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School your kids with Top Dog! {Review}
Homework, in our little corner of the world, is a tedious matter. For starters, Kyle (Grade 9) is a teenager and apparently, teenagers aren’t that much into homework or school. Seth (Grade 4), who had always been doing brilliantly when it comes to getting homework done on time, has recently followed suite and it takes a lot to get him to focus. Fortunately, my MIL is a primary school teacher and is usually the one who sits with them after school. (Which comes in quite handy when the homework pile resembles my desk on a Monday morning.) -
Girl: Interrupted
For as long as I can remember, I was someones mom. I gave birth to my eldest on the 29th November 2001 at the tender age of 19. (Me, not him.) I can’t comprehend a young adulthood without the added pressure of having to look after another little person. I remember admiring other (childless) young adults who were making life decisions, like whether or not they should Au pair in America or even go out to a movie on Saturday night, and it looked glorious! I did not have that luxury. My fate was to stay at home and raise a baby.
I gave birth to my little boy when I was fresh out of high school, just finishing my 1st year at varsity. I actually wrote my 1st year finals with an extremely big belly. Yip, I got all the stares and tsk tskkksss and ag shames and snickers. Especially when your bladder demands to be emptied every 5 minutes and the examination room is a distance from the loo.
My then boyfriend was my childhood sweetheart and he was legit – It wasn’t a “wham bam thank you ma’am” kinda thing. He was my first love and I was his and we were both dedicated to our kid and to each other. But love and dedication aside, we were ill equipped for the task of raising another person. I mean, we were still kids ourselves and we also had alot of growing up to do! Finding out we were going to be parents was kind of exciting. We spoke about names and who the baby would look like and what baby would be like. But as much joy as our baby brought to both families, it also changed things so much. I mean, I didn’t have the freedom to be a young girl anymore. I call it girl interrupted. I left varsity to find work and my baby’s dad also had to give up dreams that he had… Raising a child is not cheap! Suddenly life got real and not quite the fairy tale we had dreamed of while eating ice cream on the couch, admiring my preggy belly.
For the longest time I felt stuck – like I was destined to struggle for the rest of my life, especially after my sons dad and I split up. As a single, young mom, living on her own, with a little boy, I felt totally hopeless. How could I give my child a good life?! How would I even have a life of my own?!
I felt stuck… hopeless… as if I had no future. But guess what, I DID have a future. Jeremiah 29:11 said so. I started believing that my life is destined for success and not failure! I learnt to make GOOD decisions and surrounded myself with people who lifted me up and encouraged me to be the best mom I can be. It’s easy to focus on your failures or miscalculations. It takes a lot of guts to say, “you know what, that didn’t work out, but hey, let me try something else!” I decided to get gutsy.
Through the grace of God, his dad and I managed to find compromise. We made a lot of unselfish decisions, ego’s aside, that would help us to raise our boy with pride. Yep, it meant that both of us had to work HARD (still have to yo!) because we chose to have sex before we were married (and before we even understood the enormity of what that actually means!) so we had to bare the consequences and make the best of it! It took a lot of sacrifice to give him the best that I could but if I had a choice, I would STILL choose my son over and over again.
God is not limited to our circumstances and our human mind sets. He places dreams in our heart and He helps us to fulfill them, if we let Him! God always has a better plan than ours and as you know from previous stories, my hubstopher came along at just the right time, with just the right stuff. We have been blessed with the best.
My son went on to be the deputy head boy at his primary school (moms brains, duh) and is having such a good time in high school. I know that everything God had promised me in Jeremiah 29:11 applies to him too. I am so excited for his future and I am SO thankful for his life.
Through it all, I am grateful that amidst my hopeless situation, God came in and did miraculous things! He has restored us and given us a hope and a flourishing future. And if He can do it for us, then He can do it for you too.
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Life with sons: starting a band, baby…
Our kids are weird.
I say this with all the love in the world.
These boys (aged 10 and 13) literally sit and sing together, while playing XBox. And I’m not saying this because they have amazing, Luciano Pavarotti voices. Nope, they just enjoy singing, randomly. They don’t even sing popular, trending, songs… their choice of chorus are theme songs – Movie theme songs, ad jingles, series theme songs.
Them, 6 years ago Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it’s “shhh the baby is sleeping!” Sometimes we all join in. (How Highschool Musical of us) And sometimes, I’d be in the kitchen, humming a little tune (and by “humming” I mean “belting out” and by “little tune” I mean “Mariah Carey”) and one of them would join in! As if I invited them! I mean, hello, can you not see the spatula (aka mic) in MY hand?! Is nothing sacred anymore?!
Seth (the youngest) also has a habit of memorising tv ads. He knows all the words, all the songs and sometimes even mimics the actions! Kyle is a movie quoter. He is so NOT good at doing the accents but insists on telling you exactly what the lead actor said, in accent, even though you were sitting right next to him, watching the exact same movie a few minutes ago! He also quotes stand up comedians (thanks alot Trevor Noah) and sometimes says things and just leaves it in the air… no point. No reason behind the story.
Example: “Mommy, so today my friend picked up his pencil from the floor and then I was like, haha your pencil fell…” Okay. And then?
Our first date was a quadruple date – kids entow With all of that said, I remember something a dad of 3 once told us about his boys.
He said “The best thing I could ever have done for my son is to give him brothers.” (Thanks Manny) I was reminded of it this weekend, while watching these 2 together.
Flashback – few years ago: It was a couple of years after Kyles dad and I had split up and I remember feeling a bit disheartened thinking that my boy would not experience the joy (and torture) of having a sibling that is close in age to him. I mean, I love my sister – we are 3 years apart, and I remember many days of playing Barbie dolls together (me cutting her dolls hair in my “salon”… her crying about it) and hey those were some of the best days of my life. So I was really sad that my boy would not experience that. I mean, at best, his next biological sibling would be 10 years his junior. So no playmate for him.Enter: Hubstopher and his boy. I think that the pair came at just the right time, age and height! I found the man of my dreams, and our boys found each other. The 4 of us fit together like a puzzle. (I said something along these lines at our wedding too. And I wrote a song about it. So original.)
So yes, our kids are weird. But they are also extremely awsome! Both sets of moms and dads (on either side) are married with a baby and these 2 have taken to it very well! In fact, they are stellar big brothers to their half sisters and brother and they are amazing step brothers to each other. They have their disagreements but I am so pleased at how well they get along. They stand up for each other, like brothers. They sometimes tell on each other, like brothers. And hey, now they sing together too. So yes, we are starting a band baby, starting a band.
