Introductions

The reason why I called this blog ‘RaisingFranky,” is because that’s just what they’re doing.

Everyday for the past six and a half years, motherhood has been making a woman of me & with every thing that I’ve taught my sons, they’ve taught me something in return. I started out as a teen mom, I was eighteen to be exact, when I gave birth to my oldest son Anthony Jr. Since then, Jonah & Jaxon have come along as well. I’ve got a six yr old, a three yr old & a one yr old. Most people’s first reaction to that is “Wow, you’ve got your hands full!” & my response is always the same… “I’ve got my arms full!”

Indeed I do, I’m a single mother & I have been for the most part. I’m married to Anthony Sr, but separated.

Our relationship has been dysfunctional to say the least.. but that’s another story.

This story, is about the kids.

First, theres Anthony Jr. Also known as Aj, Kid or Drama.

Drama, the first son of Hollywood, (a nickname his father gave me when we started dating.) Anthony got nicknamed Drama because from the day I brought him home from the hospital he displayed a very dramatic character. He’d do this thing as an infant where he’d make this expression of absolute despair, you’d swear he was about to cry out a cry of anguish at any moment, but it would just be a yawn.

To this day, he’s a very dramatic child. He’s very sensitive and emotional but can also put on a great show. He’s hilarious when he’s just being himself.

His number one obsession in life is legos. He makes dozens of different voices and accents and his imagination is something like a cross between a Tim Burton film, a Marvel comic book and an episode of My Little Pony.

He’s quite the adventure. Anthony is good at math and coming along in reading, surprisingly he prefers non-fiction books and I’m pretty sure that’s because he loves to learn more and more about the world and the way it works.

However, any chance he gets… he escapes from it in his mind. Anthony is my first- born aka the guinea pig. I learned from many mistakes that I made with him. Unfortunately, he’s seen many things no child should witness. Things that would fall under the category of domestic violence. Like I said, my relationship with his dad has been dysfunctional. Aj has seen me cry so many times. Because of this he suffers from anxiety and he’s currently in therapy. The goal is for him to learn to cope with things better, and be free of his anxiety.

On a lighter note, Anthony is a great artist just like his momma!

Next is Jonah also known as The Jones, or Fat Joe or Jonah Geovannyyyyy! as I call him when he is driving me nuts.

Jonah is the absolute opposite of Anthony. Everyone says it.

That for some reason was a surprise to me with every new thing I experienced with Jonah that I’d never dealt with for Anthony. Everything was “Anthony never did that,” or “Anthony never had that.” A new child took a lot of getting used to, for the first few months I was completely perplexed by his utter Jonah-ness. I think I snapped out of it the day my mother said to me “Of course! He’s a different person, what did you think, that you’d give birth to the same person twice?!” That’s when it settled in for me that I was raising two different people now and I was now splitting myself in two, two different ways of teaching, two different ways of comforting, of disciplining… but still one way of loving.

Jonah is the jock. He’s very athletic and loves all sports, his favorite is baseball. Before he even turned one, cartoons weren’t much of an interest for him but he could sit through a whole MLB game and get excited when the crowd did. I can’t wait to put him in little league.

Jonah is also quite the charmer. Aside from his particularly adorable face, The Jones is the kind of kid that makes it impossible to get stern with sometimes. The faces he makes and the things he says are full of cuteness, he’s the kid all my friends call their little boyfriend. Everyone’s always saying “You’re gonna have trouble with him in a few years. Girls are gonna be calling your house like crazy.”

My favorite thing about Jonah is how tough he is. That’s one of the way in which he is different from his big brother. He’s just naturally tough, things that throw Anthony into a fit, roll right of Jonah’s back. He’s strong, sometimes I fear that he’s too strong and should be a little more sensitive but I’m grateful because he and his big bro even each other out. They create a balance for each other and as the years go on and they get older, I can see the influence siblings have on one another.

Okay what else about The Jones? Ah! He’s in his terrible threes. He is hungry and/ or thirsty every hour and whines and complains a lot because he’s the middle child and starving for attention.

Last but certainly not least is Jaxon Liam!

Jax is my baby & though he is six months shy of being a two yr old, there is already so much to say about him. When I hold on to Jax, I am holding on for dear life. I am very much aware that there is a high chance that he is the last child I will ever have. There are many reasons for that ranging from certain health concerns to the simple fact that three is already company and if I ever want to finish school and have a career and give my sons the lives I wish to, then I might just have to shut the factory down if ya know what I mean.

Let me tell you about my little monster. He’s great. He is such a good baby, he is so damn squishable even my not so baby friendly friends are crazy bout him. Jax is a happy baby and he’s super attatched to me, just as attatched as I am to him.

He loves to make a mess and throw things and since about the age of six months he’s growls… hence his reputation as my little monster. He’s not talking yet except for mama and dada but he understands the names of his brothers and what “leche,” is… he puts his hands up in the air when I say “up!” Then he claps and proclaims “yay yay yay yay,” for himself.

He loves to cuddle and he needs a soft blanket under the side of his face to fall asleep. Jaxon unlike his brothers who slept all night from the age of 1-2 months and on, took 11 months to accomplish that, but its only made me closer to him. I’ve been soaking his babyness up and savoring it, with Anthony & Jonah I wanted them to do away with pacifiers and bottles as soon as possible but with Jax, well there’s just no rush.

When I found out Jax was a boy I cried for over a day & contemplated every which way of escaping the birth of yet another son. Honestly, the only reason why I was happy about the news of my pregnancy with Jax was because I thought there was no way I’d possibly have another boy, this had to be my girl, my dream come true… a daughter. But as chance would have it, or God, or Anthony Sr’s genes… I was to be the mother of THREE boys. & Of course, I couldn’t be happier about it now, I couldn’t imagine life without them, it all makes sense & even though I still dream of having a daughter I wouldn’t trade any of my boys.