I know summer has already come and gone, but this event was so monumental to me. So I wanted to let you in a little deeper as to why. My oldest baby, Arika, has graduated 8th grade! I can’t believe she’s moving onto high school this month and I know as soon as I blink my eyes she’ll be graduating high school too.

Arika is such an incredible child. I may be a bit biased because I’m her mother, but she blows me away. For those of you who may not know, I was a teen mom. This little girl came to me when I was just 16 years old. School always came fairly easy to me. I always excelled and got really good grades. Though as we all know, life can hand you some curve balls. While I won’t get into my whole story right now, I will tell you that my freshman year of high school was ROUGH. I barely passed. A straight-A student barely passing her first year of high school didn’t make a lot of sense.

But it was then that I felt that my life was taking a critical turn, and not somewhere I wanted it to go. It was is if I was traveling on this super curvy road with a lot of bumps along the way and before I could get used to the sharp left turn, it would then turn right. Because shortly after my sophomore year had begun, I found myself pregnant.

She was my life saver

Many would say – and have said – that it was a mistake. I could write another whole blog post about my experience as a teen mom, but for today, all I will say is that this little girl was anything but a mistake. On the contrary, she saved my life. If she hadn’t shown up when she did I could honestly say I don’t know what would have become of me. Not only do I owe my life to her, but she continues to astound me. This girl not only has a 5 year plan, she has a 30 year plan that not only includes college and her career path, but includes the Air Force.

Arika is so unlike any other teenage girl I know. She was never really that into dolls, marches to the beat of her own drum, has ALL the political opinions, and is one of the funniest and wonderfully weird people I know. Baby girl, mommy is so so proud of you moving onto high school! Take a look below at how we celebrated this incredible moment for Arika!

Take a look and the epic family summer we had that followed this! https://joniloraine.me/2020/09/11/family-summer-fun/