You are all kids! 
I'm 47 and a mom of two girls who are all grown up (18 and 20 years old). My husband and girls don't mind my dreads, the rest of the family don't mention them at all.
Some youtube videos on how to wrap dreads that I found. Justwanted to share these to give you some ideas of what can be done. The only one I've done myself is the criss cross one, but I actually criss cross the threads as I go, I don't wrap them one at a time. 
Not sure aboutpoking a hole in your dread, Istart witha loop around the dread and that holds it just fine.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/kW7zcdWRIzs?rel=0
This is the same method as the third method in the above video, but I think this show it in more detail.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/aEYPaHq8OfM?rel=0
This last video features a rope instead of a dread, but I think you can do the same thing to your dread.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/YMq9KdOtSJ0?rel=0
Edit: I tried to add the videos here, but thatdidn't work. Guess you have to go toYoutubeto see them. Sorry about that.
They look really good!
I would get a really itchy scalp if I didn't wash my hair every week. Is that not a problem for you?
It's a lot of fun to see all the before and after pics. This is me 1,5 years before dreading: 
This is at 5 weeks: 
And this is 1 year: 
