Gianna’s 13th birthday is nearing. Along with the internal struggle of dealing with the fact that my baby will be a teenager in a couple weeks, I am also overloaded with the self-induced stress of putting together the epic creation known in our house as “The Birthday Book”.

Since the holiday of love is near, I decided it’s a good time to share my love story. I see a lot of blogs that have a section dedicated to how they met, fell in love, and eventually got married to their significant other. All the romance and the joy. Well, my story has that. But it’s also real. It’s painful and confusing and 20 years in the making. Our love story made me cross lines I swore I’d never cross. But, by crossing those lines, I have the life I have today…and I wouldn’t change a thing. Even though…

Recently, I wrote a post on Facebook to share my short story about my 12 year old daughter having her butt touched by a boy at school. After sharing this post on a few FB pages, the backlash began. It escalated to personal attacks on my character and my husband Vince. It resulted in the county sheriff’s site being tagged and the police showing up on my doorstep to check on the welfare of my children.

Parenting is hard. Recently, my 12 year old daughter was sexually harassed at school and I wasn’t prepared for how to handle it. This is how I dealt with the situation.

I really thought I was having a boy. When we learned it was another girl, I had to adjust my emotions. While I am excited for this little girl, there’s still an undefinable feeling of loss for the boy that will never be.

I’ve always been a spiritual person in that I’ve always believed in God. I didn’t always like him, mind you. I was angry for awhile. Regardless of my emotions, I always believed in something more. But exactly what that something more was, wasn’t always clear. So much gets hammered into your brain when you’re a kid. So many rules and beliefs that you take for face value because that’s what you’ve been taught. You don’t think that you have a choice to believe in whatever the hell you want because the alternatives are wrong. It’s either this way, or the highway (to hell).

My original plan had been to break society’s rules and not have my kids believe in Santa. It didn’t feel right in my heart creating all the lies that surround the “magic.” Sure, a part of me felt a little sad that they wouldn’t have the joy and wonder, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was wrong to start off my child’s life with an unnecessary lie.

It’s hard to choose a baby name when you already have 2 kids and a list of rules you like to follow when selecting just the right one. This episode covers off on my 5 standard set of criteria for selecting a name along with 1 extra rule if the name is for a boy. I will, of course, also go off on a few tangents since that’s how my mind operates.

Sometimes I take a critical look at myself and wonder – was I meant to be a woman? Not that I identify as a male or want a penis. Penises are ugly, dangly things. I’m pretty comfortable with my lady bits even though they aren’t tucked in as nice and neat as they were 15 years ago. Kids will do that to you. And, despite the whole “penis thing” I’m physically attracted to men. Although I will admit that women are a lot prettier to look at naked. And, I do notice attractive women for sure. But, it’s more of…

As kids, our minds don’t see limits. We dream big and want to do big things with our lives. Until the world crushes us down and makes us accept the mediocre. Here’s how I finally say f you to the world and followed my dream.