Manners matters

I know I've written about manners in the past, but that was about teaching manners to children.

This time, it's almost entirely different. This time, it's about the rarity of using manners as an adult.

In both my worst and best behaviours, I always show my appreciation towards acts and gestures that deserve to be acknowledged with due gratitude. I make sure that even in the worst tone of communication, I will still acknowledge the fact that the experience is something I am grateful for. Even if ties end and relations go sour, I always learn from both my mistakes and the mistakes of others before moving forward; out of respect and the sheer propriety in the fashion I was raised, I know that appreciation for ill-intended mishaps exists because of the learning experiences that the consequences of these situations have to offer. The appreciation is still due because it is a part of the events that have occurred in your life that make an impact on your future decisions and your future behaviours. Now because this is the way I grew up to respect every aspect of my life, I believe very strongly in the effect of having manners.

The thing I don't understand is that when I can look at people with whom I have existing issues, and still be grateful for their less than beneficial role in my life, I can't even get a damn coffee from the people running the drive through and hear a simple "Have a great day!"

My boyfriend and I have this issue all the time. We'll pull up to a Tim Horton's or McDonald's drive thru and get a "Can I take your order?" .... We RARELY get a "Hi welcome to *chain name*, how may I help you?"
I mean, after being immediately offended by the quick " Can I take your order?" As an instant reflex, we look back, only to see no cars behind us, we look through the window and see maybe one person in line at the front if any at all... and then we wonder why the hell it was so hard to take two extra seconds out of your day to at least say hi... It's not like you're in a rush so why do you speed through the conversation like having manners is an inefficient use of your time?

Human interaction is so limited nowadays, so I take my time to converse with every day labourers and service professionals when they're not busy. It may be bold to speak on behalf of my boyfriend, but I do believe that the times we go out together, we both enjoy speaking to cashiers, or customer service reps, or other service professionals who engage in conversation with us - so long as we're not holding up a line or causing distraction. The thing is, it's so rare nowadays to find pleasant and polite people like that, that when we do come across those people, its like finding a unicorn.
Saying please and thank you is a common courtesy and half the bloody idiots nowadays don't even have those two phrases in their vocabulary. Out of respect and genuine care, my boyfriend and I will ask people how their days are and the odd time they reply with a "not so good" or a brutally honest answer of that nature, we care enough to proceed with asking what's wrong because sometimes they just want to talk or vent. Sometimes people are just bored at work, but we never underestimate their position because I have found that the people who really want to engage in conversation with us, even if seemingly mundane at the time, are the ones who surprise us with having the most to teach us.

So going back to the issue of manners - both received from the workers in the public sector and the manners we use when we communicate with them - failure to have even the simplest of manners is a show of your effect on humanity. It says a lot about your respect for others, your respect for yourself, and whether you deserve much of any respect from others.

As I was saying about the tim Horton's; when my boyfriend buys me a coffee, after receiving the cup, he'll say thank you and wishes them a great day/evening/night. And almost 95% of the time they will throw the change into his hand and shut the drive thru window without saying a single word back, sometimes without even looking him in the eye.

People say not to judge others, but if you're not thinking ill-thoughts of these people after they exhibit such rude behaviour to you, then you must be a saint because the use of manners and respect is a huge show of one's character and I can't help but think that these people were raised in a damn barn.

It's about that time that everyone, myself included, should really take into consideration the importance of human interaction. You could be served a coffee by the next Bill Gates who happens to be working full time at a coffee shop over the summer to afford tuition. You could be serving a doctor who might one day in the future, save your sick grandfather from a life threatening illness... You never know the people you meet for the first time. You don't know who they are or who they could one day be to you. And you don't NEED to know who they are or who they will be. You may never see them again for the rest of your life, but that doesn't mean it's not important to add a bit of extra time in being polite and respectful to everyone you encounter. ESPECIALLY those who do you no harm nor foul.

Manners are important.. manners matter.

Being a Mompreneur

The craziest thing about looking at my situation now is realizing that never in a million years would I have imagined being here the moment I became a mom.

At 16, the moment your doctor confirms that you are in fact pregnant, it is immediately proceeded by the moment you genuinely believe your life is over. At least for me, anyway.

Despite so many people telling me to abort or to put my child up for adoption - I can only look back and contemplate the path I chose and thank my lucky stars that I was at least half-witted enough not to pay them any mind.

Being 22 years old, the founder of a company that was only officially registered four months ago (April 2014) and now having the opportunity I was only too hopeful to even dream of having in at least 10 years from now, it is in this moment that I look back to that day my doctor uttered the affirmations of pregnancy, and realize that if that never happened, then this wouldn't either.

I finally found the career opportunity in something I genuinely LOVE doing and I am--arguably--great at it.
I mixed my two passions together - business and artistic creativity - and turned it into something I could be proud of and something my son will be proud of me for creating. Although my son HATES the concept of me working all the time, what he doesn't understand is that this business has allowed me to work primarily from home to be with him. Sure, I have to run my ass around the GTA to suppliers and vendors and to meet up with customers and clients, but for the most part, I can be with him and play a more active role as a mom in his life.

Being a mompreneur means running a business and family separate from each other, but still connected as part of my lifestyle.

Being a mom gave me the customer service skills that my clients seem to love about working with me, and if it weren't for my caring and patient handle with the people I've had the pleasure of working with, I am certain 50% of them would have done business with someone else.

At the same time, being a single mom helped me to develop the hard ass head I have in dealing with the fair number of people who have been more of a bother to my business affairs than as assets in helping gain my company's success.

But the reward at the end of it, I mean the real reward of this business rather than the financial gain involved, is knowing that my work, my creativity, literally the wonderful ideas that come right from my head and produced into a material object of my making, are being seen, touched, and held by over thousands of people around the world. From the wedding banners in America, my escort cards and favor tags in Israel, my thank you notes in England, my table signs in Australia, my menus in Spain... the list goes on, but little pieces of somethings that I designed and made are being shared all over the world... and knowing that one day Matheson will not only understand but be proud of the fact that thousands of pieces created from the product of mommy's creativty is being spread internationally is really what I have to gain.

Thats the venture I seek.. as an entrepreneur with a business oriented mind set but as a mother with my son and my family as my number one priority - this is what being a mompreneur is... and this is what I love.

Planning Matty's Party! Pt. II

For those of you who are choosing to follow this segment of my blog - today I'm going to be sharing the party favors I decided on doing for my son's birthday party.

These particular party favors are appropriate for any age group - except infancy I suppose.. But towards the general public - yes, these are appropriate for mostly everyone.
Also, I can do these now because unlike the loot bags for the children, I don't really have to wait for the RSVPs before getting them started.

For many parents raising younger children, I think the hardest problem for throwing birthday parties is choosing the food. The allergies are the really finicky part because you want to make sure all the kids are having a good time while being completely safe. Plus that, it's no fun being liable for an allergy related incident at a party you're hosting.

So for these party favors, I decided to do packaged truffles with custom tags. The truffles are from Three Fifty Baked Goods, a nut-free and peanut-free baking business in the GTA. The flavours for the truffles include red velvet, chocolate chip cookie dough, oreo and golden oreo (the last two being my personal favourites).

So for making the favors, first you need to consider the packaging. As part of my business, we do offer food-safe packaging that comes in different sizes. In the picture shown, the plastic food-safe packages measure 2 1/5" by 6" in length and height while opening up to 1" wide.

For this specifically, I chose to use bags with significantly greater height than the truffles themselves because of the proportions of the tags being tied on them.

In the photo, you can see that the tags I made are three-piece tags, designed by yours truly.
I made the tags in the custom shape of a turtle to match my son's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle birthday party theme. The tag designs were done with black, green, and brown ink and of course, I had to put a pun on the favor message for good taste, "Thank you for shellabrating Matheson's fifth birthday!"

Now, because the owner of Three Fifty Baked Goods is a new business just starting out, much like Compass and Canvas, I thought it would be nice to help spread their name by including cute nut and peanut free labels on the back of the tags with their company logo. Beyond just being a cute gesture, I know once people try these amazing truffles, knowing that they are also nut and peanut free, they'll be flocking like seagulls to figure out where I got these from. I think the convenience speaks for itself here.



Anyway, after assembling the tags and putting a sample truffle in the food-safe plastic baggy, all I needed to do was tie on some matching green ribbon - for this I chose to use olive just to give more of a colour variety to the whole ensemble. I've specifically requested that the white chocolate icing be coloured green for the actual truffles that I have ordered to use for the favors.
So with four dozen truffle favors - packaged and tied like this, I now have beautifully-yet still somewhat childish-party favors for our guests, and it just so happens to double as a nice statement to put on the sweet table for the party.

For anyone interested in other party favor ideas or to place an order for your own set of customized favor tags for a special event you have coming up, e-mail me at czarina@compassandcanvas.com

To take a look at the baked goods offered by Three Fifty Baked Goods check out their site:
http://threefiftybakedgoods.wordpress.com
where you can find product & pricing details!

Throwback Thursday: Burning Bridges

A lot of people have asked me to discuss my pregnancy for my Throwback Thursday topics. I get asked about my symptoms, but I don't find those nearly as entertaining to read about as my forever-angry-sad-emotions during pregnancy.

Despite the obvious - yes, my son's dad cheated on me when I was pregnant and disappeared and I held a very raging angst against him for that - I also took out a lot of my uncontrollable, depression-induced emotions on the people who supported me most. The littlest things would set me off and more often than I would have liked, I burned bridges. I constantly picked fights over nothing and they always escalated - my fault entirely, I might add.

I remember in the first two months of my pregnancy - one of my friends, a guy I had known since I was 8 years old - supported me to the fullest when he found out I was pregnant. When my boyfriend-at-the-time left me, my friend - we'll call him Mr. H, went out of his way to talk to my ex. Mr. H put up his own defense on my behalf AND on the behalf of the baby-to-be because he was so thoroughly disgusted with the actions of the guy who impregnated me and decided to leave. He always offered to visit me and drive me to my appointments, but I refused every time.
One day I just told him very aggressively to fuck off. Despite everything he did for me, I just let my anger out on him. That was it. He left me alone for the next 7 months until I had my son and he visited me after I came home from the hospital. We became friends again after that, but after being in relationships where our partners were equally possessive, we simply weren't ALLOWED to see each other. Well now he's happily married (not to the crazy possessive chick, thank God) and I haven't seen him in three years.

Moving on, about a month after I had cut him out of my life, I got into an argument with my childhood best friend. Someone else that I had known since I was 8 years old. To be quite honest, I don't remember why we got into a fight. I just remember she was looking out for me, but her opinion wasn't necessarily what I believed I wanted for myself and I just cut her off. There weren't any strings attached, she just left me alone until a week before my son was born. It was a few days after her birthday and we went out for lunch. We laughed over the fight we had and just like that, we put everything behind us. Apparently she knew I was just being hormonal and realized it would be smarter to just keep to herself until I calmed down.
Sure enough, she visited me at the hospital when my son was born, and she even made her attempt to soothe my son when I was in pain and in the hospital bathroom after my epidural had worn off after labour and I couldn't get up from the toilet - yes, ladies, it is THAT bad. To this day, we still keep in touch and she visits often enough. I mean it just goes to show how much of an atrocious mess I must have been to cut someone off that loved me so much.

Within that same time-frame (during the first trimester to early second trimester), I got into another argument, this time with my cousin. This particular cousin of mine went with me to my first ultrasound. Growing up, she was the closest to me in the family. I made it very difficult for her to keep my secret because she did a lot to support me while hiding it from my aunt and uncle (her parents).
Anyway, at my ultrasound, while she was in the waiting room, she was looking through the pictures on my camera and found some pictures that she wanted me to send to her. A few weeks later we got into a fight because I wiped my SD card which contained pictures of my ex - along with the pictures she wanted me to send her. I didn't have the pictures anymore. We got into a fight. The fight turned into "You can fuck outtaa my life and my baby's!" I refused to attend family parties because she was there and I constantly made a fit about having to invite her anywhere. Keep in mind - she was pretty much my best friend since I could remember and I just cut her off like it was nothing.
Crazy right? I'm actually crazy when I'm pregnant.

Then at five months pregnant, I got into another fight with ANOTHER cousin. She was very supportive during my entire pregnancy. It's funny to think about because when I got pregnant she was 22 - which is my age now. Looking back at it, I don't know how she didn't snap at me, I was a complete gremlin when I was 16/17 during the entirety of my pregnancy.
We were fairly close as well at the time, and I was very comfortable telling her anything.
She was one of the first people to find out I was pregnant and she me helped keep my secret.
Anyway, we had a fight over the prospective name options I had for my baby-to-be at the time. She didn't like something I had picked for his name and she expressed this particular distaste with me. I told her she was ignorant (bad move, right?). We got into a fight. A pretty bad one. And then there were TWO family members I refused to associate with at family gatherings.
Anyway, everything settled, now she's Matheson's godmother and before Matheson started school, she would take care of him every Friday for almost two years when I was in university.

Honestly, I was a raging bitch. I found a reason to fight and argue with everyone and I made all my loved ones my living hell. I know that probably doesn't make sense to most people, but what I mean is that I turned everyone into a reason for me to be angry and stress out. Instead of appreciating the love and consideration of my loved ones as a blessing, I found every little reason to be angry with them and created a living hell for myself.
Most of the people I fought with were the ones who were looking out for me the most. They all seemed to confide in me with the best intentions and when they tried to advise me of something they felt was better for me than I thought for myself, I shut them up and cut them off.
Not mature.
I was very immature. I was sixteen, but along with the hormones of pregnancy, I was also very angry at the world for my shortcomings.

Many of my readers have told me that my stories sound so surreal, yet somehow so relatable even though they've never been anywhere close to my position.
Well, that's just the truth. I've been about as crazy, as happy, as mad, as depressed, as hysterical, as compulsive, as absolutely bloody psycho as it gets when you're 16 and pregnant.

It's interesting looking back at it now. I burned way more bridges than I have mentioned, but the aforementioned are the ones I remember specifically because of how bad the arguments were over literally nothing and how it dented the existing relationships I had with these people for a very long time thereafter.

I think it's safe to say that the whole chapter of my life surrounding my relationships during my pregnancy is something I like to throw in the back of my mind and under the rug where I rarely ever get to unless I'm called to discuss them for purposes such as this.
There isn't much of a lesson to this - it's more of a story to give you a bit of insight on the monster I was when I was pregnant. A couple people have told me that they admire me or they idolize me or that I'm like a superhero to them. As flattering as it is, I wasn't always as responsible/mature or even determined as I am now to be the best I can be. I made a lot of mistakes and hurt a lot of people in the past. But I guess I learned from those mistakes myself. Realistically, I am the way I am now because I was disgusted by the person I was before. Knowing how I wanted to raise my son into becoming the best I could wish for him, I knew I had to change who I was first.

My aggressive take on the "Stay-At-Home" Mommy

Just so we're all on the same page here, I AM in fact a stay at home mom - otherwise known as a SAHM in the parenting world. I don't have a conventional job and since I'm not in school for four months... well, I'm not in school for four months - self-explanatory.

After having my son, I've worked several jobs in retail then held some administrative positions with other companies. In the past, I held two jobs at a time on top of being a full-time student and mommy, and I must say, it was rough. Not being able to see my son because I was working long shifts at two different places in the same day was torture. I often refused to get out of bed for school, but knowing I had to do it to secure a future for my son motivated me to get off my ass, despite being exhausted every morning, and attentatively sit at every class for school.

Now, the effort is second nature. I love being kept busy. I hate boredom, but I'm rarely ever bored because I always have something to do.
Being a stay at home mom has several different angles, sometimes all you're doing is taking care of the kids and keeping the home. But let me tell you, that in itself is a 24/7 job that yields a lot more value than the financial value that most men and women can make in the same time frame.

I have so much respect for SAHMs of every sort, not just because I am one, but because I know that the role of being a SAHM - isn't even being SAHM as it literally implies. Realistically a stay at home mom should be redefined as the "wake up early in the morning to prepare food for the day so that by the time the kids wake up you can have them fed, cleaned, and dressed with their bags packed with the right food, homework, pencil case, and books before taking them to school and then driving to the bank, grocery store, department store, hardware store, and doing a last round of chores at Costco before racing home to do as much of the laundry and cleaning that can be done before having to pick up the kids from school and preparing an afternoon snack for them before preparing dinner while having to source appropriate channels of entertainment for both your older and younger kids to enjoy before finishing the cleaning and laundry you left off earlirr while having dinner baking in the oven that you need to constantly check up on while supervising the children and still making time - between fixing up the rest of dinner, clearing the table and cleaning the dishes - to take your children out to the park because they need fresh air and maybe that day you also have to drive the kids to their music lessons or sports practice which is then followed by bringing them home and making sure they're bathed and brushed before bed and still finding the time to fit in a story and all the appropriate kisses goodnight - before preparing for the same routine the following morning" mom. In that case, it's a no brainer, we often get discredited for being at home to begin with because society seems to think that it must be nice. I have respect for every mom that puts in the hard work and dedication for her kids. It doesn't matter if you're a stay at home mom or a single mom that works two jobs just to provide. You're a mom, your life SHOULDN'T be easy, but being easy is never a question. You assume the responsibility and hardships of motherhood the moment you become pregnant and for those that own up to those responsibilities, the hardships and the role in it's entirety - I don't care if your parenting methods are radically different from mine or if I strongly disagree with how you raise your kid, so long as the effort is being put in with the best intentions in mind, I respect you, Mom.

I have changed my career path several times simply because I was thinking of my son. It's hard when you already have the child you're working to provide for because most of us are basing our futures on the kids we don't yet have or the kids we never want to have. However, when you have to base your career path and future on the child that is already there, your life becomes a world of tumultuous decision making and I swear just DECIDING consumes a portion of my life that should be categorized as a part time job on its own.

Anyway, that's why I started my own business. Everyone who's spoken to me personally has a fair understanding of the reason why I pursued my own business instead of taking up a conventional profession as I had initially intended. It was a personal and professional choice, but it was also driven by a certain set of morals that I prioritize and that I wanted to impart with my son.

But here we are, taking a look at the fact that I am a stay at home mom and I still work my ass off as a mom and as a business owner. I mean take for instance the nice weekend I had with my son and my boyfriend at my boyfriend's cottage in Wasaga. Even though I was there for three days, I was still up at 5am answering emails and confirming orders and scheduling shipping dates. Not to mention that my international clients couldn't give a rat's bottom about Canada Day so I had to work yesterday as well. Now this is all on top of being a parent separate from my business.

The thing is, despite pretty much running the entire business on my own with the help of my boyfriend here and there, despite the stress, the late nights, on top of keeping up with school and spending quality time with my loved ones and raising my son to my best ability, the effort that is constantly being drained from me day by day is 100% worth it. It's not even about how good my situation is or how well the money is flowing, it's the fact that I get to train myself to balance everything out and I know that my hard work is going towards something that I genuinely believe is worth the effort. I could work 50 hours a week, breaking my back at a job with another demoralizing boss (I have had one too many in my working experience), at an inconvenient distance away from home that demands so much physical and emotional stress from me, all while questioning my morals because of the controversial practices of a cash cow workplace. I could. And I almost did. But I would rather work the 70 hours a week on my own time being an entrepreneur, running my business the way I want to and focusing on my customer relationships rather than my relationship with a micro managing boss that I'm trying to impress all for a raise that I may not even end of getting. It doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, the point is, I knew being a mompreneur/stay-at-home-mom was going to be tough, but my respect and appreciation for those mothers has literally multiplied damn well near a thousand-fold after being in those shoes for the past few months.

So for those of you who still think I'm lucky because I have it "easy" running my own business while being able to stay at home and raise my kid. You've got it all wrong.

I'm lucky because I get to work my ass off for the things I actually love and believe is worth my time. I may be putting in triple the effort to run my business than most people put in towards working a full-time job, but if we define lucky for what we individually perceive as being lucky, then from my perspective, I would say that I'm the luckiest person in the world because my effort and my work, my blood and sweat, is actually being converted into a value far greater than money can ever buy and for that I am not only lucky, but I am grateful and I respect and praise every mom, dad, and guardian that considers their full-time parenting with equal regard.

My multicultural baby

First of all, mestizo, as Filipinos have coined the term, typically means someone who is European-Filipino.
However, it's traditional Spanish meaning is used to define European-Native American people. Anyway, that's not the case for Filipinos so lets leave it at that and carry on.

My son has known for a very long time that he is Filipino. It's the only cultural/ethnic background he truly identifies with. He understands more of the Filipino dialects used at home by my parents than I do and he's growing up with the same cultural upbringing that I did.

He knows he's "half white" because ever since he was two years old, he was able to distinguish the difference in skin tone between him and me. In fact, if you look at all of our pictures together, it's clear to see that he's a good ten shades lighter than me which he used to ask about when he was younger. Now that he knows why he's white and I'm brown, it doesn't phase him so much to ask or even notice. However, he still gets so intrigued with cultures and different languages that it's frequently brought up in discussion.

When people ask him what his background is, he will tell you he's Filipinos though sometimes he will say he's Irish.
However, his dad is a mangia at something like seven generations of Canadian that define his ancestry, so despite the fact that his grandparents are Irish and he has flurries of Scottish, and randomly enough, Swedish spackled throughout his blood line - none of these cultures have ever had a distinguishing effect on who his dad is or where his ancestors came from.

Anyway, because my son is a little learner, he frequently asks questions about places he hears about in the news or in today's pop culture. China, Spain, Japan, Italy and France have been brought up by him within the last month or so just because he's heard of them somewhere and it piqued his curiosity to ask about them. It's hard to tell Matheson about things that I'm not personally familiar with, but thanks to our library at home, I have tons of books and magazines that have informational passages and articles on different traditions and practices of cultures around the world.

Lately, I've been familiarizing myself with different findings in countries all over the world and reading about traditions practiced by different cultures. I haven't relayed much to my son as of yet, but now when he asks, I have something to say. The best part about it is that he loves the conversation and he loves learning new things. When we learn about different cultural practices together, he's been asking all the right questions to understand the concepts better.

It might sound weird, but I'm raising my son to be my best friend. I love having someone to talk to about those things, and comparatively, I've found that I enjoy his intellectual level not because of how well he understands any of , but how willing he is to even understand it at all.

Anyway back to the mestizo thing. My son is trying to understand what Irish is. Its hard for me to explain to him because there isn't much I know about the Irish culture either. I mean other than the standard stereotypes like - all-day breakfast, Irish castles and green plains and hills, plus the fact that gaelic is cool, and a lot of people get celtic knots tattooed to their bodies without understanding why, I literally know nothing about Irish culture.

I want him to know a bit of his lineage and where he's from but only because he's expressed his own want to. His dad is not a part of his life, but even if he was, he wouldn't have much to contribute to the realm of cultural diversity in Matheson's upbringing. So I'm taking it upon myself to figure this out and maybe come up with some good findings about where Matheson's bloodline comes from.
The fact of the matter is, when I get older and have more children under the family structure that I still faithfully want to have for my home, I want all my children to identify with all the cultures that both their parents identify with. With varying cultural differences, its clear that definite culture may not define them, but whoever they are and wherever they are from, I want all my kids to be aware of what is inherently a part of them and of their family.

In Matheson's case, his dad didn't know anything about where he was from and had no cultural upbringing in that sense. He was very much Canadian as Canadian gets. But lately Matheson has clearly expressed the unfairness in being the only one in our family who is not full Filipino. He just didn't fully understand what the other half was and now he wants to know more. Although I have to start from the beginning with Irish culture and history, it made me a little bit glad to know that my son wanted to know. Being five years old, most kids don't really understand culture. I guess giving my son a globe as part of his Christmas gifts two years ago helped him define cultures based on the locations of certain countries and regions. However, my little learner has a taken a new step in his curiosity to figure out who he is and where he's from.

Anyway, I invite anyone with LEGITIMATE and VALID information about the Irish culture to talk to me/teach me about it because when I say I know nothing, I literally know nothing about Irish culture. At the end of the day, I just really don't want my son to see his mixed background as something that disables him from associating with different cultural groups - as we know through high school experiences - cliques are typically ethnic based.
I want his knowledge of his backgrounds and other people's backgrounds to enable him. I want him to understand that just because his bloodline is composed of two radically different ethnic groups that are defined through different practicing cultures, it is not something that should ever separate who he is into two different parts. Race and ethnicity are always difficult to teach a child. Culture has a huge role in defining who you are as a person, but it should never deter anyone's ability to respect someone else.

I want my son to embrace who he is for everything that makes him him. But I also want him to respect everyone for who they are and if they choose to identify themselves by their ethnic brackgrounds then I want him to want to know more about them. I want him to learn and assess before passing judgement. I don't want him to be afraid of what's different, I want him to understand why it's different and learn about it until what was once different becomes familiar. But most importantly, I want him to appreciate the fact that no matter how many questions he asks, how much information he comes by, and how much he learns, people, things, places, will always be different, and though no one is expecting him to change for them or to be different with them, he needs to respect them despite what he doesn't understand of them.

Planning Matty's Party! Pt. I

For those of you who aren't entirely aware of my business, I'm basically the person you go to when you want anything party/event-related done. I literally cover anything that involves parties and events - including the planning.
Anyway, it's not that I'm looking to advertise myself on my personal blog, but for those of you who want to see a little more of what I do, over the next couple of weeks until July 19th, I'll be writing blog posts with updates of how I'm putting my son's birthday party together.

Although this also means that many of the guests won't be surprised with how it all comes together, it'll be a little helpful to anyone out there planning a 5 year old birthday party.

Anyway first thing is first: my son's party!

This year, we jumped through 20 different themes, but we both finally settled on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle theme. For those of you who haven't watched the modern adaptations of the show that first introduced itself in 1987, this newer version is actually pretty good - definitely not the same, but pretty good. The turtles kept the same character traits and roles. However, they gave new faces to the enemies and old familiar faces like April and Casey, but it's still really good. Not to mention that the voice actors include two bigger names in pop culture: Sean Astin and Jason Biggs aka Sam Wise and The Pie Fucker (I never said my blog posts were rated G).

Moving on, I have a lot of things planned, but I'll reveal all of them gradually throughout the next month.
I think the first thing on the list would be invitations.

So if you haven't already ordered invitations from me, or know that I design and make them, well I made my son's invitations.
Staying consistent with the theme, I chose to make ninja turtle silhouette cut outs in green with the ninja masks. They turned out really well.

I designed the typography because that's also something I enjoy doing. Let me tell you, it's bloody murder to one's creative ability when you're limited to two design options - green turtles, and juvenile. However, I had a lot of fun making them and even though I developed an aneurysm because I couldn't stick to the "pretty" designs I'm used to creating, my son was very pleased and that was what mattered the most.

Anyway, after making roughly 50 of these invitations, they are now ready to be handed out and mailed to our friends and family. Yay for us!

The next on the list was planning out the decor. Why? Because I don't need to wait for the RSVPs to determine how I plan to decorate for the party.
That however brings me to the "Planning Matty's Party! Pt. II" topic for next week.
The perks about having an event planning business is that I can go all out without spending a buttload because I'm my own vendor. For those of you who also don't know, I also make dried foliage and faux floral arrangements for home decor - at special request.
Anyway, I proposed the question on facebook asking whether it was appropriate to have fresh florals for my son's birthday party and obviously many people were against the idea because he's five and he's a boy and it's teenage mutant ninja turtles.
Instead, I went to my distributor warehouse and picked up a bunch of knick knacks, including black canna bamboo, green-dyed asian bamboo, black kambol springs and cane springs, moss balls and olive stemmed-jhinga and faux satin hydrangea bunches in mojito green. With those, I made arrangements in a clear vase stuffed with black sizzle fill.

Anyway, I picked up a lot of other materials- from green, black, grey, brown, purple, red, blue and orange. However, the purpose for those won't be explained until after I've made them. I have a very busy evening ahead of me so I think this is all I have time for now anyway.
Again, for those of you who want me to write about something more specific, feel free to share your thoughts, suggestions, opinions, etc. I'd love to hear what you want me to write about. And I'm also taking down suggestions for my Throwback Thursday post this week.

What to write about...

I'm having a wee bit of a writer's block and brain fart combo. If anyone has any topic suggestions for me, I'd like to hear it. Maybe I'll just do a Q&A post for once?

Anyway shoot the suggestions my way, I want to know what you want to read.
And that concludes the interactive portion of today's exercise, folks!

Please and Thank You

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that one of the very first things we try to teach our children are manners.

If there's one thing that has stuck around in "parenting" through the ages, it's the level of regard we hold for basic propriety.

The moment our children are able to verbalize a request for "more" we immediately start teaching them how to make requests with "please" and how to accept generosities with "thank you". At this point, if you're not teaching your child how to simply say those two phrases at the time their speech advances from complete jibber jabber to semi-articulated words, then society might say you're just doing it wrong.

The thing about please and thank you and the scope of manners in general is that it's taught to our children very black and white. You simply tell them what they have to say and scold them when they don't say it.
Countless times, I have seen children being scolded because they demanded some request or another without saying please first or received a gift or compliment without saying thank you. There's rarely ever an explanation why they have to say it, you simply know you have to say it.... or else.

The funny thing is, the vast majority of us grew up under the impression that this was something you did simply to be polite. No questions asked.
Nowadays, please and thanks are being used in passive aggressive sarcasm and rhetoric.

Like, if you don't give it to me, then I will emphasize "please" when I ask because maybe manners will change your mind? No.

I went to the park with my son yesterday and he was playing with a little boy in the sand because most of the equipment at the park was too hot to play on. The little boy had some toy cars, but Matheson didn't bother to ask him if he could play with them. Some time later, the little boy threw his cars and one happened to land in front of Matheson. My son picked them up and handed them back to the boy, and mechanically, his mother said "say thank you to the boy for giving your car back."
They boy looked at Matheson for a few seconds and finally said thank you. Matheson said "You're welcome. You should be more careful with your toys though." and then went to play on the jungle gym.

It got me thinking. Ever since Matheson could form logical arguments and reason with some validity (though sometimes he is still very nonsensical) I've been teaching Matheson about appreciation. That is, why we say thank you and why we request please.

It goes far beyond being polite. You say please because you understand that in a situation that demands please from you, you are in a position where the person with whom you are making a request must calculate the decision to determine you worthy of granting you whatever it is you're requesting. Even if you are asking for something as simple as the permission to go to the bathroom, what you are really saying when you say please is "might you consider my request in such a way that you may grant me permission based on the merit of being polite and asking you kindly."
Under many circumstances, please may get you nothing. My son has made very ridiculous requests and believed that saying please might get him what he asked for. But in many instances, I can't grant him these requests because not everyone can find the logic in letting their child eat chocolate before bed just because they asked nicely.
You get to that point where you need to teach your children that please isn't really a magic word that makes all things happen your way. If I was granted the occurrences of scornful mishaps upon my former enemies simply by asking politely and saying please, I'd be responsible for a very long list of terrible things. And I cannot say I would be grateful for causing any mental or bodily harm onto others no matter what scale it may fall upon.

But just the same, we then have thank you. I don't care how old you are or how comfortable you are with anyone, "forgetting" to be grateful for the generosities that others bestow upon you is something I will not tolerate in raising my son. Nor is it something I can tolerate in the people with whom I associate.

With everything that has happened to me in my life, I am not one for being ignorant towards the good of others and generous gestures that come my way - either directly to me or to my own.

Yet, here we are, spitting out please and thank you, not because we mean it, but because the consequence of our "rudeness" will remain a lasting impression on those we neglect to say it to.

I see it all the time, we think we must be doing a great job because our one year old is saying "peash" and "tankoo" on their own. When they get the routine down pat, we leave it at that and are pleased with our efforts to instil a formal propriety in our children. But we forget to teach them, later on, that there is actually a strong meaning behind the words that we use to represent our appreciation of someone else's generosity. And then you end up with goofs in their twenties who still don't understand how to appreciate what they have and how to be thankful to those who help them get what they want.

So to anyone who hasn't gotten themselves caught up in teaching their child only the mechanical delivery of manners yet, I encourage you to teach your children the essence behind propriety when you enforce their use of "please" and "thank you".

So many PEOPLE - adults and children alike - feel self-entitled to the luxuries of today to the point where the concept of please and thanks are out of sight and out of mind. But I think if you really want the best for your children and the best FROM them, you would make it a very regular practice to explain to your children why they should be grateful for having their requests considered and for being the recipient of another's kind gesture.

I may not be an amazing parent, hell, I may not even qualify as a good one, but I do know that my position as a parent will be reduced to nothing if I can only add material value to my son's life and neglect to contribute essence to the moral, ethical, and virtuous value (relative to what I consider moral, ethical, and virtuous) in his life.

Mommy's little garden

So last weekend's beautiful weather had me really excited for my garden. Especially because I'm dying to have it ready before May 10th. I think I was being a little excessive though. Spending nearly $200 on seeds and plants before the last frost may be a little frivolous I suppose. But I can't lie, gardening is my biggest stress relief and if you know how to take of your garden, your plants will flourish before your neighbours come out of hibernation.
And of course, what else can I say, I'm extremely impatient.
Anyway, Canadian weather is extremely unpredictable and of course it snowed this week because it's still only April. However, with the big party coming up in May and my much needed gardening therapy in light of exams, I figured, what the heck - It only cost me about $60 bucks to get my hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, my rose bush and dahlia bulbs, which is a small price to pay to get a garden started this early anyhow. So my first thought: I'm a great gardener, why the hell not risk it?

Well, I'm pretty sure if you're a flower lover like me, then you'd be completely heartbroken if your plants died, no matter how easily replaceable they are. I tend to develop an emotional attachment to plants the same way I do for animals, especially to my perennials because I know they're worth the extra care. So after taking a look at the weather forecast for this week, I devoted a lot of extra love and care towards the preservation of my newly planted shrubbery and flowers to protect them from the oncoming frost.

I had a few people ask my why I put whiskey, scotch and sometimes tequila in my flower beds. Well, the answer is - because I actually give a damn to.

I've been gardening for years - since I was about 4 or 5 years old, I was exposed to gardening.
After moving to Brampton, we had a much bigger yard to work with and every year I would help my mom transplant her seedlings because she always had a bunch of plants that she would sow on her own indoors. We usually do the sowing around early to mid march and have seedlings ready to be transplanted between April and May and then after May, we sow directly outside for our late summer bloomers.

I learned a lot of life lessons from my experience with gardening - from sowing and scheduling to preservation techniques and tonics. Well, if there's one thing that stands out of all the things I learned, it's that there's only one way to screw up your garden and that's by failing to love it.

When I was about 12, I planted a buddleja seed and watched it grow from a little sprout with two leaves no bigger than a pinky nail, up to about a two-foot tall baby shrub that same summer. My dog dug it up the year after because she used to kill possum families and dig them around the garden and she just so happened to ruin my buddleja. I was pretty upset, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world because I found out that the seed I planted would eventually turn into an 8-ft-wide shrub. Anyway, that was the first experience I ever really had with creating something from nothing and the whole process of taking care of it and helping it grow was such a revelation to me.

A lot of people don't think very much of it because, after all, plants are just plants to many. However, there's a difference between plants that simply survive and plants that thrive and flourish.
Although plants don't need the help of people to sustain life in their environments, they do need all the right, contributing factors to see their existence into their fullest potential. It's being able to provide that and see the results thereafter that make it worth devoting so much to a garden you love.

I fell in love with gardening before Matheson was even born and I guess that responsibility to your plants and flowers is what allows a person to become great caretakers and loving people. I'm a very impatient person, but gardening does call for a huge sum of patience. I think everything I learned through the love of my garden before Matheson was born actually helped me to be the type of mother that I am.

You develop a sense of wardenship and responsibility over your plants and each plant is like your child (until you actually have a child). But then you learn what's good for the plants and what's bad for them and through experience you learn all the techniques to help them flourish. You only really have once chance to do that with your kids and you can't exactly apply the "trial and error" method to everything you do with your kids, but still, you learn things like what your kid is good at and what he likes and where to focus on developing their skills, much like you learn about the pH levels of soil required by certain plants, or how and when to water them. Do you mist them in the morning or do you flower their roots at night? Do you fertilize with bone meal or blood meal and how frequently do you apply it?

It's actually really great now that Matheson is older and he can help me with the plants. I'm teaching him about how to root from cuttings and how to deadhead certain plants. I'm trying to teach him about weeds and bad bugs (even though he absolutely loves snails) versus good bugs and birds, which he seems to have fun learning about.

Well going back to my rush for the plants this past weekend.

While I'm outside working on the garden, Matheson is usually out with me, either riding his bike or helping me plant. With this week's frost however, I had to take the extra precautions to make sure my hydrangeas wouldn't die. It's funny how many people told me not to plant them because the temperature was going to dip - although we didn't anticipate the snow, I've been doing this for years and I know how to take care of my plants in the early spring. So I deadheaded the volatile blooms, gave the roots a dormancy tonic with tequila, hydrogen peroxide, omega-3 oil and ground tea leaves, and wrapped them in burlap sacks and dark bags.

Anyway, now that the weather is nicer outside today, I took a sneak peak at all of them with Matheson to check that they haven't suffered adverse effects from defrosting and noticed that not only did they survive, but they also continued to grow the buds of new blooms and leaves.

It's extremely rewarding when you see the results of your devoted love and care to any living thing, whether it be plant, a pet, and especially your own children.

I guess you could say I'm passing this down to Matheson because after he was pleased to see that our plants were safe and well, he was so excited to get started on sowing the seeds for mid spring.

A lot of people ask me how I have time to do so much work and have so many hobbies while having Matheson, but I think it's very important to involve your children in the safer hobbies you enjoy. He may not have a knack for crafts, but he does enjoy watching and learning, and now that he's showing a great interest in planting with me, I really can't wait to see how amazing our garden will be.

The things you do for family...

I recently heard a really sad story involving a girl - who time and time again proves to be one of the most vile creatures on this earth - and a decision she acted on that made me cringe as soon as I heard it.

Let's just say that she had a baby with a crack-cocaine user and whether or not she was actively using drugs during her pregnancy, I do not know, but I know that the father of the baby was. The biological father left her during the entirety of her pregnancy, and she met another man who stayed with her in all this time.

After the child was born, the man that was with her throughout her pregnancy continued to stay and father the child, knowing fully well that it was not his. He loved her and he loved the child, enough at least to call it his own, and to be quite honest, I've seen pictures - you can see that he truly loved the baby. I have heard stories about his drug use, but also that he made the decision to stay clean to be a responsible father to the new baby - And I guess you can say that takes a lot out of a person. It took months for my son's father to stay clean of drugs and even now I don't even know for sure that he has.

But back to this story, I found out today that the aforementioned girl left this man because the biological father of the child - after disappearing for the entire pregnancy, the birth, and the first few months thereafter - decided to come back and be a family with her and the baby. It's not personally my business, but nowadays - nothing is ever anyone's business, yet once we hear stories like this, we all judge, we all sympathize where sympathy is due and we all listen to these stories with something to say - because that's just the way life is.

Anyway, the biological father is apparently still a crack user. And the father - the loving father - is apparently clean and so broken hearted. I cannot stress enough how angry this makes me feel.

So I'll stop talking about other people and relay this back to myself.

I'm pretty sure by now everyone knows how much I love my boyfriend. It's not even a question.
Though I will admit that in the past, before Anthony was even a thought, I still wanted that picturesque "mommy & daddy" family with Tyler despite his very many flaws and insecurities. It wasn't so much something I wanted for myself, but something I wanted for the family I envisioned for my future and I figured it made the most sense for me to be with Tyler because we had Matheson together.

After a while though, I realized that I just didn't see a father in Tyler anymore and even before I met Anthony, I knew I could never feel anything for Tyler because I wasn't 16 anymore and I wasn't a hopeless romantic. In a way, everything Tyler did to me ended up toughening my skin for everything else that happened thereafter and I'm still grateful for that.

The thing is, even if I had met Anthony BEFORE I came to the realization that Tyler was literally just the sperm-donor to the wonderful little boy I have now, I STILL wouldn't have left Anthony for Tyler - even with the flawed desire to have a "complete" family.

I guess I'm biased now because as far as I'm concerned, I already have a complete family, but I know that even then, it wasn't about who wanted to be in my life, it was about who was already in it. If Anthony put in as much effort then to be as amazing for Matheson and I now, there is no way in hell I would even so much as think that anyone else could do a better job, especially, ESPECIALLY not someone who left me because he didn't want to be apart of my life when things got "rough".

Moving on, today I talked to Matheson's teacher. She actually asked me about Anthony because she's overheard Matheson telling his friends about "Anthony" and "mommy's boyfriend".

I asked her if it was a problem, she said no, in fact, it was a good thing. But she got concerned and asked me what Anthony's role was in Matheson's life and if I thought it was at all serious - or something I saw as being constant. I said yes and she just smiled at me reluctantly. She told me that Matheson's behaviour lately has reflected his dad's "resurrection" and that in the last two days he's lost focus and has been very distracted. Then she told me that Matheson loves talking about my dad (Matheson's "lolo") and Anthony because - as she explained - they teach him new things all the time, but that if he wants to have a stable life, Tyler either needs to be in it or out of it because having two consistent role models isn't going to do anything if his dad keeps disappearing whenever he wants. So finally she said "Miss Garcia, you need to tell Tyler that he needs to straighten up. He's either in or he's out. I've seen way too many kids grow up with the inconsistency of a parent's involvement in their life and it never ends well. I hope everything goes well with you and your boyfriend because it looks like everything was going just fine before this whole thing over the weekend."

Boom.

Relating back to the initial story that triggered this post...
I feel so sorry for this guy. Like my heart is genuinely breaking for him. Imagine doing so much and probably going through painful withdrawals because you're responsible and dedicated to the people you love, only to be betrayed and left for a man who already left his family and is addicted to crack. Like, what!?

I mean, I just feel this way because after seeing with my own eyes how much Anthony has loved and cared about Matheson up to this point - I can hardly even imagine what it would be like for him if I just decided to leave him because some deadbeat coke dealer showed up and decided to be a "family" with us.
Not only is it irrational and selfish, but you're also putting your child in a very bad situation by exposing them to a father who is addicted to crack-cocaine.

It's honestly so heart breaking and disgusting. Like trading in a supra for a rusty, beat up civic, not even v-tec - like, it just doesn't make sense.

My son's dad

I've been on hiatus for a while because I'm currently busy with major assignments and finals coming up. I figured I'd write a quick blog post tonight before I disappear for the next few days though.

Today I got into contact with my son's dad after almost three months. 

I don't need to explain the details of his disappearance, however, after a Skype call and a brief explanation of what's been going on in his life, he confessed that things haven't been going all too well with him in the recent past, but that things are really looking better for him now. And I'm glad.

From time to time, my son's dad gets on my nerves and frustrates me more than anyone else, but at the end of the day, I still need him in my life to complete Matheson's - whether I like it or not. Now, as much trouble as it is to keep ties with him, I know it's in Matheson's best interest that I do my best to touch base with Tyler whenever I can, so I do.

Well, it was interesting today.

Anthony and Tyler don't talk. They've met a few times before and needless to say it's been awkward. However, they've always been civil with each other. Today, Matheson had a very aggressive fit of rage after his dad bailed on yet another Skype call so I told Anthony how furious I was about it. Well, call it what you will, but Anthony decided to let Tyler know about Matheson's behaviour and let him know the information I imparted to him. 

All I can say is that I was very appreciative of the way Anthony handled everything. It wasn't insulting, nor was it imposing in any way. In fact, he was very polite, civil, and approached Tyler very maturely. 

Tyler responded maturely as well, and surprisingly thanked Anthony for letting him know, then called me on Skype soon after.

While speaking to Matheson, Tyler did explain that he's been a "very bad person" and a "very bad dad" to Matheson. Not that it mattered - Matheson doesn't really know what's going on with his dad so he was just happy to see him. He did tell him that he missed him and loved him and I guess it was good for them to talk and see each other again. 

This isn't a rant about my growing disappointment in Tyler. For once, I'm actually very appreciative for the way today panned out. Although the call with Matheson's dad was very short-lived, it did show me a few things. 

First of all, it showed me that Tyler really is grateful for Anthony's presence in Matheson's life. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it does hurt Tyler knowing that there's another man that his son looks up to. I'm sure it hurts just knowing that there's another man doing a better job of showing that he cares and loves Matheson, but at least Tyler is aware of the fact that Matheson is benefitting from the role Anthony has in his life.

I'm lucky.

My son may not have an amazing father to boast about, but he does have a father that admits when he's wrong and despite his inability to adequately show it, he does have a father who cares about him deeply and loves him from the bottom of his heart. But with all the mistakes he's made, Matheson's dad can still appreciate everyone else's efforts in creating the loving environment for Matheson that he hardly takes part in.

But in contrast, though it's been established that Matheson doesn't have an amazing father, what he does have is an amazing friend and role model in Anthony that I am truly proud of. Although I've mentioned time and time again that Anthony has never tried to replace the role of Matheson's dad, he has still done everything he can to set a good example for Matheson and to be a loving and caring role model in his life. 

I mean what's in a title anyway? My son thinks Anthony is the smartest, strongest, and coolest person he's ever met. Matheson genuinely believes that there's nothing in the world Anthony can't do - with that, it's clear that it doesn't matter what "title" people have in my son's life, but rather, it matters what kind of an impact the people in his life create in it.

Overall, the reason why I'm really lucky is because despite the conventional relationships that most people in these situations have as a result of the animosities felt between all parties involved, I know that Anthony genuinely wants Tyler to be more involved in Matheson's life because he understands the importance of the role Tyler should be filling as Matheson's father. Likewise, Tyler wants Anthony to stay in Matheson's life because he too understands the importance of the role Anthony's been filling as both my boyfriend and Matheson's role model.

It's kind of weird and complicated, but at least I know that the men in my son's life are setting mature examples for him. 

Tyler has a lot of growing up to do still, but he's getting there I think. 

Hopefully the next few months go a little better, but no matter what happens, everyone in Matheson's life thus far have created such a loving and caring environment for him and I couldn't be happier.

Cheers to the last day of being 21

Today is my last day being 21.

In these very last moments of being 21, I can proudly say that I'm a happy mother, a happy girlfriend, a successful student and a successful business owner/partner.

A lot has happened in the 21 years and 364 days of my life, both good and bad, but everything I've ever done and everything that has ever happened in my life since the day I was born has led me to become the person I am today and my current success. I'm now seeing everything in my life turn into everything I ever wanted it to be and more. If I said it was simply a result of the hard work I dedicated to seeing my inspirations and dreams turn into a reality, I'd be lying. If it wasn't for all the support and loving relationships that inspired me every day to be a better person, I wouldn't be where I am today and I wouldn't wake up every morning with the smile that has made itself familiar with appearing on my face throughout the day.

This isn't going to be a very long post as most of my posts usually are. I just wanted to say that I'm eternally grateful for the people in my life that have turned me into the person I've become - even the people that have left their scars on me as a result of painful relationships.

In the past year, Matheson has continued to be my number one fan and largest inspiration, while Anthony has been the most supportive person in my life and one of the biggest contributing factors to my present self-confidence and the reason behind my current success. I am so blessed to have them in my life as well as all my family and friends who have been there for me to this point and supported me through everything and assured me that the choices I was making would in fact enhance my life even if I was still running the risk of ruining it.

Today I am 21 for the last time. Tomorrow I will be 22.

Today I am happy, proud, and grateful. Today I have two wonderful men in my life who love and support me and those same two men are the ones who continue to inspire the growing love and support I have for them.

Tomorrow - I expect nothing to change.

Although I can add another full year to the length of time I've existed in this world, every day that I get older, I'm adding life to those years and love to that life.

So for everyone who's helped me become the successful 21 year old that I am today, everyone who's affected me for both the good and the bad - thank you. I owe my success in life to my past experiences, my past relationships, my past triumphs, and my past failures. So to all of you who have made some impression on my life - either to lift me higher or to push me down - you did more to help me than you will ever know and whether you choose to share in my success as a contributing factor to the positive energy in my life, or try to squander my success by creating negative influences in my life - you're still a part of who I am today and who I will be in the years to follow - and I love you all for all of it.

So, 22, I welcome you with open arms - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Cheers to the last day of being 21!

Being Pregnant in High School

The common misconception people tend to have about being a pregnant teenager is that we drop out of school.

No, not all of us. Some do, but not all.

I got an email from someone asking me what it was like to be pregnant in high school. She's 17 and her and her boyfriend just recently found out they're expecting in 7 months.
First of all, I just want to say it's pretty awesome that I have strangers following me and coming to me for advice. Although I don't condone teen pregnancy in any way, I don't oppose it entirely either. I also respect the fact that this particular follower reached out to me looking for advice.

Well, I figured this was actually a good question because while most of my personal stories about the past involve some type of story - I've never really talked about the entire experience of just being pregnant in school.

Matheson & I before my prom

I think first I might address that I went to a Catholic school. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Catholic schools that still kick girls out for being pregnant because it's a negative display on against the sanctity of marriage and what not. I mean, if you have a problem going to a Catholic school and being gay - at least they don't kick you out. But the whole pre marital sex thing is still scorned in the Catholic church that often transpires as the basis of rule-making in Catholic schools. I do know of a few girls who were kicked out of school during their pregnancy because they were "showing" and we unable to return until after the child was born. However, as odd as it sounds, I was lucky enough to be in a school where teen pregnancy rates were actually quite rampant. Now, I don't normally think it's "lucky" to be a student in a school where every girl is having a baby, but at least in my case, I was given the choice to stay. The teaching staff and faculty were very understanding of my pregnancy and really tried to accommodate me.

I always got stares in the hallways because I was pregnant. I'm tiny too - I'm only five feet tall so it looked obscure to have this tiny little asian girl with a pregnant belly. They didn't really matter to me because these were people I didn't even know.

Celebrating my 17th birthday - 3 and a half months pregnant

To be honest though, I lost some of my closest friends after being pregnant. They just didn't deal with it very well. It's still fair to say that a lot of my friendships didn't change and were unaffected by the pregnancy. In fact, I'm still friends with many of these people to this day. They supported me throughout my pregnancy and really didn't care to be seen with me in public because nothing changed. But there were still a handful of people I used to call my "best friends" who just stopped talking to me altogether because I just didn't fit in their lifestyle anymore. I think it had to do with the negative stigma associated with teen pregnancy - it makes sense that they just didn't want to be apart of that. But I suppose they expected me to ruin my life from being pregnant and I guess that's what created the distinction of who my real friends were. The one's that stuck around were the ones that didn't doubt my ability to succeed despite the pregnancy. I actually think they had more confidence in my success than I had in myself. I am eternally grateful for them though, if it wasn't for them, it would have been a lot harder waking up to go to school most days.

Anyway, back to being pregnant in school.
I encountered A LOT of people who didn't hesitate to ask bizarre questions.
I remember people asking me if I was going to eat the placenta after the baby was born. To be quite honest, I thought it was really gross at the time. However, I recently found out that you don't really "eat the placenta", it get's dehydrated and powdered and put into capsules that you consume like a vitamin tablet. So although my answer at the time was no, I'm pretty sure I'd be willing to try it given the opportunity in the future. Seeing as there's scientific evidence of the health benefits for both myself and the child, I wouldn't rule it out.

A lot of people asked me why I didn't use birth control. First of all - just to clarify with everyone who doesn't already know the story - I was taking oral contraceptives. The doctor blamed it on a number of reasons why I could have gotten pregnant while on the pill, but the most likely case was that because I had a bladder infection around the time of conception and was taking antibiotics for it, the hormones in the birth control pills were being metabolized faster and that it may have been enough to reduce the effects of the birth control and lead to pregnancy.

People then asked me if I was going to drop out. Well - I was still in school when they asked me these questions so it only seemed likely that I would stay in school. My answer was always yes. I didn't see myself dropping out, I just couldn't fit it in my life plan.

I also had to wear a uniform - being in a Catholic secondary school and all, but I was able to get exemptions to the uniform because the pants were uncomfortable. I also had a weird misalignment of my hip bones and a doctor note stating that I should not be required to wear the uniform from 2 months into the pregnancy. It was pretty rad. On an interesting note, I remember being in the cafeteria one day and I got in trouble for not wearing the uniform by one of the cafeteria supervisors. She sent me to the office for it and when I told her I was pregnant, she was extremely confused because of how small I was. However, another cafeteria lady that knew me a little better told her that I was pregnant and I usually brought my uniform slip, I just didn't have it that day.

This picture was taken in the backyard of my friend who's
mom confronted me at school three years earlier about
not wearing the uniform during my pregnancy.
Small world.

I found out a few years later that the woman who confronted me about my pants was actually my friend's mom and apparently she was really embarrassed afterwards because she had no idea I was pregnant and she didn't even believe me when I told her I was. What's even funnier is that when my son was 3, my brother took him over to that friend's house and they played in their backyard. I wonder if her mom knew that he was the kid that I was pregnant with.

Well, yeah, for the most part - my school experience was okay in terms of the pregnancy.
It was funny because the attention was always different. It embarrassed most people to even ask me if I was pregnant. It scared a lot of people who didn't even know how babies were made - yes, there were students who didn't know where babies came from, at least not the REAL way. But overall, my teachers were awesome about it. I had a teacher named Ms. Fideli who's like a super feminist and it kind of drove me crazy, but during our final exams, she gave everyone chocolate and then gave me the rest because I had two mouths to feed. A lot of my teachers asked me what my plans were for the future, but they always had faith in me to do well because my grades were still really good.

I had 80s and 90s in most classes and I didn't have a problem getting accepted to universities and most of my acceptances came with entry scholarships.
Overall, my pregnancy changed my high school experience entirely, but it didn't impair my ability to succeed with my education.

Those of you who know me now can probably attest to that because you know I have multiple scholarships and bursaries, you know I do well in school despite having my son and still supporting him, I've been able to go three years in university and still maintain all my renewable scholarships with academically related conditions.

Anyway, I hope those reading this will understand that although it was trivial-to say the least-to be a pregnant teenager, it's not impossible to be a successful teen mom thereafter.

I just wanted to add that school may not be for everyone, but it shouldn't be cast aside just because you got pregnant. If you want your child to flourish then you need to make sure you can give him or her the future you think they deserve, even if that means making a few small sacrifices here and there just to put yourself through school or to acquire the training or educational tools to reach your career goals.
In today's society, not having a high school diploma or equivalent is detrimental to your success. You wouldn't even have the option of pursuing post secondary later in life when your child gets older and you decide you're ready to eventually pursue higher level education because you haven't even acquired the basic requirements to apply.

I don't judge people who can't finish high school because more likely than not, there are other factors to it than simply "being lazy" or "being stupid". There are plenty of capable people who get themselves into trying situations that hinders their ability to be in class or meet deadlines for assignments or prepare for tests. That, I understand. That, I sympathize with. I met a mother when I was pregnant, she had two children and was in her thirties. She was only 17 when she had her first son and she told me she was ostracised by her family and kicked out of her home. She had to work to prepare for the financial pressures of having a child and her boyfriend at the time was barely making ends meets just to have a place to live. That was in the 90s and at the time, there were no subsidies for childcare, if you were a teen mom, you HAD to pay for childcare or you HAD to stay home and watch your children. We live in a different time and it's very possible for young women with children to succeed on their own. It's a matter of prioritizing and projecting your dreams and goals into a future that doesn't just involve your child but surrounds them entirely. You may need to make the sacrifice of being with your child all the time because you need to be in school or something, but in the long run, you're helping to secure their future by securing your own. And that was always what drove me to stick with my education even though all I wanted to do was stay at home and be with my son all day.

Well, if your only reason for wanting to drop out of school is that you got pregnant, trust me, you have the means and resources of finishing your education.

Never ever ever ever let your child be an excuse to hinder your success. Your child should only ever be the reason why you strive even harder in your life to reach your academic and career goals. If your child is an excuse for your failure instead of an inspiration to succeed - then you have no business being a parent and you should seriously reevaluate your life.

With that, I just wanted to say that I am eternally grateful for all the support and help I had in high school. From family, friends, from teachers and coworkers and my supervisors who always tried to accommodate me and my situation - they all contributed to my success in one way or another during my pregnancy and I couldn't have been luckier to have those people in my life.

My Labour and Delivery

Someone asked me to write about my labour and delivery and I said I would write about it last week. That didn't end up happening because I was busy.
Well, knowing that I'm going to be busy again this Thursday, I figured I'd move the Throwback Thursday post to today since I can still call it TBT.

Well, first of all, no, my labour and delivery was not a horror birth story where I was screaming in pain and there was blood everywhere and all that good stuff.

I cruised through my labour.
Let me tell you why.
I prepared for my labour & delivery extensively for two weeks and prepped myself for every worse case scenario. I even made myself a "Contraction Chart" to measure each contract and their frequency over the period of an hour.

It was 9 am on July 21, 2009. I thought I was having Braxton Hicks, but I measured them anyway because I'm anal like that. Sure enough, each contraction was about 10 minutes apart over the course of an hour. The next hour they were steadily 8 minutes apart. The next three hours after that they ranged between 5-7 minutes apart and finally by 7 o'clock that same evening each contraction was about 3 minutes apart.

I called my best friend at the time who was also a teen mom and had her son only 8 months before my son was born. Neither of us drove, so she actually got her son's father to drive us to the hospital. I remember her telling me to act like I was in pain because they wouldn't admit me if they didn't think I was actually going into labour - but I'm not a very good actor and pretending to be in pain is definitely not my forte.

When the nurse came in to check on me before the doctor saw me, she asked me a few basics like what signs I was experiencing in terms of contractions and such. I told her I wasn't in pain, but my abdomen would build pressure and tense up for about a minute and then it would relax. I told her that it occurred very frequently, every 3 minutes for the past two hours, and soon enough a doctor was in to see me. He did his examination and said I was four centimetres dilated and would be having that baby in the next few hours. My friend just gave me the biggest smile and I was just in shock because I was sitting there expecting my water to break or some heart wrenching pain to come over me - nothing.

We ended up taking a walk to speed up the labour and after looking for a vending machine around the hospital, we ended up getting locked out of the emergency ward because it was already after hours. Well, sometime between trying to find our way back to getting to the labour and delivery ward, the contractions hit me like a bloody effing storm.

I had to walk back, so we did. When we were outside the hospital walking across the parking lot, it started raining. Security stopped us, probably because he thought I was being kidnapped or running away - I was in a one of those lame medical gowns so I'm pretty sure it looked suspicious at 12 in the morning.

By the time we got to Labour & Delivery and were sent to the delivery room, I was in excruciating pain. I'm also the type of person who has pretty big balls for a chick so I refused to scream or cry. I just sat there barring my teeth, cursing the anesthesiologist under my breath for taking his precious time with the epidural.

They had to break my water - which felt gross, by the way, so I'm not getting into detail with that. I didn't feel a thing. The contractions just felt like a pressure and I was cracking jokes with my friend while the nurse was obviously getting frustrated with my efforts at being a comedian during labour.

Anyway, I couldn't push my son out because I was very weak. Or at least my muscles didn't have the strength to push out a baby. I was probably pushing for a few hours and you could tell the nurse was getting impatient with me. The heartbeat of my fetus was also being monitored and he was starting to get distressed from being in there for so long. Apparently pushing a baby out is supposed to take less than hour. It took me about three. I was 10 cm dilated at 1 am, my son wasn't born until 4:45 am so you can do the math on that one.

Well, with that, my son wasn't breathing when he was born. He didn't cry and I didn't get to hold him.

The doctor was already in the room to deliver the baby, but because he wasn't crying - he sent the nurse to get help. When I asked if my baby was okay, he quickly said "Don't worry he's just sleeping." and rushed to tend to my baby, though I couldn't see what was going on because he was surrounded by people in scrubs.

Honestly, he wasn't breathing for a grand total of 2 minutes, but that 2 minutes felt like forever. I just remember looking at my friend, completely terrified. She was crying, I was crying, and we were both about ready to get up and pull everyone away from the table to see what was going on with my child because in that time, we still hadn't heard a single cry out of him.

I guess that was the worst case scenario I was dreading. In that two minutes, we didn't hear him cry, and to be honest, we didn't know if we ever would.

Finally, though, he cried, just wailing like a fucking trooper.

The doctor told me that my son stopped breathing because he was in so much distress from being in the birth canal for hours. Well... That should teach all you pregnant ladies to do your kegels extensively before giving birth.

Anyway, they had to wipe off all the blood and weigh and measure him and do all that stuff before I could hold him, but when I finally did he was fast asleep. I wish I could relive that moment over and over and over again because it was truly the best feeling in the world, seeing your baby's face for the first time and falling in love.

I guess you could say my delivery was easy. I mean there's a whole realm of stories about the pain thereafter and the recovery and the first week of Matheson's life in general, but all in due time.

If there's anything to be said about this experience...

Drink castor oil so you don't shit the bed when you give birth, and do your kegels.

But just to clarify, I did drink castor oil and I did not shit the bed when I pushed out my son.
Life lessons.

Everyday enemies

I don't really have any enemies. There are people I don't willingly associate with because we have bad chemistry or bad history, but I mean, I've had my fair share of enemies in the past that it's actually very pointless to even have any now.

I tried teaching the difference between protagonist and antagonist to Matheson because he always plays "Pretend" and assumes the role of both the good and bad guys depending on where his creative mind takes him. He tends to assume that HE's the enemy because he's the bad guy, but I told him that if we're focusing on him - although he may not be the hero, he's not "the enemy" either.

For anyone out there that missed out on the high school English lesson, the protagonist isn't the good guy. It's the main character - good or evil. So whichever opposing force the main character stands against, well that's the antagonist - the main character's enemy.

Anyway, this got into a funny debate because by my son's logic, if you're evil you're the enemy, and I told him that in most cases, it's true because in most cases, the main character is the good guy. But then I told him that everyone is the main character in their own head and whether or not they're evil, who ever stands against them is their enemy no matter what side of the cause they're on.

It took him a while to get it, but he finally did. 

Obviously, it wasn't just about that, because if it was, then this wouldn't be a blog post, it would be a Facebook status.

I like to use the little life lessons I impart with my son as a way of enhancing myself and who I am as a person. It's a lot easier to see the character you want to be when you wish the same of your children. Of course, we can run by the notion that I shouldn't have expectations for my son because I should be teaching him about "loving yourself for who you are", but let me just add in the fact that if children were meant to "just be themselves" without living up to certain parental expectations then there would be no necessity for parental guidance. Then in that case, parents would only be around solely for protective measures and providing adequate nourishment until said child is old enough to fend for his or herself. Nope. Sorry, that's not how it works in my house. I set realistic expectations (keyword: realistic) for my son to help him become a better person and those expectations I set for him are the same expectations I set for myself. 

Let me also add, that as a parent, it is entirely up to you to determine what being a "better" person means. Sometimes when parents have these different views of what's "better" they often clash socially. Whether or not we can categorize any of these views as being "right" or "wrong", we know with certainty that when their views are radically different from each other, there will always be constant opposition. The key is firmly believing in what YOU believe to be right because your loyalty to your convictions is just one of those things that, well, makes you a better person.

Back to the main point because I went off track again, I teach my son principles and virtues and I expect him to follow them. I expect certain behaviours from him and at this age, I do expect a level of propriety from him as well, but nothing so extreme, I mean the kid's four. 

So I taught him about enemies and allocating hate. 

Enemies aren't always bad people. But you always have to remember, if someone is your enemy, you can bet your ass that you're their enemy too.

And are you always necessarily bad? No, not always, but in some cases, you may or may not have done a bad thing to create an enemy for yourself and that's where these life lessons come into play. I like to teach my son that there is always more than one side to things and if someone else is mad at me, then maybe I should look at what I did to figure out why before pointing the blame at them in retaliation.

I told Matheson that when we get older and our lives start to change, we're going to fight and we're going to argue, and things may get ugly, but I don't want to make an enemy out of him and I don't want him to make an enemy out of me.

Then I told him I don't have any enemies.

There are people in this world that I don't see eye to eye with. There are many that I don't agree with and my views differ from theirs. But I don't let those things turn into hostilities and hatreds because that's silly. The only people that truly deserve my hate in this world are radical extremists and Susan Fennell. But because I typically don't associate with any of the aforementioned, I don't hate anyone. I don't hold grudges over old faults and sour exchanges with people who have been a part of my life on a personal basis.

Why? I don't find much logic in burned bridges because if we're going to use that as an example, then let me make it clear that there will always be a boat, a plane, or a rope swing to get to the other side IF you want to. 

What if we choose not to? That's fine, but leave the ashes alone. 

The only thing I don't understand is that people linger on the hate involved in burning a bridge to begin with. The way I see it, if a bridge is burned, you should never revisit the ashes just to linger on harboured hatred. There are only two reasons you should ever return to the site of a burned down bridge. 

1. To pay your respect and reminisce on the good things about being able to cross over to the other side. 

2. You're determined to rebuild it or find another means of making it across. 

End of story.

For those of you who revisit burned bridges without planning to make that trip for either of those two purposes, then stop. You're hurting yourself, it's not healthy, you're better off pretending the other side of the bridge didn't exist to begin with. I mentioned this before in a previous post, but even after you burn a bridge, you should always do your best to wish them well on the other side no matter how hard it may be to wish well upon those who may wish ill upon you. 

I'm the furthest from perfect, but I can't wish ill upon people who so happened to get on my bad side at a point in my past. Odds are likely, if things got that bad to begin with, then they could probably use more luck than I do. So with that, I can only wish them the best because they need it.

After explaining that, I told Matheson not to make enemies. If they make an enemy out of him, then that's fine. Let it be. 

You will argue and dispute over a number of things and though your arguments may range from subtle disagreements to views against which you strongly oppose, never become hostile and never harbour hatred over such silly things.

I tend to say that I hate a lot of things as a point of expression, but I really don't hate anything except - as I mentioned before, radical extremists and Susan Fennell. 

As you grow older, you go through life and you get hurt and pushed around a few times. Sometimes its hard to get up, but for me, it's from those instances and the recovery thereafter that trigger the realization that I have no reason to have enemies. I like to argue and debate, but I don't fancy fighting. I don't fancy drama, and least of all, I don't have the energy to hate anyone. I think the only person in the world that has affected me in such a way to deserve my hate would be my son's father and even then, despite the disappointment, there is no hostility or hatred, I honestly just wish he get's better and something in him inspires change to be a better person because whether or not he deserves it, I know my son does. 

So finally, I told Matheson, that in this world, there is only one true reason to hate someone and it's because they affected the way you loved someone else. Though even then, no one is worth your hate, not now, not ever - unless it is Susan Fennell.

Hate is such a powerful emotion and requires so much stress and energy that in order to truly hate someone, you inspire your own personal evil. 

This is where you ruffle your kid's hair and tell them you love them and if they treat the world well then the world will treat you well. 

It's one of those weird things I learned from my boyfriend, but it's one of the things that changed the way I lived my life. Well as far as I'm concerned, enemies - past, present and future - are part of the world we share and although I may owe them nothing, I still impart with them my good will and wishes for good fortune because even though I get nothing in return, it's better to teach my son to be generous with his happiness than it is to teach him to deter it with hate.