it's better than mediocre, or if it's good, maybe I can sell it and make a little money.  I know the third option isn't very likely, so let's hope for #2 because I don't like to suck.

So every now and then I'll catch a good lengthy break where I can get a few pages churned out.  At the rate I'm going we may see a finished product before the apocalypse.  That's a big maybe.

Sometimes it's hard to come up with titles for these updates and so I wait until I've finished before I settle on one.  For this post, the first sentence I typed was the title.

I'm holding Clara and I'm looking out the window to the front yard that is wildly getting out of control.  Wildly.  As if being out of control isn't wild enough.  We had a storm the other night that took down huge parts of our beautiful front yard tree; the tree that is the centerpiece of the yard and gives the house a finished and balanced appearance.  The tree is now out of balance.  But this post isn't about balance or landscaping or storms.

I'm holding Clara and Lxkas is playing or watching tv or digging silverware out of the silverware drawer. Who knows. That little man is always busy doing something and it's usually what he shouldn't be doing.  Not only is there a tree laying on the front lawn, but the flower bed that Cxdy had cleared out a couple of months ago is becoming overgrown with weeds.  I remember back to when I said:  "I don't need the best yard in the neighborhood, but I don't want the worst."  I think we have one of the worst.

And I'm holding Clara, because if I put her down she will fuss and work up into a huge cry.  The yard is calling me, but I have created my own prison. It's a baby prison.  Natural law states I cannot go straighten a mosquito-ridden, overgrown lawn in 100 degree F weather leaving two babies unattended.  I hope you are up to date on your natural laws.

Do you remember two posts back when I was ecstatic about staying home with my little lovies?  It was the best day on earth.  Streamers were falling from the sky.  I think I may have left that part out, but it happened.  It was a glorious event, that realization.

And now, it is soaking into the brain, penetrating this thick skull of mine and soaking deeper and deeper.

It's real.

What do I do with myself?  And them?  I'm in lock-down.  How do you have fun in lock-down?  I have to reinvent the wheel because I wasn't planning on this.

Realistically, I've been doing this for 6 months already, but always with the intention of going back to work and actively seeking employment for the last couple of months.  Now, I need to figure things out because I can't continue this on the same course.  There has got to be more.

I know how to be a mom--trust me.  I've done this.  I have a 22 year old (on Saturday he's 22).  He made it.  He survived my momness.  I've just never been a stay-at-home mom.  Those women were always a strange breed to me.  Now?  I have to learn to be one of them.

I forgot to mention in that post a couple of updates back that Cxdy had also taken a part-time job.  We wouldn't be able to play this gig if he hadn't.  I think that's part of the reason this is sinking in hard and fast.  Every night this week he has left for his regular job at 6:30 am and returned from his part-time job at 10:15 pm (orientation week;  it won't always be like this).  I've not had a break.  I realize now how big of a help that man is!

I can't become one of those super moms that blogs all the time because my little demons... err... angels won't allow it.  I can't become Suzy-expert-homemaker because I only have one arm (the baby would have to surgically be removed) and we can't take day trips to museums and kiddy parks (wouldn't that be nice?) because we have declared ourselves poor.

Painting?  Out.  Babies don't allow that one either.

Eh, I'll figure out something.  I usually do.

So, crafts, anyone?

Perhaps sometimes my entries all start to sound like odes to Clara, but I can't help it.  That girl is so darned beautiful.  Or maybe it's partly because I know everything is a little more difficult for her.  Some things are a lot more difficult.  The things she does, when she does them, just... amaze me.

One thing that has struck me since becoming a part of the extra chromosome crowd is that these children aren't dumb.  A lot of people, even some parents, believe these children really have some sort of brain damage.  Since being around Clara and other people's children I have actually thought this to be very far from the truth.  I see intelligence in their eyes.  These children think, and they think deeper than we assume.

Right now Clara is trying to reach for toys.  Sometimes she can grab them.  Other times, I see the frustration on her face when she wants to make her arms go forward for that toy, but they don't.  She knows they should, but it can be a difficult struggle.  It's frustrating to me to see her fight so hard.  That's why when she does tackle something, no matter how small, it becomes huge to us.

A couple of weeks ago, Cxdy and I had the fortunate experience of sitting in on a webinar hosted by D.A.D.S.  There were several speakers, and two of them were researchers from the University of Colorado.  They explained where research is today, what we can maybe expect in the future and the link between Alzheimer's and Down syndrome.  I walked away with a bit of a better understanding of what happens when the extra chromosome 21 is created.  In my poor laymen's term, basically, genes stick in places where they don't belong and the communication in the body systems gets blocked and, as I would describe it, fuzzy.  That's pretty simple, but of course, it's much more complex.  But, I'm not a scientist ("Really?!" you ask!). I wish I had the slide that showed these examples.

Then this last week, news comes out that researchers have found a way to suppress duplication of chromosomes.  This is huge.

If the extra chromosome isn't created, then there won't be extra genes sticking in places where they don't belong.  If those extra genes aren't sticking in places they don't belong, Clara can easily have her brain tell her arms to grab that toy instead of trying to get that message through all the muddle that exists there now.

This is very exciting.  I think my little girl is who she is regardless.  If we are able to give her gene therapy one day, it's not going to change who she is.  It's not going to change her beautiful smile.  But it is going to help bring her out of the haze that is trisomy 21.  I welcome that.  I'm pretty sure she welcomes that, too.

It's not going to change the way she looks, or the hole in her heart, because her nasal bone and heart have already missed that development in the womb, but that doesn't matter to me.  She's beautiful regardless, and the hole in her heart can be fixed.  However, for other children in the future, perhaps even the birth defects can be completely avoided.

One day, gene therapy or not, Clara is going to proudly declare that she has an extra chromosome that has helped to make her the unique person she is.

Being a part of this extra chromosome crowd is very exciting.  I once thought I never wanted to be here.  Now, I don't want to leave.

I'm sure there are friends, family and acquaintances who would state with certainty that I screwed up big when I left a good job permanently rather than take 6 weeks maternity leave.  After all, it was my job that has afforded my family an easy lifestyle in which we knew the bills would be paid, we could maintain a roof over our heads, food would be on the table and we could take a nice vacation now and then.

As further proof that I screwed up, I am finding it difficult to find another job in that pay grade, let alone a lower pay grade.  I can't even get called for jobs that don't require a degree.  I've applied for over 50 jobs in the past month, and I've been called for two interviews.  I cancelled one.  It was too similar to the job I just left.  I don't want to live my work anymore.  I want to work and then come home and live.

And even further proof I screwed up?  Daycare in this area where we live is not affordable with two babies.  The job I left was in a city where daycare is more than half the price of what I will end up paying here.  If I accept a job, it has to be at a certain starting salary, because with daycare expenses we may as well be paying a full-time employee $10 an hour.  It's the same cost.  If I took a starter job at $11 an hour, I would actually be bringing home $1 an hour.  Before taxes.

So, did I screw up?  Everyone might think so, but I don't think so.

We've weighed this out and we've decided that I will keep looking for a job and if I receive an offer at a certain minimum salary I will accept it; but, until then, I'm staying home with the babies and applying for disability for Clara.  I think that added income will keep us out of the red.  We may come out flat (we hope), but we will manage (we hope).  And as long as I get to stay home with these two wonderful creatures that keep my own my toes, Momma's happy.  This is what I want.  This is what I have desperately wanted since I found out last November that Clara would be born with Down syndrome.

It's slightly scary.  But, if I don't get called for interviews I'm not going to worry about it anymore.  Daddy thinks we can do this.  So do I.

Welcome me to being poor.  But happy.  Go me.