The Best Long Weekend

Friday
Friday,I was carrying Rosie down the street to her grandparents when a random lady standing on her driveway offered me her sling... for free. I was so taken back but such a kind gesture. So here is Rosie sitting in her sling for the first time. I haven't been able to get her into it since.









Saturday

Saturday was super hot! We got all dressed up for a big family party but there was no air conditioning. Rosie was super bored as you can see.

Before & After

Before


After

My cousin bought me a really thoughtful gift. Wall decals! She knows I've been obsessing over properly decorating Rosie's nursery. Finally got something done. We spent all day Saturday working on it.

Sunday

My cousin snuck in at 7:30 am Sunday morning to take this lovely photo of us. It was a long night of fussy Rosie, so needless to say, we were all knocked out by dawn.

Rosie woke up two seconds after she "sensed" her photo being taken. Lil bugger.








This was a card my little cousins made. "Hope you find a boyfriend". They're like 5 and 9.














The girls also chalked up my walkway. Isn't it beautiful??

The mystery behind the face

Don't judge a book by its cover.

I've been hearing this quote since the beginning of time. For some reason, the idea behind this quote has been spinning in my mind.

I love meeting new people. What entices me the most is the slow discovery of who they are. With some people, it's easy to read exactly who they are from first glance. I used to love those people because understanding them didn't take any work. Nothing really surprised you.
But lately, it's the people that you can't categorize immediately that are a intriguing me. Who are these mysterious people? What are their lives like? What thoughts run through their minds?

I think that as we get older, we get more mysterious. More of our lives start getting hidden. But why? Why does society support people to keep their lives private... almost as if it's a shame for people to talk openly about their struggles and burdens. I'm only referring to being verbally open. Pouring one's heart onto the internet is a different story. It's easier to do when no one knows your face.

If you met me for the first time, I doubt that you'd think that this smiling girl was in the midst of a custody battle, receiving threatening calls from the father's crazy girlfriend and basically scared shitless that she's about to be a single mother in less than 2 weeks. You'd never know or guess unless I explicitly told you. But why? Why do I go to such great lengths to hide this from people? The moment I leave my house, I plaster a huge, fake smile on my face in hopes that I'll soon feel that way. To be truthful, it usually works. Those precious moments I'm out of the house, I can pretend that I really am happy and delude myself.

No one would know that when I'm home, I spend most of my time hiding in my room. I hide from my mom who at a moments notice can backlash me with harsh words blaming me and the baby for shaming her, for ruining her life, etc. etc. I haven't seen the rest of my family in 9 months. Anytime someone drops by, I have to crawl under my bed covers and pretend I'm asleep in case they barge into my room.

I don't know why I hide my true feelings from people. I think it's because I'm scared they'll shun me or think less of me. I used to be very judgmental before I got pregnant. I'm afraid people will think that I've brought this on myself... or that I've done something to deserve this.

I was at school today. As I was walking to the bathroom, I felt a bunch of people looking at me and I couldn't help but think how much more this sucked for me than it does for D. People look at me and they think, "Look at that chic who's knocked up. Wonder what she did to get herself into that position". I bet when people look at D (and know that he got his ex pregnant), they probably think, "Wow. Poor guy now has to spend the rest of his life paying child support for a child he didn't want".

My mom pities D. She worded it as me ruining D's life by forcing a baby on him with my decisions; he had no chance in the matter.

I don't know what I think about that. I do feel guilty sometimes for having changed so many people's lives because I didn't abort the baby.

The truth of child custody

I have "pregnant squat".

Basically, I have to sit with my legs fairly far apart in order to make room for my belly.

When I catch myself sitting like this, especially in skirts, I quickly pull my legs together only to let them fall apart again when my legs get tired of holding up a 30 lb sac of 'baby'.

The things you never thought of.

So, I talked with one of me and D's old friend today, who happens to be a family lawyer. It went really well and was super informative. He corrected a lot of the things I had heard.

I will now share my information so that no one else ends up also mistaken with custody arrangements terminology.

First things first, I had cordial talk with D over custody and child support. He was very adamant about joint custody. I said I needed convincing before I was willing to give him any rights. I don't need to have him walk out of our lives again 4 years down the road.

Everyone says that I shouldn't give him joint custody. I painted a horrendous picture in my mind involving joint custody and was prepared to fight against it.

So, I did some research. Turns out joint custody means nothing more than shared decision-making. Joint custody does not mean that we have to split time with the baby 50/50. I could easily have the baby live with me fulltime and D can visit anytime he wants. Joint custody only says that all decisions concerning the baby must be made by both parents. So, report cards, medical decisions, parent/teacher interviews must involve both parents. To me, that sounds completely reasonable.

I asked my friend about joint custody and child support. Does joint custody mean he doesn't have to pay anything?

Answer: No.

If in the case of shared custody, which means that time with the baby is split 50/50, then child custody might be removed because both parents are equally paying for the needs of the baby. Depending on the joint custody arrangements, D or I could end up paying child support depending on who was taking care of the baby more. If it happens that D has no job, takes care of the baby every other week, I would have to pay child support so that he could still adequately take care of the baby.

It makes sense.

I asked my friend about switching from sole custody to joint custody once D proved himself responsible enough to care for the baby.

His answer completely changed my opinion on sole custody. The moment the baby is born, joint custody comes into effect by default. To gain sole custody requires court orders. Unless D is violent, has a drinking or drug problem, or any of the other extremes which would endanger the child, sole custody is hard to fight for. The courts don't give a crap about the mother or the father. They only care about what is in the best interests of the baby. If the mother wants sole custody just because she resents the father for being an asshole, the court won't consider that a good enough position. And they are completely right.

This is how my friend put it, "Once someone is taken to court... they're usually not happy about it. It usually builds a lot of resentment in both parties. Who knows how long the resent is going to stay. You are going to spend a minimum of 18 years dealing with child support payments and visitations. Unless you think that giving rights to the other party is a life and death situation, then what not try to do everything possible to make things work because resorting to the courts?"

D may be an asshole, but he would never do anything malicious to hurt the baby. He would never go out of his way to destroy the baby's life just because he has legal right to. I know that at the end of the day, D wants to be just a good a parent as anyone else. He may make millions of mistakes and is often really selfish, he would never do something to the point of hurting the baby. He's not THAT horrible.

At the end of the day, the baby's best interests are most important. I think this is something a lot of people forget... or they become blind to it from all the hate and anger. I am determined to keep a clear mind. If this baby and D end up falling in love with each other, I'm not going to take that away just because I resent some of the decisions he made in the past.

If you expect someone to be horrible, they will mostly likely become just that.

If I constantly expect that D is going to be a walk away... he just might get tired of trying to fruitlessly prove himself and give up. I gave up on him a long time ago, what's to say he wouldn't do the same.

My hope is that both D and I are able to become really self-sufficient and money no longer becomes a worry. Once I can support the baby without any worries, I really don't want to have to be troubled about getting child support payments.

Figuring out this whole child custody thing definitely opened my eyes to the dangers of greed and irrationalism.

I think that I often demanded too much of D. I sometimes let myself fall back into the habit where I think he should support me just like back in the days. But those days have changed and we can only move forward... put the past behind and hope for a better future.

Another Sunday Morning

Spending the day at my computer. Just checking up on blogs, twitter and doing some research into Google Adwords.

So far, highlight of my day Hugh MacLeod's pick up line.

"You're kinda cool... i'm kinda cool... We should kiss".

Bah ha ha ha!!!

So, just finished having a quick lunch/snack with my parents. We were just sitting in our bright, yellow kitchen and my dad was telling us about a dream he had last night. My dad is all-unto his own category.

He's a short, slightly balding, Vietnamese man with a big nose and thick glasses.

He is the most easy going man I've ever met, who rarely talks unless he has a glass of wine and a beer in his stomache. Then it's all smiles and corny jokes.

Life is simple from his perspective. He just take things as they going.... and he just keeps living.

Anyways, his dream was about a summer vacation trip. He was driving somewhere and had to pick up my dead grandma, my aunt, who lives in Toronto, and a cousin, who lives in California. (Did I mention he was driving?)
Suddenly, he found himself in the passenger's seat with a strange man driving the car instead. But whatever... it's a dream right.

Out of nowhere, the car stops working and a horde of people come up behind the car and start to push it. My dad got extremely scared. He started yelling at the driver to steer the car but the driver didn't know how to drive.

My dad just kept emphasizing how insanely scared he got and it finally shocked him out of his dream. ha ha ha. My dad is so strange.

All my life, I've been dying to move out... but I never realized how much I'm going to miss my "home life". My parents and I never really got along well but that was mostly because I never made time for them. I'd always be out with friends, working, studying. Now that I have so much free time and basically never leave the house, my relationship with them has gotten so much better.
Once I move out, things will never be the same. I'm going to miss out on all the small things, like my dad's random jokes, my mom's stories, and my sister's makeup.

But, that's what growing up is all about right?

And really... when does "growing up" end?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!
This is by far the most relaxing Christmas I've ever had. No running around, no major cooking, no major parties. Ahhhh.... relief.
Yesterday, mom and I cooked a nice dinner for the family including a turkey and rice-paper rolls. Of course, my family ate 4 slices of turkey before we were full.. haha. Poor turkey. We were going to go to church and wander around downtown but mom pulled a muscle in her back causing her to go to bed at 9. So, Chi Mai and I ended up watching a movie which was an embarassing teen movie. I won't even mention the title.
Today, church in the afternoon, pho for lunch and then PRESENTS! I bought mom and bo a shredder which, contrary to what Chi Mai thought, they loved it. Bo spent 30 mins shredding all the wrapping paper. He looked like a little boy.
Chi Mai is going to her boyfriend's for dinner so we're just going to eat leftovers and watch a movie. It'll be nice. Happy Holidays!

Fashion Show

I've finally experienced my first fashion show. It was.... okay... I guess.
It was the first day of snow so no one came out. The place was empty. I only really liked one designer Anastasia Lomonova. She used some awesome prints and fabrics.
The other designers were all the same. Nothing really stood out. I was disappointed.

I met Stacey McKenzie!!! She's one of the judges from Canada's Top Model. The one with huge lips and the legs of a goddess. haha! She was funny.
I met some nice people. 2 photographers, a freelance writer and an upcoming fashion designer.

I spent the night dreaming about fashion and my business.
I've been debating what to do during my third trimester. Should I continue with school? Should I get a job? Should I just relax and work on my business?
I just might spend the next few months working on building a clothing line and website. It'd be nice. I'm tired of just sitting around and waiting.

My parents and I have decided that its best if I move out by December. Some days my mom is good and optimistic (or at least silent). Most days however, she's a mess. At the very sight of me, she starts moaning about how her life is over and how fat I am. She is determined to keep our little secret from the big family. I think its stupid and futile but she doesn't want the dishonor.
To be truthful, I don't give a damn. I don't care what people think of me. No one can say anything because no one knows how it feels. You can imagine but you'll never know until you experience it yourself. I am proud of how I've handled things. I'm proud of my decision and at the end of the day, when I go to bed... I'm happy. I am strong and I can get through anything.