Claudette's Blog

Sometimes I get up in the morning wondering who I am. Why am I here? What's my purpose? And I think back to when I met my husband and his two daughters. I am thinking how wonderful life will be with these two beautiful girls, sisters to my son and we just grow and become one big happy family.

I've always wanted to be a mom, The mom that has fun with her kids, makes them cookies and clothes, and is there with them at their school rehearsal and games. I just wanted to be a part of their lives when they graduate and get married and have kids of their own.

But somehow, life gave me some valuable lessons along the way. Life isn't as simple as we sometimes would like it to be. In my situation, I couldn't be just The mom because the girls already had one and she was doing a good job (even if I was sometimes jealous of it). I had to learn to share my role with someone else, someone who also wanted to bake cookies for her daughters and attend all those important events, just like me.

I found it hard, really hard to let go of a dream that I thought had to be just so. I thought that being a mom had certain critirias that made it I was special. The problem is that those critirias were not working for my kind of family. I was doing all the things that a mom does but without the recognition and appreciation. I would go to bed sometimes at night and cry, asking myself what was it that I was doing wrong.

A lot of time has passed since that moment when I kept asking myself who am I. And now I know. I am a woman that loves her husband and her children -all three of them. I am a woman who understands that being a mother doesn't require a specific label or duty but just the act of caring and being there is enough. There is no competition between women when all we want is the care and well being of our children. There is no competition when we put the children's needs first rather than our own ego. There is plenty of love to go around for everyone.

Soon, I will be attending my stepdaughter's wedding and will be standing with her mom, side by side, with no jealousy or ill feelings whatsoever. This is her day and nothing will deter from that.

So this is who I am, a mom, a stepmom, a supporter, a nurturer, a mentor, a friend but most of all a person that loves her children above all.