That moment when strangers confuse my boyfriend for my son's dad

This is a topic that often gets brought up whenever people ask me how well Matheson and Anthony get along. The three of us spend a lot of time together and whenever Anthony and I plan to go out, it's not so much a romantic date because you can bet that Matheson is there with us. Not that we mind. We both enjoy taking him out with us.

Needless to say, when the three of us go out, most people assume that Anthony is my son's father.

On Halloween, we took Matheson trick-or-treating. He wanted to be Darth Maul (from Star Wars Phantom Menace, for those of you who are not familiar with the character) and that required a lot of face paint. So I painted his face.

While we were trick-or-treating, Anthony was the one holding Matheson's hand while I was the one carrying the bag (Yes, my son is lazy). When we got to a particular house, the person who answered gave Matheson his candy, and after commenting on his costume he said, "Wow, daddy did a great job with your face paint!"

Again, just two weekends ago, we were at a restaurant and we had an amazing waitress. She was really friendly with Matheson and with us and I must say, she was just emanating good vibes - it was awesome.
Anyway, after the bill was paid, the waitress came back to us, looked at Anthony and said, "You have a beautiful family!"

There have been a number of other occasions when strangers refer to us as "the parents" or call Anthony "dad". I don't think I've ever seen Anthony respond to it awkwardly though. Instead of correcting people, he usually just brushes off the mistake because it's a lot easier for us to accept the fact that strangers think he's the dad. And then at least we avoid going through the process of explaining Anthony's not because that tends to make them feel awkward for assuming that he was.

So I'm just going to run on the assumption that you guys have these questions to ask:
1.How does Anthony feel when people voice that assumption?
2. How does Matheson react when people call Anthony his dad?
3.What do you think about it? Don't you find it weird?

My answer to that...

I have no idea how Anthony feels. You'd have to ask him yourself if you really want to know. I only know enough to confidently say that it doesn't bother him because it's never deterred him from wanting to go out and be seen in public with us. When people refer to him as the dad or acknowledge Matty as being his son, he just sort of rolls with it. Besides, the people who think Anthony is Matheson's dad are usually people that we won't experience a second encounter with so it's not like the impression we leave them with ever really matters. We're not parading around pretending Anthony's his dad nor do we go around telling anyone that he is. But there's nothing wrong with looking like we're a family in public because that's just how we are naturally. Matheson has no problem clinging onto Anthony's arm instead of mine when we go out. We're all so comfortable and relaxed in each other's company that we don't really even give a damn about what people assume when we're seen together. And with Anthony being such a relaxed and understanding person, I'm pretty sure it's fair to say that when people confuse him as being "the dad", he just finds it funny.

Matheson rarely reacts when people call Anthony his dad. Most of the time he doesn't acknowledge it. I think once or twice he may have made the distinction that Anthony was my boyfriend and not his father, but most of the time he'll say, "No, Anthony's not my dad, he's my friend!"
I noticed more and more that he doesn't want people to think Anthony's his dad because he has a negative impression of what a father's role even is. Unfortunately, he prefers saying Anthony is his friend because he's already made the conclusion that friends are better than dads. But he's always been okay with being called a "family" where Anthony is involved. I don't know exactly how Matheson feels about it, but I know whenever he's reminded of his dad like that, he goes through a flurry of emotions that you can see on his face from longing to anger. Sometimes he'll let the dad thing slide and I think the reason why is because he'd rather let them assume he has a dad instead of explaining that he hasn't seen his dad in months.

So what do I think? It's not weird anymore. I thought it was awkward at first. I also felt solely responsible for the awkwardness. I'm the reason why Anthony and Matheson even have a relationship to begin with so I felt like I was to blame for whatever awkwardness there was whenever people made that mistake.
All that's changed now though. We're all used to it, and why would we feel weirded out that people think we're a family? We're all comfortable with each other, we all love each other, and the three of us joke around all the time, why wouldn't we expect people to think that?

No, we're not blood related. It may even be bold to say that we're so important in each other's lives because despite knowing each other for ten years, Anthony and I have only been friends for about three years, and even then we've only been dating for shy of a year. Whatever the case may be, we've come to accept the fact that whether or not "family" is the term you want to use to define us, the way we are in public and the way we are in private doesn't change as a reflection of the relationship we have. Now, if that means people will confuse Anthony and I for being both of Matheson's parents, then I guess it just means we're doing a good job showing Matheson that he has two people who love him no matter where we are.

In addition to that, I just wanted to say that I couldn't have asked for a better person out of Anthony. He's really the most understanding, accepting, and loving person I've ever met and I have the greatest pleasure to call him my boyfriend.

A debatably interesting Sunday morning post

I'm not all that sober - Can't tell you why I chose this picture.
But I need to drink water.. 

After celebrating my little cousin's 2nd birthday (which was absolutely adorable), I came home and walked into... well, a house party.

A small house party albeit, but a house party nonetheless - although I am rather inebriated, I do feel capable of typing coherently.

Anyway, I was particularly surprised when a few people told me that they do read my blog regularly and that they enjoyed reading it. First of all, thank you again, second of all, that's why I'm writing this in a "not that sober" state, and you can credit yourselves to that! (insert appropriate emoji with a smile and tongue sticking out in an equally appropriate and non-sexual way)

So - I do have a "School Story Saturday" post regarding what happened at Matheson's school and his personal stories describing thus - which does lead up to an interesting and foregoing sequence of events. However, tonight is more of a mommy minute.

Once again, I just wanted to thank all my readers - like I said, although I do see the thousands of daily views, its actually hearing and reading the feedback that makes it so much more worth it. 

That being said, I figured I'd entertain you all with a little bit of personal thoughts on mommyhood. A rant if you will, but also a bit of insight on the very very deep down and personal thoughts of being a mommy. So here we go:

I never wanted to be a mom. At fifteen years old, I told myself that I would probably be single forever with casual affairs and commit myself to my career and nothing more. As we all know, I had my son at the age of seventeen and despite my intent never to have children, well I had a child.

Now, raising a four year old, you face a lot of challenges that you don't really consider when you're still in high school with the thought that marriage and children are nothing. Let me make a confession here: those challenges are actually really bloody hard. A lot of you read my blog thinking I make parenting sound easy, but it's not.

What I share with all of you is mostly the important virtues and beliefs that I personally impart with my son. However, I never get into much of the details about the day-to-day experience.

Well, here it is - the up close and personal.

My son is one of my best friends - for sure. 

He's the most interesting and exciting person in my life. On the other hand, however, he can be the most annoying and irritating. I suppose that comes with the parenting package though.

When he was an infant up until the last while that he remained a toddler, he was simply the cutest thing. I could spend every second of every moment with him and I would enjoy it all. When he got older, when he started showing more traits that reflected parts of both myself and his father, things started to change. Every child gets annoying, that's inevitable, not that I find him terribly annoying, but sometimes my patience draws thin and I have a particularly short fuse with most people as it is. I admit that. I sit there and I'll listen to him and while he fuddles over topics, my attention span dwindles and I lose focus on what he says. And yeah, I guess you can say that the challenge for most parents (especially the ones that have hectic work lives or are pursuing some sort of formal education) is that you have to devote a lot amount of time to your kids and their stories about "nothingness" just to let them know that they're still worth that time to you.
As I mentioned, he's honestly my best friend, I tell him everything (that's appropriate for a child to know) and he tells me everything - including his little crushes in school. It's a mutual bond that we probably shouldn't have as parent and child, but we do because although he is my son, we're just so close in age that we get along more like siblings sometimes.

So recently, things have been distant between us. It's been difficult to maintain our relationship because of school and starting the business with my partner, but ultimately, things have changed because he's gotten older and a little more independent.

I devised this blog as a way to get closer to Matheson as well. It was a good way to keep myself committed to the routine of listing to his stories in his day-to-day life, while still devoting the time to school and work. 

Honestly, for every mom, mom to be, or girl with a dream to have a family, cherish the moments you have with your kids. 

After this business I have with my friend started taking off, after school started getting a lot more hectic with midterms and assignments, I noticed time with my son became more valuable.

Matheson can be annoying. He can be frightfully disobedient. Sometimes he talks back. But he's the love of my life and he's my baby boy. He's my favourite person in the world - he is the smile on my face, and even if you were to sum up all his flaws, I could tell you now that I don't give a damn because no matter what, I love him through and through. I see the way he acts sometimes and a lot of it, I know, is because his father isn't around, but even though he can be disobedient and rude, it doesn't change the fact that as a parent, I need to do my best to fill that void and remedy his daddy issues with what I have.

He may get out of hand, he may be annoying, he may be completely intolerable at times, but I love him so much and I think it takes more out of a parent to just sit down and tell your child that you love them, that they are having a problem with their behaviour and that you want to spend the time to help them fix it... because for the parents that get annoyed and start ignoring there kids because they've simply "had enough", they haven't cared enough to see their child get better to make a change. They haven't cared enough for their child's future behaviours and how that will ultimately impact them socially, academically and professionally to make the difference - to make the well-mannered, well-behaved, civil, just, and caring human being out of their child that they always, truly wanted them to become.

So for all of you reading this right now, please remember - I'm not perfect, my son is not perfect, we have our problems, we have our difficulties - we do bicker a lot. I just want you all to know that despite that, I make sure, every single night before bed - that my son knows I love him, and that my son knows I'm trying to be the best I can be for him. A lot of the time I explain in my posts that I'm trying to teach my son to be the best he can be for himself. As a parent, you need to let your children see an example of that for themselves, and who better to show a child about excelling past their potential than their own parent excelling at being - well... their parent.

As a personal mommy moment, I admit, I get annoyed, I get frustrated, irritated, I become intolerant. But the whole point of being HIS mother, and not anyone elses, is that for HIM I will do my personal best. For HIM, I will give it my all. And for HIM, the annoyance, the frustration, the irritation, are small things that shouldn't deter a relationship because at the end of the day, it's about letting my child know that he will be my everything and my reason to be my absolute best.

Throwback Thursday: How My Parents Reacted To My Pregnancy

This is one of the topics that most people have asked me to write about. It's funny because I get asked this question all the time and I can't even count how many times I've answered it publicly. Yet, somehow, there are still so many people who still ask to hear the story because they haven't in the past.

The reaction story of my parents is the one I'm writing about today. The one about my son's pops is a completely different post on it's own.

Anyway, it was just after New Years, my boyfriend at the time - Tyler - declared that he didn't want to be apart of my pregnancy or our child's life. Being a three to four hour drive away from each other, it was more than likely that he'd be out of my life for good.

Up until that night - January 3, 2009 - I was convinced I could hide it from my parents until I was at least five months pregnant. My logic was that because Tyler had shared his wishes to stay with me and with the baby, the two of us would be able to get through the first and second trimester of the pregnancy in secret. However, when he changed his mind and decided he wanted nothing to do with us anymore, the only person I really had was my best friend Chelsea, who I named my son after. That night, I stayed on the phone with Chelsea until 4AM and after both deciding we needed to get some sleep, she said, "You need to tell your parents... at least tell your mom."

So that's what I did.

At 4 in the morning on January 4, 2009, I walked to my parents room, woke up my mom, asked her if we could talk, and after sitting at the dinner table, not saying anything for maybe 30 seconds, the first thing she said was "Are you pregnant?"

I just stared at her like an idiot with nothing to say so she immediately knew that I was.

My mom's reaction was weird. She sort of just said "well abortion is out of the question. What are you gonna do about school? What are you gonna do about work? What are you gonna do about money? Are you gonna graduate? etc. etc. etc." Eventually she asked me what happened with Tyler and after telling her he was gone for good she said "What a shame."

We talked for a short while longer and eventually I got too tired to stay up so we both went to bed.

The next morning, my mom didn't talk to me. She stayed in her bedroom folding laundry for the majority of the day in complete silence until the day passed.

HOWEVER, the day after that, sometime in the morning while I was still in bed, my dad stormed into my bedroom, threw off my covers and said, "Get downstairs, we're having a family meeting."

I nonchalantly got out of bed and acted like I had no idea what was going on and that it didn't phase me.

After bouts of screaming and yelling in the living room, we finally came to the conclusion that I was disowned as his daughter.

Honestly, it was a battle between my parents if anything. My dad wanted me to get an abortion, my mom didn't. My dad assumed I would drop out of school and be on welfare for the rest of my life, my mom kind of didn't even consider that at all, but they still bickered about it. I just sat on the couch with my knees tucked up towards my chest and didn't say anything until I was asked questions.

Well, for the rest of my pregnancy, my dad and I didn't have much of a relationship. We never spoke, and when we did, my dad would throw in remarks about how shameful I was and how I was a disgrace. When I had my ultrasound pictures done, he asked me why I bothered to get copies of them because they were disgusting and I shouldn't be proud of them. Realistically though, this was a huge slap in the face. Between my parents, my dad and I always had the better relationship. Even now, my dad and I get along really well and we spend a lot of quality time together when we're playing music, gardening, building stuff or working on other DIY projects around the house. It was just that entire time during my pregnancy that he refused to speak to me. I guess everything changed when my son was born because it was my dad's first grandson and you can't hold any animosity towards a baby let alone your own grandchild.

Overall, I think the reaction to finding out I was pregnant was handled fairly well by my parents. I mean, they didn't realize at the time, but having my son around made both their lives a lot more enjoyable and it made putting up with my brother and I a lot easier for them to deal with.

Throughout the pregnancy though, my parents managed well. They made sure I was well taken cared of during my pregnancy and helped me out when I needed it. Even though my dad wasn't talking to me, he still drove me around when I needed to get a ride.

On another note, I believe there's a different story about how my family reacted. I mean my whole family. That's another blog post. But that story I haven't told very many people. It's actually one of the reasons why I maintained SOME sanity during my pregnancy and I think it's worth telling eventually... one day.. maybe.

Wisdom Wednesday: Creating the dream

Hand painted "Create the dream" wall art

Wisdom Wednesday.
What is wisdom wednesday?
It's the day that I've designated towards imparting my personal thoughts with you.
Few of you may know, but I'm in the works of starting a small business with one of my forever-connected-by-very-strange-and-mystical-things high school friends. Anyway, I'm not going to go into the details, but these are my words of wisdom for Wisdom Wednesday.

Although debatable, I like to believe that hard work pays off. But further still, working your ass off gives you the results you want. Maybe not immediately, but in due time, it almost always does.

One of the reasons why I wanted to start my own business was because I used to work for a company that treated their employees like shit, myself included. The entirety of my job was a demoralizing experience because the company was extremely unfair with their customers and the policies were crooked. I don't want to be liable for the defamation of their name, nor do I want any bad karma to come my way, so I'm not going to say who it was, when I worked there, or what the business was, but when I tell you the owners cheated their workers and their customers to make money and cut costs for their greedy, personal gain, that would be quite an understatement. Anyway, working for that company made me realize that I wanted to be in the position where I did more for people than they did for me. I didn't want to be part of a name that I knew would one day be reputable for employment standards violations and crooked selling tactics. It got to the point where I didn't want to work under a boss anymore.

So this is where I am now. This blog post is literally about creating the dream. After talking to my business partner yesterday, it finally clicked in that we were really making this happen. Despite the fact that we're both still in university, doing our own thing and separated by 100 kilometers, we both want the same thing and we both know we want to work together to achieve it.
Creating the dream isn't about sticking it to the man or anything like that, it's about doing what you love. It's about realizing that you're sick of the way things are right now and that you'll work your ass off to change those things into what you want them to be.

However, despite how hard you work, and despite how large the return is.... My most important advice for any of you who succeed past anyone else is to remember to keep your feet on the ground.
Despite having the bulk of my clients situated locally in Ontario, business has started spreading in the states and now it's made it's way overseas as we serve new clients in the UK. It's a blessing and it's also hard work paying off. It's creating the dream for myself because I was sick of living the nightmare.

Albeit, my life wasn't rough before. But I was jumping from major to major in my program, going a semester undeclared because I couldn't stand the irony of the injustice in the legal system anymore, and I was working for people who only cared for themselves. I couldn't do it, I was done. But now, I'm in school majoring in something that will help me achieve my goals, I'm doing what I love, I'm doing it for the people I love, I'm doing it with someone I can trust and who I've always had so much fun working with, and now that I'm building my client base, I'm realizing now that this, right here, is the dream I was hoping to create for myself.

So although our business is still in the early stages, I can tell you right now that in the last four weeks since the two of us initiated this business idea and started talking about how we were going to put this all together, we've quickly watched this thing unfold and hopefully after putting hours of painstaking effort into it you'll all be there when we launch our business this summer.

Tutorial Tuesday: How to Make Pillow Box Favors

Every Tuesday is going to be Tutorial Tuesday. Why?
Because "tutorial Tuesday" is a suitable alliteration and a lot of people ask me how to make stuff.

First thing is first: I'm terrible at giving tutorial instructions, so bear with me.

Last Friday, I had a midterm to write so I wasn't home for the whole day. However, I did send my son to school with 24 Valentine's Day cards and according to my mom ("lola" - grandma in Tagalog), my son's teacher waited after school for me, hoping I'd be the one to pick him up so she could ask me about the cards I made. She asked my mom for my business card because she wanted to refer me to her friends and family - but my mom didn't have any. Needless to say, she was so impressed that I made all the cards by hand that she was willing to buy the service off me.

Anyway, I also made these pillow box favors to give to my cousins  so I figured I would show you how I made them.

Materials: 
Pillow boxes (I make my own)
Personalized Tags (I make my own)
Themed embellishment tags (I make my own)
Gardener's twine, twine, hemp, ribbon, or raffia/wraphia
Hot glue

Instructions:

Pillow boxes -

I make my own pillow boxes by die cutting the pillow box design on a 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of ivory cardstock. For the template I designed, you can fit two pillow box templates on one page.
Now, you have the option to buy pillow boxes, or you can make them like I do.

If you do make them like I do, I think it's best to assemble them using hot glue rather than an adhesive strip runner or adhesive dot runner. It's much more secure that way.

Making it yourself gives you the leverage to use patterned cardstock for your templates and you have a lot more freedom to customize your design, but again, if not, you can always buy pre-cut, flattened pillow boxes that you assemble yourself.
(I personally sell flattened pillow boxes. Although, it's not in my Etsy listing, if you needed some, feel free to contact me).




Themed embellishment tags -

Again, I make my own embellishment tags. Because of that, I play around with the designs. I take a bunch of different coloured cardstock and run them through the cutter and which gives me a bunch of little pieces to put together and assemble whichever way I choose.

Anyway, once the pillow boxes are assembled, take one of the embellishment tags and adhere them to the corner of the pillow box. In terms of placement, a corner is best. It's the least distracting, not too busy, and it gives you ample room to add the personalized tags.




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Personalized tags:


I also make my own personalized tags. Obviously if you can, then do it! If not, I sell customizable tags from my Etsy shop which you can check out here. FYI, if I know you personally and you want me to customize tags for you, you know how to reach me. Shipping costs are waived if you just pick it up from me.

However, you can buy tags from your local craft store as well and write your messages out by hand.

Once you have your tags, make sure you fill the pillow boxes with whatever contents you desire. Next, you take your string - whichever you choose - and simply tie your tags around the pillow box across the length.

This is pretty important because it serves two purposes:
Tying your tags across the length secures the contents of your pillow box from falling out. Typically, pillow boxes don't open on their own. The way they're shaped keeps them closed until you or the recipient of the pillow box favor chooses to open them on their own. However, having them tied lengthwise still provides that extra security.

Secondly, the middle of the pillow box is narrower in length and it widens out at the edges. When you fasten your pillow box in the middle, across the length, the tags and string are also secured in place because it has limited leverage to move and will not slip off.



Once you've assembled your boxes, affixed your embellishment tags and tied on the personalized tags,
you'll get something that looks like this:

It's adorable and of course, hand made. Depending on the materials used to create it, you can coordinate with different themes of your choice. Experimenting with the cardstock textures, colours, patterns, and with the different types of threads, strings, cords, etc. used to tie it together, you can achieve different looks out of your finished product.

Hope you find this useful! 

Matty Monday: Matheson reviews "The Lego Movie"

Today is Matty Monday! 

Every Monday, I'm going to be posting a video of Matheson doing virtually whatever he wants to talk about. For everyone who's followed my blog up to this point, I'm sure many of you have never met my son before. But you can see for yourself the little boy I've been raising.

Yesterday, we watched The Lego Movie with my boyfriend, Anthony, and despite being ten minutes late for the show and having to sit down in the break-neck seats at the front, we all really enjoyed the movie.

I asked Matheson what he wanted to talk about and share with everyone, he said he wanted to talk about The Lego Movie...

Well, he decided he would spoil the whole movie, and being the anti-"movie/tvshow/series/book/storyline"-spoiler that I am, I decided to do this with the video footage instead.

Enjoy!

School-Story Saturday: Girls are always in love with me

So yesterday being Valentine's day AND my first midterm of the semester, I didn't have time to write, so I guess you'll figure out what Fridays are for this upcoming week.

However, during the school year (not including summer and winter break), Saturdays shall be dedicated to Matheson's school stories. Most of you that have met my son, know he's quite the talker and has a lot of bizarre stories, but I think the best ones come from school. I guess the idea I'm working with here is that every Saturday caps the end of the school week so it's the best day for me to retell his best or more important stories on my Saturday blog posts.

This week wasn't particularly interesting, I usually have a lot of funny stories regarding the father of one of my son's friends at school and how he creepishly follows me home, but that's another blog post on it's own.

There was one day in particular that stood out this week though. I picked my son up from school at 11:30 AM as per usual, and while we were walking to the car he says "Maya F would not stop making fun of me so I ignored her to teach her a lesson."

First, I would like to address an important thing...
Am I allowed to use real names in this blog without their consent? I mean I'm not going to go ask the little girl's mother for permission to use her name, but is that allowed? Can someone please let me know if I can do that?

Second point of address, someone was making fun of my son.

I asked him what was being said, but he refused to tell me. Normally, I don't care for name-calling. I personally think that when your kid gets called names, they develop a tougher skin, kind of like an immunity. The more viruses your body successfully fights off, the better your immune system. Likewise, the better you are at handling being called names, the tougher your metaphorical name-calling skin is. However, there's always a boundary to these things, or a degree where, once exceeded, your barrier does nothing for you. Kind of like ebola virus or bubonic plague.
Anyway, I tried pressing further to figure out the "degree" of this name calling by asking him if Maya F said things to him that were hurtful. He said no, they weren't hurtful, just silly. I was driving the car at the time so I couldn't read his facial expression, but I figured he was being honest because he's only in junior kindergarten. We make fun of each other all the time, calling each other smelly or poopy or other juvenile adjectives to denote the characteristics of fecal matter or... like... boogers and stuff. Personally, I think it's funny. I'm kind of a kid at heart so calling my son a poopy is equivalent to calling him an angry jelly bean. It doesn't make sense, it's not even insulting, but it's the playful sort of name-calling that he can accept as being humorous rather than hurtful.

Anyway, back to Maya F...
I remember at the beginning of the year she made fun of Matheson because of his shoes. Now, normally my son doesn't fit into normal shoes because his feet are so large. I usually buy him skater shoes because they're wideset and perfect for his foot shape. He has two pairs of DCs, a pair of Etnies, Circas, a regular pair of dress shoes, because every boy needs dress shoes, and running shoes with Angry Birds on them because he's obsessed with Angry Birds. Of all the pairs of shoes to wear, he decided to wear his dress shoes to school because, well, what can I say? My son likes dress shoes.
Big deal, right?

Although I say that sarcastically, apparently they actually were a big deal because Maya F made fun of him for wearing them then too. So clearly, this name calling thing is ongoing, but he usually just ignores it - or so he says. Either way, I'm proud of him for that because whatever his rebuttal could be, it would only add fuel to the fire and I'm glad he recognizes that as a consequence.

Anyway, when we got home, we followed routine as per usual, I give him lunch and we sit down and talk for a bit about his day, then we do our own thing, he usually draws or colours in his notebooks while I do my homework or study. While we had our little post-lunch discussion, he said to me "I think Maya F is in love with me."
I choked on a laugh and said "Why do you say that?" and he goes "she always tries to sit with me and fights with Isabella for the spot beside me. Then she makes fun of me all the time. Everyone knows when girls make fun of boys its because they're in love with them."
I just laughed and agreed.
We had a short moment of silence and then he says,
"Why are girls always in love with me, it's so gross, I don't want to be in love!"

Throwback Thursday: How I found out I was pregnant

So I figured that because my little fan base is growing, I should definitely turn this blog into a daily thing. The best way I think to do that is if I schedule out my days with themes so that there's some rhythm to this blog and I'm not going all over the place with my posts. So every Thursday, in light of the popular "throwback thursday" also known as "tbt", I'll be writing a blog post dedicated to a throwback.

Many of you ask me privately what happened when I found out I was pregnant. I remember when formspring was a popular app on facebook, that was probably the second most frequently asked question, right after "How did your parents react?" So today's throwback is obviously going to be about how I found out I was pregnant; here it goes.

For those of you who don't know, when I was dating my son's dad, Tyler, we were in high school together. He moved the summer after we started dating, sold his house here in Brampton and moved to Wilberforce, Ontario. The drive from here is three hours north in the heart of the boonies. Neither of us could drive because we were still 16, so essentially our relationship went from practically living together for a month, to strictly phone calls and MSN communication.

So let's fast forward a bit to November 21, 2008.

I hadn't seen Tyler in about three weeks (last time being that Halloween), but he came down to visit and we ended up going to a party together that day. He left the day after (November 22nd) and despite being on birth control pills, I had one of those feelings in my gut that something was wrong.

About two weeks later, I remember being in school with one of my friends and we ended up skipping first and second period to walk to the Tim Horton's near my house at the time and grabbing breakfast. We were talking and I casually said " I think I'm pregnant. I don't know why, I just do." She asked me if that was even possible, especially because I rarely saw Tyler and the odds that he would come to visit right as I was ovulating was highly unlikely. I explained to her that I was taking birth control so realistically I shouldn't even be pregnant and she said, "Oh, well then... you're not pregnant then, don't worry. I heard that when you're pregnant you get that gut feeling that you are.. Like mothers just know, you know?"
I nodded my head and agreed that my speculations were just based on being stressed or some other crap and we just called it a day.

Nonetheless, after we went our separate ways, I walked to the pharmacy and bought a pack of two First Response pregnancy tests.

I held off for a while and didn't bother testing myself because it was only about two weeks after I had seen Tyler. However, because I was on the pill, my pms schedule was very regular: my face breaks out, I get emotional and moody and my stomach gets ridiculously bloated all in about two days before I can expect my period. But instead of any of those things happening, I ended up puking three days straight without a fever or any other sign of sickness other than an upset stomach. So I took the test - which said it would be able to detect the hCG levels as early as 5 days before my next expected period.
Of course, it turned up positive because of course, I was pregnant.
I immediately opened up the next test and did it again thinking it was a mistake. The same result: positive.

About three days after telling a few of my closest friends that I was pregnant, basically the whole school found out - well, at least enough of the school knew that "the one tiny asian girl in grade 11 who hangs out with all the white kids is pregnant".

I ended up doing two more tests, this time of the Clear Blue brand. One of them came up a false negative, and the other one was positive again. But finally, after bawling my eyes out in the bathroom for hours, I went to the doctor and within the week they confirmed that, yes, I was pregnant.

My "afternoon" sickness became more prominent within the month and I ended up skipping my fourth period Advanced Functions class at least three times a week because of it. I missed a few tests, but I could never make it to class because I was either on my way home because I felt too sick to be at school or I couldn't make it home and was sick in the ladies bathroom.

My mom sensed it right away and asked me if I was pregnant before I was even 2 months along; of course, what 16 year old actually tells the truth nowadays? I lied through my teeth and hid it from my son's dad thinking I could still get an abortion.

Now, a lot of you have your opinions about this, and that's fine with me, but yes, my son was almost an abortion. I asked my doctor about having an abortion and he basically told me I shouldn't get one. Not for any ethical reasons, but he did tell me that because I already had a bad history with my uterus, having an abortion would be very dangerous for me and a whole lot of other stuff he said that I can't remember. So I ruled it out and it wasn't until abortion was no longer an option that I finally told Tyler.

Anyway, that's another story in itself, but I'm sure that answers the question of how I found out I was pregnant. It's true what they say, at least for intuitive people, you really do feel something "different" when you become pregnant. There's something in the back of your mind that tells you right away, even before little piss sticks can confirm it for you. But at least for me, that was a part of how I knew I was pregnant.

If you guys want me to write about something specific, you can do what some of my readers have done and emailed me to suggest blog post topics. And if you have any questions that you want to ask anonymously, well I received a very lovely message on my tumblr from an anonymous reader asking me about my pregnancy; I'd be more than happy to answer those for any of you too.

Anyway, mommy has a midterm to study for!

How to manage your time as a Mommy & Student

So, parent or not, many people my age are still going through the motions of being a student and a part of that is going through midterms and finals every semester.

This week I have a midterm and three assignments due, then, of course, next week is reading week.
A lot of people ask me how I manage my time so well, being a mom and having school and all that nonsense, while still having the time to work on all my crafty artsy stuff. Well, to be honest, I don't have the time for all of that and I definitely don't manage my time well.

I guess that's always been a bit of the curse and the blessing about being a young mom. I'm either AT school or studying for it. I don't have the luxury of reading for pleasure until summer or winter break comes along (which is why I binge shop for books during Christmas), and between working on my business and spending time with my son and my boyfriend, I never have free time. But the perk of never having free time is that I'm never bored.

What a lot of people would expect though, is that being as young as I am, I'm completely inept at allocating my time and resources efficiently. I tend to dwell on things that are somewhat less important on my list of priorities simply because I'm a little bit of a perfectionist.

In case any of you are wondering how I even have time to write blogs, well, to be honest, I wanted to make this blog project a daily thing, but clearly that hasn't gone through quite as I planned. However, I like to keep myself committed to little projects like this because as petty an idea it is at the start, it does show a lot about who I am.

It's a bit ironic. I have a tattoo with a clock dial, a compass, and an anchor to represent how time and direction ground me. Though now, almost 22 years old, and I can't even keep up with time anymore.

You know, a huge reason why I created this blog was because I wanted to give people an in depth look at what being a teen mom is really like when you're not an American redneck popping babies out in high school for MTV. Although I may not be an adequate representation of the general "teen mom" population, I do think I can paint a fair picture for many of you who think being a teen mom means acting like a high schooler with a permanent babysitting job. But the fact remains, being such a young mom does come with a fair bit of trials that need to be overcome and in my case, it's balancing the life of a student in her early twenties, while being the mother of 4 year old kindergartener.

So my resolve to this post?

My time management skills are still shoddy when it comes to organizing how much time I should spend towards one task from another. However, I'm working on it. I have a planner with a list of all the assignments I have due and I always make "week-in-advance" alerts for all my due dates and tests. Then there are important dates for Matheson, like library and phys. ed. days where I prepare the night before so that his library books are ready and packed up in his bag before bed; or his outfit is ready in the morning so I don't have to go on a hunt for clean sweat pants because he mostly wears denim and canvas pants. Then of course there are the monthly book order forms and fundraisers or special events going on at school that I either need to attend or need something to submit as a donation of some sort.

Sure, that's not a whole lot of stuff, but between midterms and weekly assignments and presentations and group meetings, plus filling out client orders and keeping on top of all my bookkeeping - well - mommyhood is a hectic job. I guess that's one of the things that you grow to learn as an adult that I didn't have the fortune of learning before I had my son, it's the ability to manage my time responsibly.

I learned a few key things that helped me manage my time though...

Keep an agenda and look through it at least five times a day.
You might think that's excessive, but with 30 different things going on in one week, five times a day is the MINIMUM amount you should go through your agenda. It helps you develop the habit of checking to see your availability and whether or not you have time in the next 12 days to study for that test in two weeks.

Take breaks and set an alarm.
Like right now, I should be working on an assignment, but after designing the heading for my business website and writing out a summary of an interview I conducted for school, I really don't have the brain capacity to write a proposal at the moment. So I won't. Breaks are good, naps are better. Take what you can, but always set an alarm. Even if you're still awake, you can still lose track of time.

Plan weeks ahead. 
Every Sunday night, I have a lab due for one of my finance classes and I think it's fair to say that it's the last assignment I have due for the week, every week. So once I submit my lab, I go through allll my courses, plan out that week and make sure I give myself ample time to work on assignments or study for tests.

Stay committed to your schedule.
It's hard at first, especially if you're not used to it, but to be honest, once you have the habit of referring back to your schedule before making plans, you'll stay committed to it. It helps a lot and those odd times you do get free time, you can play doctor or chinese restaurant with your kid for an hour or so or cuddle up in bed and watch some classic movies from your childhood that you have on VHS.

But to end this note, time management is something I'm working on. So I hope many of you who have the luxury of being "bored" from time to time learn to appreciate that you at least HAVE the time to be bored, because if it were up to me, I'd use that free time to sit down and write something like this!

First Parent-Teacher Interview

For those of you who don't know, my son is in junior kindergarten; he's only four years old.

Yesterday evening, I went to his first parent-teacher interview and I must say, I couldn't be more proud of my little learner.

My son's teacher had nothing but good news to tell me. She said that Matheson is advanced beyond her SK students and his math is at a grade 2 level, three years ahead of the junior kindergarten expectation.

Apparently his teacher doesn't need to test him with his letters and sounds anymore because on the diagnostic test he did in September, he was already performing ahead of the senior kindergarten students. She also told me that his scope of knowledge is beyond that of all her students and a lot of the things he says in class or even the things he teaches his friends often surprise her because he knows so much more about the world than most children a year or two older than him. She said he was like an encyclopedia with random facts and tidbits of knowledge. She laughed and said that sometimes he makes references to those facts during play time and no one understands him - a lot like mommy if I do say so myself. 

So, she gave me two curriculum packages for the grade 2 level and told me I could practice these learning principles at home with him because he's already meeting some of the expectations required of a second grader. Matheson was absolutely beaming when his teacher told me I had a very smart cookie to be proud of, it was definitely one of the best feelings for both of us.

But all academics aside, I think what made me the happiest from that interview was when his teacher spoke to me about Matheson's behaviour. She told me that he's very well mannered and very polite with the other students. She told me that in the first week of school, when one of her other students was crying, none of the kids wanted to go near him. However, Matheson approached the little boy and said to him, "It's okay to be scared. Everyone is scared of something, but look at all the girls and boys here with us! You should be happy and smiling that there are so many people you can be friends with." When the little boy acknowledged my son, my son simply said to, "I'm Matheson, do you want to be my friend?" and brought him over to a group of his friends and they played together until snack time. 

I was never fully aware of Matheson's behaviour at school, but I did have a good idea about what he was like. Whenever I don't have classes, I pick him up from school. And every single time I get him, there is always a flurry of kids saying "bye, Matheson!" to him. It was funny at first when I realized Matheson took forever to leave the premises because he was so busy saying bye to everyone by name. Then I noticed that he was the only person the kids were saying bye to. All the parents know my son and they tell me the stories that their son or daughter share with them about something Matheson did at school. That's when I realized, holy crap, my son is the popular kid that everyone wants to be friends with!

So back to the interview, my son's teacher was impressed with his social skills and told me that I shouldn't be surprised that he has so many friends. She said that on the first day of school, he was the one making sure everyone had someone to play with and introduced himself to all the kids during play time. She told me he's an amazing leader and from day one, she saw so much potential in him because not only is he progressing well academically, but he has amazing people skills and charisma that are already taking him far.

Many people have their opinions on parenting and many of you will disagree with mine, but I tell my son fairly often that he can't just be anything he wants to be. 

Why would I tell my son something as demotivational as that? Well, cue the explanation.

I told my son that it takes a lot to really be something. There are things that define who you are simply because it's in your nature to be that way. Meanwhile, there are things that you grow to become eventually. Most of the time, you grow into a person you never intended to be - in that case, it either works in your favour, or it doesn't.

I told Matheson that he can't just be anything he wants to be, with the keywords being "just be".

You have to work for what you really want to be. You can't "just be" it. So although you can't just be anything you want, you can eventually become anything you work towards being. Does that make sense?

Well, if it does, then I guess that's why he is the way he is. We tell him all the time that he's a smart kid and he's a good kid, and when it's appropriate, we reassure him that we acknowledge his good behaviour as equally as we acknowledge his bad behaviour whenever he acts up and we're forced to discipline him. He wants to be the smart kid and he wants to be the good kid, sometimes he's lazy and sometimes he's really just a kid. He won't do every lesson I try to make him do, and he won't listen to everything I tell him to, but he still puts in the effort of trying to be the good kid or the smart kid and I must say, I was reassured of that yesterday at his parent-teacher interview.

All-in-all, I'm proud of my munchkin. He's still such a goofy kid and I love all the juvenile things he says sometimes that don't make much sense. I don't care if he makes mistakes or gets things wrong, or even if he can't do some things other kids his age can already do. Yes, he's an intelligent boy and I'm proud of that, but what I'm proud of the most is his effort. I'm proud that he really does try to be the best he can be in school. I'm proud that his teacher has all those wonderful things to say about him because what that tells me is that my son is really putting on his best face. At the end of the day, whether Matheson was smart or not, outgoing or shy, I always just wanted to make sure he was being the best he could be and I can proudly say that he is.