Hey guys, I have yet another wonderful passion to profession story for you today. I met a real-life super mum, oh yes I did! You know all those things we all wished we did for the family? She does them and even more. She is not your everyday-conventional mum, she’s a mum who believes in the intrinsic value and individuality of her children. She believes that her children are their own persons and is doing all she can to ensure they are the individuals they were meant to be.
Most modern parents have the same belief, however, in as much as we incorporate our children’s individuality into their daily living, we are still constrained by societal beliefs and expectations. When you meet Lara you’ll have a better grasp of what I’m saying…
Let me tell you all about her.
Lara is a family friend that I never met until our interview. My dad and her dad are old friends and I remember visiting their home in Ottawa with my parents about 16 years ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet her and her sisters as they were away at school. We connected last year, thanks to Instagram and we’ve picked up a lovely online relationship since then.
Lara is a blogger, momager, teacher and serial entrepreneur. Impressive right. She is a mum to 2 lovely children whom she homeschools, yes you read right. She homeschools her 2 children, (5 and 8) and she is also a foster mum to a little boy. She blogs and recently started doing a bit of acting. Hearing her talk about her day and a glimpse at her diary left me wondering if we were on the same planet and use the same 24 hours!
So, lets meet her, maybe she’ll let us in on how to get super mum powers 😁
Who is Lara Onaba?
Well, I feel like Iām a million people in one person. So itās hard to summarize me, to be honest. Iāve done many things in different chapters of my life. Iāve been many people as well.
Thinking of who am I now ā I teach, I teach kids in China, English. I blog, and I also work as a closed captioning evaluator. In Canada, thereās an evaluation system for closed captioning on News broadcasts. Companies have to be evaluated once a month on the captions they produce for people that need them. So Iām an evaluator, itās a random thing. Two years ago, they put out an ad on Facebook, where I live, and they said theyāre looking to train people to be evaluators. If you were Deaf, or an ally to people who were deaf, or somehow in this community of people who need a caption that they wanted you to apply.
So I did apply and I applied because I used to study American Sign Language. That was actually my passion. I wanted to be a sign language interpreter. But then I developed tendinitis in my wrists from all the signing. They say, every sign language interpreter will get an injury within about eight years of being in that career. Unfortunately, mine started when I was still in the training. I was five years in when this happened, there was a day where I couldnāt even feed myself. I couldnāt lift my fork, because my wrists hurt so much. I was in physiotherapy till I could lift my hands again. You can get Tendinitis from different things, sometimes from typing on the keyboard, any overuse of those tendons in the wrists could cause it. So I realized I couldnāt do this, I couldnāt be a sign language interpreter.
How did you feel when you realized you couldn’t pursue your dream job?
It was so sad because Iād been studying it for five years! All my friends were within that community. However, life just unfolded as it should. Mark got offered a job in Alberta, we were in Ontario at the time. And so I stopped the program and then we moved. That was a good distraction from a big change in my life where I had two more years in this program to be a certified interpreter.
I ended up working as a teacherās assistant to a child who needed a sign language teacher. So it was a good segue way where I could speak and sign to this one child instead of a formal signing presentation every day. Then I gradually got out of that and I got into business. Iāve run businesses, I did a cleaning company. I did professional development workshops, like as a speaker at Rotary and Chamber of Commerce, AGM on business developments and things like that. I have the attitude of just say yes and see what happens. I think a lot of people think they canāt do it and then they donāt, they donāt even try! But I just try to say yes to life as best as I can and hope it doesnāt get me in too much trouble. So yeah, thatās pretty much, I think, a nutshell of where Iām at.
Let’s go back to how it started
I met my husband in university as a first-year student, we were 18, Itās the same university my parents went to, so I always joke, that it was the University of love. Nobody was studying, they were finding husbands and getting married. Heās from Uganda, he was an international student and I moved from the Mississauga area to Ottawa for that university. We dated for 10 years before we got married , Iām a lot of crazy, he wanted to be sureā¦
I didnāt even think we would ever get married. I knew we would be together but I did not know that it would be a formal thing because weāre really against a lot of social constructs, like doing things out of obligation because everybody in the world says itās supposed to be this way. So, we lived together and moved across from Ontario to Alberta. We had our life together, but I never thought we would get married.
One day, we decided to get fit and happy, so we went for a big hike. We were climbing up a hill and he got tired, stopped and told me to go ahead. So I finished the hike ā went to the top, came down and he was sitting there, and while I was gone he had woven some flowers into a ring and then he proposed! āOh, were you scared I was going to leave youā? I asked him jokingly.
We got married the next year. Ā That was complicated because my parents are in Ontario. My dad as you know, āvery Nigerianā, and his parents are in Uganda. Each set of parents insisted we were each marrying into their families. So they both wanted us to have the wedding with them. So we ended up having two weddings in different countries (not recommended ). We are really relaxed people, we kind of had a vision of a backyard with a barbecue wedding, something casual, but neither parents wanted that. It was going to be a big thing and everybody and their dog were invited.
A month before the Canadian wedding, my dad had an accident. So we cancelled the Canadian wedding because I just couldnāt have a big party with all my dadās friends and my dadās not even there. We had a wedding in the hospital chapel so that he could be part of it. We went to Uganda and did a big wedding with his family afterwards. Yeah, weāre married now with two kids. Weāve moved around quite a bit, we now live in the Vancouver area.
On how she’s able to juggle so much
I have really, easy-going kids, I think that makes a big difference. I used to think it was my parenting but I donāt think it is. Denzel and Jazlyn are very easy to parent. They get along together with each other and Denzel helps in teaching Jazlyn her numbers. For the most part, there isnāt a lot of teaching that happens for me. I just listen to what they want to do and then I find people in the community that can help facilitate learning. Like Jazlyn is really into art, Iām not very artistic but we found a pottery lady. I called her and asked for a class for homeschoolers. I didnāt want it on weekends or evenings but in the middle of the day because thatās when weāre free. She said if we could get like eight other kids together she could do it. I put up a post on Facebook for homeschoolers and everyone was like yes, weāre in and that was it. Jazlyn has made some lovely things from the class.
I follow their lead, so we find time for whatever they’re interested in. This makes the learning process enjoyable.
Did you always know you will homeschool your children?
I had a vision of a family ā I like the family we have now better than my vision though. I envisioned having 4 kids, I could always see the kids in uniforms and going to a private school just like my childhood. I feel like, sometimes you do what you know, and that was what I knew. I thought private schools would give them enough individualized attention from a teacher, maybe smaller class sizes, maybe more sophisticated learning. I knew it was definitely not going to be a public school. I donāt know what vision I had of a private school, maybe bilingual, and thatās what I envisioned for them.
Then I had my son, and he is a different child. You know, I think that sometimes children change you, you know, they change your life path in ways that you could never plan for or envision. Have you seen the movie Benjamin Button? You know, in that movie, there was a baby born an old man. I feel like thatās like my son. He was born very mature and, not comfortable in a babyās body. People would talk to him as a baby or a child, but it was just not him like he wanted full proper sentences.
For example, he was out of diapers day and night by eight months. There arenāt many babies that I know that are like that. We started potty training him at three months when my mother in law was visiting. I remember a trip to Mexico when he was eight months, I took five diapers just in case and then he got diarrhoea when we were there but he still made it to the bathroom. I would try and buy underwear for an eight months old and people were looking at me like thereās something wrong with this lady. So my mom had to sew underwear because I couldnāt find underwear that would fit a baby. Then I thought, well, how can I take him to daycare because nobody believes that he doesnāt need to be in a diaper because they thought, well, statistically, nobody is out of diapers at this age.
Thatās how it started, I wanted people who would be able to communicate with him but he was a little too sign language-dependent as he couldnāt speak. He would sign for food or milk, potty, all those things, but we needed people who were willing to communicate with him that way and there really wasnāt anybody. Thatās how I couldnāt put him in daycare because I didnāt want that for him. We just realized the world isnāt really set up to treat children the same way as you treat sort of older kids. You look at a child and everything in your brain puts them in a box-like, oh, youāre 5 you should be able to play with Lego and so when you have a child that doesnāt do that, then itās a bit more challenging.
I had him home and I thI had him home and I thought, Okay, my mom was a teacher. So I could be a teacher. I did a little teaching in schools as well so we would get all kinds of Crafty things and alphabets and work on those things. What I was discovering was that he didnāt like to be taught as much as he liked to discover on his own. So if he was discovering the alphabet or watching his show that they were singing the alphabet, he got it like that. As soon as I was like, oh, letās practice 1 to 10 he would just go, No, Thank you, no! So I learned that as much as I wanted him home, we needed to change our style of home education because the concept I had of letās sit at the table and learn together was not going to work with him, we would just argue about it.
We learned about something called unschooling. Do you know what that term is? Itās popular in the unschooling group, obviously. Like not doing school at home, so youāre home learning your children, but itās not trying to recreate the school environment. It is specific to what they call child-led learning. Listening to and then finding that resource and introducing it to your child. I heard about this conference in New York about unschooling, and I said, Well, we should go. He was four at the time.
So we made a trip to New York to attend this conference, itās a really popular event and New York always had this annual event. When I got tickets. Mark said New York?? Iām coming! He likes to travel but he wasnāt really on board with the whole concept of home educating. Maybe for younger children, but he didnāt see it as something that could be like, longevity, like, how, can you homeschool a teenager.
The unschooling conference had programs that you could meet with older children who have been unschooled their whole life, and thatās what Mark wanted to do. He wanted to meet these older kids and see how messed up they were. But then what we discovered is actually that those children had amazing relationships with their parents, because they didnāt have parents telling them what to do all the time, which is where a lot of teen conflict comes, and parents donāt understand. āThey want me to do this, and I want to do that. They had parents who were listening to them and supporting whatever visions that they wanted. And as a result, they liked their parents.
Some of them did what is called world schooling. Where they travel the world and they use wherever they are as the beginning of what they start learning about. Like, if we drive and we end up in Washington, then weāre going to learn about the history of Washington. What is there to see here, rather than saying, well, itās page 22. And today is Washington. So weāre going to study about Washington, itās wherever they went, and what they would learn about the whole world that way, which we always thought would be a really amazing way to educate children.
We would love to do that, I did a lot of that in Canada and a little bit in the States. I would love to do more. It would be great to decide āletās learn about China ā weāre booking a trip, letās go to India! Just see the world, thatās my dream of a way to educate the kids, to travel with them. We love to travel. We did that conference and for Mark, it was a switch. We met a young preteen boy, who blew our minds, he was brilliant and so articulate and could lead a debate and he came across as the perfect child. His name was Neil, Iāll never forget. That was the beginning where we both decided, Okay, there are people who do this, it seems like they do it really well. And weāre going to try it.
On How their families reacted to their choice of homeschooling
It wasnāt completely supported in our families. My parents are both really high academics. I think itās also a cultural thing, where if you didnāt have an education from an institution, then your life was really limited in Africa. But here, itās not necessarily the same. You can create a very successful life through business and what not.
That was the struggle with my parents. When my kids were young, they had the feeling like I was making a really bad choice that was going to impact the kids forever because I was not putting them in an institutional setting for learning. My mum came around first because she doesnāt like conflict. So if weāre going to fight about it, she wasnāt going to have it. āIt is good, whatever you choose, Lara, Iām gonna love you and the kids just the same,ā she said to me. But Iām sure in her mind, she was not so sure. But as my son is growing, they can see how articulate and educated he is ā and through mostly his own doing, they started to feel differently about it.
Maybe my dad still thinks that this is a good thing until heās like in high school, but for now, they are fully supportive. Markās parents, um, we donāt talk as often because theyāre far away. Iām sure that if they were here, they would say, oh, what youāre doing is great but you know, he could also go to school, right? So we just donāt mention it as much. You know, I just tell them the things that heās doing, and then we donāt talk so much about how heās learning these things.
On the children’s attitude to unschooling
In every childrenās book that you read, kids are going to school. Itās really difficult for my daughter ā sheās five, school is being painted as being like, this utopia. You have a great time, or like thereās one bully in whatever book youāre reading. She wants to go to school to play and Iām supposed to go with her, thatās how she sees it. I say I wouldnāt be there with you and youāre already playing all day here anyway, so why do we need to take you to school for you to play more, or play in limited amounts of time, but she struggles a bit with the concept. Sheās feeling like sheās missing out on something that all the other kids are doing. So we try to keep our social group to other children homeschooled because it really helps with not feeling like youāre, youāre missing out on something, which at her age is really important.
My son gets it, you know, he had that period too when he was younger. He did want to go to school as well and then we also lived really remotely. So he was struggling not only with the school thing but also his race and feeling like he was the only black person and everybody else was white. When we moved here, we made a trip, his first trip to Uganda, that was it! It totally shifted who he was because he realized he just lives in a different continent where here Iām the only black person but there, everybodyās black and then he was who he was, my daughter will probably need a trip like that next year.
What activities do they do?
Theyāre both sort of following their passions. My son understands that when he expresses an interest, Iām like a force to be reckoned with. If he says oh, I would like to blah, blah, blah ā Boom, ātomorrow you startā. So heās tried different activities, like horseback riding he wanted to do for a bit so we did horseback riding. He was actually scared of horses in the beginning and then now loves them. He had a beat boxing business a few years ago. He would be told something about someone and make a beat boxing rhyme for them for a birthday-gram recorded and emailed for $5. At 4 he wrote a book and published it and sold it online.
Heās done many different things, now he takes Mandarin classes. When he saw me teaching English to kids in China, he was like, oh, it would be so cool. If somebody in China could teach me Chinese. I said, Well, you start tomorrow. There is a company that does that, just the reverse of what I do. So heās been taking Mandarin classes for over a year now online. Itās an unusual language for a child to say they want to learn but yeah, Iām used to his unusualness. Whatever it is they want to learn about, I find a way, when there are so many resources, not online, in person. You can feel sometimes like there are not enough hours in the day to learn all that they want to learn. He is now pursuing an acting career at just 8 years old and doing impressively well.
I donāt use any curriculum. Maybe two years ago, I looked online to say, Okay, what are my kids supposed to be able to do at this age? And that was, that was before my son was really a strong reader, then I was feeling like, Iām not teaching him to read, is he doing okay? But honestly, the requirements were so low, that we were doing fine. Now because heās a very strong reader, I donāt worry about curriculum or presenting him with stuff because heās reading, he reads about a book or two each week. I know that in every book, thereās something educational, even if itās a childrenās story, thereās something in there. That to me is a substantial amount of knowledge.
If heās not reading, then heās watching YouTube videos or making his own. He has a cooking channel as a chef. Oftentimes, he watches documentaries, sometimes theyāre science experiments. Every time I talked to him is askingā¦. Did you know Did you know? And I donāt know the answer. You know, honestly, sometimes I argue with him, and I say, no, thatās not right. And then I google it and he is usually!
I donāt worry about his capabilities or his knowledge, and we donāt follow any structured study because we live consciously. We cover everything. If we go grocery shopping, he will, pick up the apples, weāll weigh the apples, and weāre doing a rough estimate. Okay. It says itās like $2 per pound. So how many pounds do we have? And heāll have a little calculator to see if you can guess the amount before we get to the till. And weāre over or above whatever. But thatās math, right? Like, estimation. Even if we donāt have a label for the things that weāre learning, theyāre all there.
He loves cooking and cooking incorporates, so many things, like itās science, ingredient reacting to each other. Thereās reading and measurements, which are really more complicated things for kids to learn. But he does it for fun, not really realizing that heās learning. We live together and weāre together all the time, so we do housework, too. Itās like, take out the garbage, vacuum the floors, clean the bathrooms, make your bed and those are all part of living things.
So my role is really to create opportunities for them to learn.
What if later in life they want to go to university or high school, college?
The theory is that whatever your childās interest is as long as itās not self-harming itās a yes. I have told the kids (not so much Jazlyn because sheās not quite there yet mentally) if you want to try school even now, except COVID, that we would support you and heās asked can I quit if I donāt like it and I said: āYes, you could quit if you donāt like itā. He does have that invitation, so to speak. I have my bias, because I see how beneficial this lifestyle is to him. And, honestly, I donāt think I paint school in a very positive light to him. So because he feels like the things he wants to do, he wouldnāt really be able to do if he was going to school heās still choosing not to, but he has said, Oh, Iāll think about it. I said, Yeah, you can think about it. But I donāt think he has, I donāt think he will go. Not for a few years, maybe heāll try it in high school. Like in British Columbia, you can be homeschooled without any government intervention, or supervision or tests or anything like that, up until grade 10. And thereās no difference than if you actually went to school from then onwards.
We have found that like applications into universities and things like that they are now more conducive to homeschoolers. Thereās a home school category where they want to see a portfolio rather than just your grades. You can write your resume, which for him weāre building with this acting stuff, itās going to be phenomenal by the time he gets there. I think universities are seeing that home learners are more self-motivated. They are the students that they want because they have chosen this program. Sometimes they have a lot of experience. If they want to be a veterinarian, theyāve already volunteered and so theyāre happy to have them. I mean, I went to university and I just picked something easy and then I graduated and I never used it not for one day and what a waste of money, right?
I know, people, switch programs halfway through, which means youāre still trying to figure yourself. Youāre so young. 18 is pretty young to be sure I want to do this for the rest of my life if you havenāt actually experienced it at all. Iām hoping that by the time he gets to that age, heāll have enough experience in different things to say like āI really like working on a farmā or āI really didnāt like acting and I did so much of it to know that I donāt ever want to do that againā. So he can really choose what he really wants to do.
How will they meet university or college requirements should they decide to go?
Theyāll have to sit for the necessary exams to study whatever they are interested in. Letās say I want to be a doctor and I need math right? Yeah, I may have to take a math challenge or math exam. I have to remind myself, that thereās no race. Life is not a race. Itās not a case of āat 18, if you havenāt graduated from high school, then youāre behind. No, I mean, you could take your math exam at 24. I think there has been a shift in my mentality. Parents tend to compare their kids by saying, oh, eight years old, and heās already doing that!?! and my kids are not doing thatā¦. Thatās not the way supportive parenting works. Just support them for where theyāre at. If they take an extra two years, but theyāre happy, thatās okay rather than pushing, and then you have an abrasive relationship and a child with anxiety because you made them do math every day to make sure they keep up with their sister or their friends or what not.
Itās really just trying to throw out the concept of age when youāre looking at the child and Denzel has taught me to do that because since he was a baby, I couldnāt look at him as a baby, because he just showed me that he wasnāt that way. So yeah, you just stay flexible. I think you have to stay flexible. And listen, and also recognize my own biases, right? Because thereās like a lot of biases, like baggage. I come with a lot of baggage. LOL.
But, yeah, parenting is a trip, you know, itās not at all what I thought, but itās good for me, like, theyāre in your life all the time. So you have to change. Like you canāt disagree with somebody you live with all the time and expect that you know, youāll feel good.
So how do you get your me-time? How do you not go crazy from your busy schedule?
I have friends who are going to get their hair done and nails done and massage every week. Iām just like, kind of jealous. but that is not a reality in my life right now. My husband works and my parents donāt live near. Then with COVID youāre not supposed to hang out with anybody. But prior to COVID, I had a really good village with lots of friends. We would all just take turns with each otherās kids, drop them at the park, you go do whatever you want to do, you come back. But now, itās been a year of parenting by yourself. So I think honestly, my me-time is after Iām done teaching at night before the kids wake up in the morning. Thereās like an hour, itās not really me-time because Iām still doing things for them. Iām making breakfast, packing lunch. Yeah, there isnāt a lot of that. But I donāt mind, the life that we have together
But during the day, we go to a park and the kids will play at the park and I will walk. Sometimes I do 10 kilometres walking back and forth and back and forth. And they play the whole day at the park and Iām getting my walk in and I talk to friends on the phone or we go camping together. Itās still a lot of work on my end to pack everything and set up the tent and make sure the kids all are taken care of. But I do enjoy being in nature. So thereās like, some enjoyment in it as well as a lot of work. But yeah, the reality is, there isnāt that much Me-time. There just isnāt enough time for me-time.
My husband always says oh, you need to carve out your own me-time. But how do I do that? Like if you’re not here to take care of the kids. How do I do that? There’s no option, right? It’s not like there are three adults in the house and I can be like okay, on Saturday, Sunday and Monday is my there isn’t so yeah, that is what it is.
I believe there are phases in life, and Iām at this phase where they canāt be left alone cause they are so young and I just have to ride it out. Days of Me-times are coming, it just is what it is.
How did you decide to foster?
We actually started with dogs, when we lived in Northern Alberta. We lived near an animal shelter and they sometimes required people to foster the dogs over the weekend and we would volunteer and return them. Then I had Denzel and met other mothers and we became close and supported ourselves. We all lived in the middle of nowhere and most of us didnāt have family around and we became each otherās family. We had a friend who had to be hospitalised 6 months into her 2nd pregnancy Her husband had to work and she needed someone she could trust and was familiar with her daughter to watch her while she was away. We decided to help her out and that was our first experience. It wasnāt easy because children are sad when they are not with their parents and she cried a lot. But we were able to help a friend when she had no option in a difficult time.
After that experience, I put up an advert for anybody who needed help with their child whilst they were trying to get an education. We met a lady that way, a single mother with an 8-year-old boy who was trying to finish her education and didnāt have money for child care and we helped her for a year. We did the same when we met moved here and we were able to help a young single mum with a baby who was struggling financially. After 6 months she got her kid in daycare and got into a relationship that was abusive. One day she calls me that she needed my help, she had attempted suicide and was in the hospital and needed someone to help her with her children. She had another one then, so we picked the kids and they stayed with us till she was in a better place. We were happy to be part of her village. Ā
After she took her kids I told my husband that it seems weāre doing this a lot why donāt we take this up as a ministry of childrenās services and he said it was okay as long as Iām happy to do it and I promise not to take too much. So we signed up with a ministry, it took a year to take the courses, go through checks and a week before we were done they already had a baby waiting. So since then, weāve had 2 children, the last one has been with us for over a year. Every child is different and every age is different and the children come with family and sometimes the families can be complicated. You have to sometimes dig deep, sometimes thereās drug involved with the parents, you have to deal with social- workers so itās not always straight forward. You never know how long a child will be with you, the first child I had was meant to be with me for 3 months but ended up spending a year with us. When we get the portfolio of a child we have to ask ourselves if we can handle the child till they are 18 because you never can tell. Some of the children come with big challenges, big emotions, sometimes the kids can be not very nice to your own child and youāre trying to be fair. Itās complicated, itās not for the weak. Itās more than just loving people, I feel we should all do something to help the society, we canāt all foster, but for me, since Iām home with the kids I feel itās like an easy contribution to the society, Iām making the society better for my children if thereās one less child living with abusive parents or less kids that donāt have homes. It involves a lot, like my current foster child requires so many appointments because he has some medical challenges.
What challenges do you face in your role as an all involved mum and foster mum?
My major challenge is chid-care. It was easier before Covid as I have a friend that we help each other out when we want to step out. However, since Covid, getting someone to watch one when I have to take another to an appointment is a bit of a challenge.
How did Denzel get into acting
2 years ago when we moved, my son said he wanted to be an actor, so we signed up with an agency but the roles we were getting were never the right match. So we told them we were not interested anymore and moved on. A year had passed and in January, I checked his email and there was an e-mail from that company looking for a boy for a role in a movie and the description matched Denzel. We applied and he got the role, he had a few days to prepare and he loved it and so we decided to pursue it.
I joined Facebook movie groups and started looking online for moving casting calls for kids and ‘boom boom boom’ he started landing roles, I couldn’t even keep up. A lot of the roles required a mum and a son, and so because I know he wants to do it, I’ve been roped into these roles too. Interestingly, he is always so calm and I’m always the nervous one. He’s loving every minute of it. Some of the roles are volunteers and some are paid but he does not care, he’s just enjoying it. I’ve decided we’ll do it for 3 months, we’ll say yes to everything that comes and see how he feels after that. He’s getting referrals now and he’s having the best time of his life. We said no to the first one today because the content was just too mature for him. We worry as parents if we are making the right choice, let’s say he gets very successful, like are there child actors that don’t get involved in drugs. We hope that the opportunities we’re taking is good for him, but as parents, we’re always watching, I’m always present and making sure he’s happy with everything going on. A lot of the rokes he’s getting are very serious roes, and he’s doing well.
The other day, he said to me ‘mum, I think I need an agent, I’m like ahh, did you just fire me? He said no, an agent can negotiate contracts and I had to agree because I don’t know much about contracts. that night I contacted a friend who has a child that acts and she recommended 2 agents. I contacted them, we had a zoom meeting, we picked one and now we’ve signed him up for acting classes. He’s very comfortable in front of the camera. he’s an introverted person but he’s so confident in front of the camera. My daughter on the other hand is very extroverted but really shy in front of the camera, “I’m like who is this child”. I don’t like acting, I struggle with memorising the lines, I struggle with my name not to talk about the lines. Denzel on the other hand takes it in so easily but I do it because of him. If being in it is what will allow the director to cast him in the roles, Ā then Iāll do it.
It takes a while between shooting and production. We’ve hardly seen any of the work we’ve done yet, we did an Ad for Walmart which should be out soon.
Our kind of learning is different but it’s fun for the kids. It requires a lot of preparation, but as long as I prepare before time then it’s good.
What’s a normal day like for you?
There are no normal days for me! Denzel chose Saturdays as his chill days. I literally have to bite my tongue from asking him to do something on that day, but I’m happy he recognises he needs a day for himself. Then we have days like Mondays where everyone’s busy till we get into bed.
Not a lot of people can handle the way my calendar functions. I have to manage three different children’s lives and mine and sometimes my husbands’ all scribbled in my calendar. I’ve actually realised that I have reached my limit of capabilities which I have never reached before. I’ve had to cancel my night teachings because when he gets booked for acting we don’t get a lot of notice. Then I do the night classes and have to take him out early as well as take care of the other children’s needs. I have to cancel these classes so I can at least have a good nights rest. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it.
Thank you so much for your time Lara, you’re an amazing human being and we wish you nothing but the best. We’ll also be looking out for the Onabas in movies and Advertisemnets. We wish you all the best…
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Learn more about Lara herehttps://www.instagram.com/dazlyn_days/
Finally read this. So yummy. Had to send so many messages to Lara about this. Lol. Sheās a true rockstar.
It really is yummy