Breadcrumb 8 - Ginger Bread

There are many things in life we can live without. You can happily live without a dishwasher (at least, most people can). You can live without a vacuum cleaner, if you really have to. But you can't live without a stove. You simply can't live without a stove.

What if you want to make pancakes? What if you want to bake waffles? There is no way you can do this without the use of a stove. No chance you get the perfect waffle-quality by using the microwave. You can forget about the softness of the inside and the crusty outside. Your pancake won't be fluffy, soft and light, as they are supposed to be. Ever thought about preparing eggs in a microwave? Don't do it! So... you definitely need a stove. A life without a stove is like missing your arms or legs.

 But there was not a chance we were getting a stove while living in this little garagebuilding... The landlord didn't allow us to, but above all there was simply no room for a stove. It made me consider for a while what to do...

 And it was actually my little boy that gave me the brilliant idea...

 He had been playing with Willy the Wale for a while now, which was his most favorite toy. And if he liked it... why would other kids not like it? Of course I was his mom, and I was the one who had created it, but still... Couldn't it be that it was just an attractive toy?

So I just started working on this idea. Creating lots of Willy and Willa the Wale's, untill our house was stocked with the toy, from floor to the roof. Wales in yellow, blue and red, whatever color any kid would prefer. And it turned out to be a complete success! Can you believe it? Moms and dads called my cell phone every minute, requesting such an adorable little toy. Personalized, if I would do that? Not a problem. If they only paid.

And secretly I started saving money. Big money. Lots of money. Money for a new house. Not an apartment, but finally a house. A house for a family... A family home.

And isn't this a place that you'd call home?

For once I lived quite far away from the city again. Not in the middle of the buzzing city center, but on the outskirts, in a real house. It wasn't that far away from the lab, and more importantly, when regarding the future, it wasn't that far away from the elementary school either. One day Rye would be grown-up and I wouldn't want him to travel hours by bus or something!

I felt so much like a family. Little Rye cooing in his high chair and Ace making us breakfast or dinner. Especially in the weekends, when we were both home.

But there was a certain topic Ace kept coming up with. Not always explicitly, even, but sometimes I just felt him staring at me in silence. And I knew what was in his mind.

The thing that wasn't in my mind at all, honestly.

"Shouldn't we get married? Be a real mom and dad?"

"You think we're no real mom and dad?" I returned his question, not answering the first part. I tried to avoid to answer that question in every way. I was not (yet) ready to marry...

I enjoyed my life just as it was. Rye was adorable as ever, not causing any problems. I can't talk with the other moms about horrible children, but maybe it was just because he hadn't yet reached the terrible-two's.

And there were so many things in the house to keep me busy (even during the weekends, or especially then, as these were the only moments I had some time off), like improving the stove (we finally had one again!). I have always been kind of handy in and around the house. Never been afraid of getting my hands a bit dirty. And I just knew what to do...

 

We threw also this housewarming party (Ace's idea), where we invited all our closest friends (which meant only Jessica for me, and she couldn't come because she still was trying to work things out with her ex-or-not-boyfriend).

And then, during all this, there was just this other incident. But by now I knew what it really meant. No side-effects of some sort of experiment. And I knew better this time than not telling Ace...