the hardships of parenthood

so while my sister is recuperating, in more ways than one, i'm performing "parent" duties for my nephew. yeah, my "nanny" stature has been elevated (lol!). over the weekend, we've had to drop by the mall to buy my nephew some clothes that he can wear daily for school. we figured him having to wear all of his nice (read: expensive) clothes to school is not a good idea so instead we opted to buy him a pseudo-uniform. for some reason, we ended buying him a bunch more than what we intended to but i reckon he needed clothes and it will make it easier dressing him up if he had more. it seems over the past few days, most of my expenses actually go to my nephew's school stuff (snack, clothes, etc) and somehow it feels more like money well-spent than anything else.

he finally has his first assignment in math & language and i now also serve as his official tutor. when i find the time to do it, i don't know - i just figured its another good excuse to re-prioritize what i needed to do. and somehow, having to teach my nephew sounded more appealing than working on yet the last leg of my school presentation or another office presentation i need to finish. i sat him down this morning and realized that his math assignment was actually easier to teach and we actually breezed through it. the language one is a bit harder and trying to patiently teach it to a child who has a short attention span is challenging. i have another newfound area of respect for teachers.

parents-teachers conference was last saturday and while it was mom who attended, we all had to read the booklets. i never realized being an "instant" parent or stand-in for that matter could be a lot of work. i can just imagine how hard it must be for all single parents to work and rear a child all at the same time. rewarding yeah, but its exhausting. i guess this is why in a perfect world, there has to be a couple to help each other raise a child. just by yourself is doubly hard. doable but doubly hard.

but if you've been dealt with these cards, you just have to find the best hand.
folding ... unfortunately, is not an option.