The TRUTH About Motherhood

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The Killer Look Every Woman Needs
It’s Friday! Summer is winding down but we’ve got a few lazy weekends left until the leaves start changing color. I don’t know about you but I am looking more forward to this long weekend than I used to look forward to Friday nights when I was in my 20’s.
I can’t wait to sleep in and have no place to be. Sure, I’d love to be lounging on a beach somewhere but to be honest, after the week we’ve had, that even sounds like too much effort. I just want to relax and enjoy my family. I’m thinking sleeping in, lounging by the pool, cooking out, an outdoor movie and s’mores and wine sound like the plan for me this weekend. Maybe even sneak in a little reading of something other than work related reading.
Linda Fairstein has a new novel KILLER LOOK and it is page-turner, crime, mystery set in NYC in the fashion world. Anyone who really knows me knows that I have a fashion addiction and a minor in criminology, so this is right up my alley.
A little bit about Killer Look, New York City is one of the fashion capitals of the world, well-known for its glamour and style. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the runway, where American haute couture continually astounds with its creativity, daring, and innovation in the name of beauty. Yet high fashion means high stakes, as Alex Cooper quickly discovers when businessman and designer Wolf Savage is found dead in an apparent suicide, mere days before the biggest show of his career. When the man’s daughter insists Savage’s death was murder, the case becomes more than a media sensation: It is a race to find a killer in a world created entirely out of fantasy and illusion.
With her own job at the DA’s office in jeopardy, and the temptation to self-medicate her PTSD with alcohol almost too strong to resist, Alex is not anyone’s first choice for help. But she is determined to uncover the grime—and the possible homicide—beneath the glitz. Along with detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, Alex must penetrate the twisted roots and mixed motives among the high-profile players in the Garment District. The investigation takes the trio from the missing money in Wolf Savage’s international fashion house to his own recovery from addiction; from the role of Louisiana Voodoo in his life to his excessive womanizing; and to the family secrets he kept so well-hidden, even from those closest to him—just as things are about to get deadly on the catwalk.
I don’t know about you but even the synopsis has me on the edge of my seat. With Killer Look, Linda Fairstein proves once again why she is the “Queen of Intelligent Suspense.” And why shouldn’t she be? Linda Fairstein was chief of the Sex Crimes Unit of the district attorney’s office in Manhattan for more than two decades and is America’s foremost legal expert on sexual assault and domestic violence. She, herself, is the inspiration for Mariska Hargitay’s character on Law and Order SVU! Her Alexandra Cooper novels are international bestsellers and have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
What makes a book about fashion and suspense even better? Getting to wear a little fashion bling yourself while engrossing yourself in a great book!
Thanks to Touchstone and Linda Fairstein, I’m giving away a Swarovski’s Touchstone Crystal Chanelle necklace, a special necklace that is modeled on a famous Swarovski Coco Chanel necklace that was “brought back from the Swarovski archives” by Touchstone Crystal and a copy of Killer Look for one lucky reader!
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Enter by telling me what your favorite Killer Look Touchstone piece is and why.
2016/09/02
I Spent 50 Years Shrinking To Fit a World That Was Never Made for Me—I’m Done
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
A life story of lies, deception and trauma.
Reborn, reparented and healing in process.
I am more… I am as much as I want, need or choose to be. I am everything all at once and almost nothing at the exact same time.
I am stubborn and angry. My temper boils fast and runs hot.
But I love big. Completely. With my everything.
“People say I’m too much but I’ve never felt like I’m enough.”
There’s an insatiable hole inside of me—always wanting just a little bit more. Never feeling like I quite belonged anywhere.
Always trying harder but never fitting in. Nothing is ever good enough—and I think it goes back to never feeling seen or heard at home. I had to make a spectacle and roar just to get a seat at the table.
The Emptiness No One talks About When You’re Healing from Childhood Trauma
I still feel ‘empty’ sometimes. Like something’s missing and I can’t name it.
I try to fill the emptiness with noise and things and too much of everything—but it’s never the thing I need. It’s never enough because it’s never full acceptance. Just the pretty edges and shiny bits.
No one’s ever listening because they’re too busy talking over me. Explaining to me what I’m supposed to think, feel, and be. They set the standard based on stereotypes they’ve made up, and I’ve spent my entire life—masking, shrinking, and contorting—trying to fit into a world that was never designed for people like me.
A world built for people who never really knew me. Never cared to.
And somehow, somewhere along the way, I handed them the power to make me feel like not enough.
“I gave them the power. Well, I’m taking it all back.”
What Reparenting Yourself Actually Looks Like From the Inside
The work of reparenting yourself isn’t pretty or easy. There’s no pastel journal for this. No aesthetic morning routine.
It looks like trauma bombs going off when you least expect it or being triggered because your daughter paces and it sends you into a panic. Because when you were just a little girl, your dad would tower over you when he came home drunk and angry at the world.
Reparenting yourself looks like sitting inside your own discomfort long enough to ask—whose voice is that? And then realizing, it was never yours to begin with.
It looks like being as loud or quiet as you want to be. Not performing for a single person in the room.
It looks like spectacling in all of your own spectacular glory with zero apology or shame.
The journey of reparenting yourself is the decision—and it is a decision—that you are the only one who gets to decide if you are enough.
Only you can love yourself back to you.
I forgot that.
For so long, I was so busy taking care of everyone else’s needs that I nearly completely disappeared from my own life. I’ve let myself shrink to fit. I quieted myself for other people’s comfort. I went invisible to stay safe.
No more.
Stop Shrinking Yourself: You Were Never Too Much
I am not too much.
I never was.
I am just enough because there is only one me—and however I choose to show up is exactly right.
No, I don’t fit your expectations or mold.
Fuck your mold! I broke that bitch.
You are the one and only you who will ever exist on this earth. You are the expert in you. You are the main character in your own story and, don’t you ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Write it down. Put it on your mirror. Tattoo it on the insides of your eyelids if you have to.
Reclaiming Your Power When the World Has Tried to Take It
Be who you want to be. Not who others expect you to be.
Their expectations are cinder blocks around our necks and we’re drowning fast under the weight.
Let it go. Let them think whatever they want.
This is what reparenting yourself comes down to, at the very end of everything: the radical, terrifying, liberating act of deciding that their version of you is not the final word.
You are enough.
You are more than enough.
You always have been.
“You never needed their permission to take up space. You only ever needed yours.”
You Found This Page for a Reason
If you are somewhere in the middle of your own reparenting yourself journey—the messy, nonlinear , “why is this taking so long” part—you are in exactly the right place.
The TRUTH about Motherhood is where we talk about the things nobody else will say out loud. Subscribe now and never miss a post.

2026/03/30
Moral Blurred Lines for Robin Thicke & Miley Cyrus

The Internet has blurred lines for Robin Thicke and deemed Miley Cyrus a whore. I am also sick to death of women protecting Robin Thicke for his part in the performance. Look, I am not saying that Miley Cyrus was some sort of unsuspecting innocent child and she got turnt out by big, nasty Robin Thicke. Nope, not saying that at all. In fact, what’s the big fucking deal? She is grown. He is grown and it was the VMAs for God’s sake not Saturday morning cartoons on Sprout. It wasn’t like the Wiggles pulled this shit. What did you expect?
Be naked; be dressed like Beetlejuice. Dry hump, twerk. Do whatever makes you happy. What’s got me all hot around the collar is that grown women, mothers even, are all over the Internet calling Miley Cyrus a giant slut while, in the same breath, saying they see nothing wrong with what Robin Thicke was doing. In fact, they lay sole culpability at the feet of Miley Cyrus.What?
People, let’s clarify; This.Performance.Was.Choreographed.and.Rehearsed. He was not surprised. She did not just make up a move on the fly. It was not a case of she is a home wrecking slut and he is just a good church going man. IT.TAKES.TWO.TO.GET.A.LAP.DANCE! Giver and receiver because if you are giving and no one agrees to receive then no harm is done. There she would have stood, like a fool, twerkin in the wind.
In case you still think that Robin Thicke was ruined by Miley Cyrus, here is proof that he was ruined long before then and he did it all on his own.
Do you still think that Robin Thicke had nothing to do with what happened on stage Sunday night? If so, explain to me why you find Robin Thicke’s actions less offensive than Miley Cyrus’?
If you can’t hear what I’m trying to say
If you can’t read from the same page
Maybe I’m going deaf
Maybe I’m going blind
Maybe I’m out of my mind
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Ok, now he was close
Tried to domesticate you
But you’re an animal
Baby, it’s in your nature
Just let me liberate you
You don’t need no papers
That man is not your maker
And that’s why I’m gon’ take a
[Hook: Robin Thicke]
Good girl
I know you want it
I know you want it
I know you want it
You’re a good girl
Can’t let it get past me
You’re far from plastic
Talk about getting blasted
I hate these blurred lines
I know you want it
I know you want it
I know you want it
But you’re a good girl
The way you grab me
Must wanna get nasty
Go ahead, get at me
[Verse 2: Robin Thicke]
What do they make dreams for
When you got them jeans on
What do we need steam for
You the hottest bitch in this place
I feel so lucky, you wanna hug me
What rhymes with hug me
Hey!
I guess even misogyny and slut shaming are tolerable as long as you put them to a good beat. By the way, if you watch the Blurred Lines video you will see that most of the Blurred lines performance was dictated from Mr. Thicke’s video.
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2013/08/27
#YesAllWomen Matter
I had no idea that #YesAllWomen movement began this weekend. I spent the weekend with my family, celebrating my daughter’s 7^th birthday. Her birthday was Wednesday and we were busy every single day until her birthday party held on Saturday. 15 tiny, beautiful little girls surrounded me; little girls who still think they can do and be anything. They giggled and laughed and we played and had cake and I had no idea about what had just happened with Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old student at the University of California Santa Barbara.He went on a shooting spree and killed 6 people before killing himself.
In the weeks leading up to the killings, Rodger posted a series of angry, bathetic YouTube videos and a hundred-and-thirty-seven-page autobiographical “manifesto,” declaring his hatred of all women for the rejection and disdain he claims they dealt him throughout his life.
I had no idea that there were other mothers who were mourning the loss of their daughters for no other reason than a mad man who felt that women deserved to die because they had rejected him. Misogyny is running rampant and no one is stopping it. Not anyone in specific, just all women in general and even men just for having sex when he was having none. This was avoidable, had anyone cared to listen. If anyone ever cared enough to listen when people ask for help.
Director Peter Rodger and his wife Moroccan-born French actress Soumaya Akaaboune said through their lawyer that they contacted police several weeks ago after seeing a series of YouTube videos their son posted which made references to suicide and murder.

I blissfully unaware soaked in every moment of my time with those girls on that beautiful Saturday in May. Not until tonight, when the girls have all gone home and my littlest girl is snuggled in bed tight next to me did I see the story and watch the video and here I sit ugly crying. Not because I am scared for my girls, for all girls, but because I am mad. I am fucking pissed off. What gave him the right? Who’s protecting our daughters?

What a spoiled, disgusting animal Elliot Rodger was. He thought like so many other men that women are here solely for his pleasure and when they did not accommodate he decided that they must face a day of retribution and annihilation for no other sin than being born with a vagina. This spoiled child made himself, judge, jury and executioner.
The sad fact is that the world is full of men who feel indignantly wronged by women who dare refuse them. There are men that feel that women owe them everything from their time, to their love to their very life. There are men who feel like we owe them our hearts, our bodies and our respect but they don’t feel that they need to give those things in return. In some men’s eyes, women are no better than property; a piece of furniture, a toy or an old sock. We belong to them. We belong to the world that doesn’t respect us, value us or love us enough to fight for us and they have beaten us down for so long that we let them without so much as batting an eye.
We do not buck and strain and resist, we passively walk with our heads down, quickly out of harms way for fear that what lies between our legs makes us a willing participant in the victimization of our own flesh. We can’t walk alone in the dark or leave a drink to pee. We can’t smile at a man without him taking it as consent to have his way with us. This is nothing new. Most men believe it; women accept it and it sucks for all of us. I am a mother of daughters and I refuse to accept this fucked up status quo. This is my line in the sand. I say no more.
I do not want another little girl to go through life running from men for fear that they will be attacked. We cannot raise our girls to believe that what they wear or say or drink makes victimization their fault. We cannot accept fear as normal. We need to teach our girls to be strong; to fight back, to stand up and to value themselves for who they are, not what lies between their legs.
Sexism is nothing new; the ideas that perpetuate systematic marginalization, outright violence towards women, rape culture, and the demonization of women who dare to stand up for themselves has been around since the beginning of time. A strong woman is a threat. A strong woman is too much trouble. Women are here to be seen and not heard, to service men in every way; this is what some believe. Not me. I am a fucking human being and I am sick of everybody from the UPS guy to the local preacher to the old man on the golf course and every single stinking asshole who ever pushed up on me in a bar in between who thinks they have the right to use women and abuse women because we are here for their disposal.
He wanted to abolish sex, thereby equalizing men and ridding society of women’s manipulative and bestial natures, and to lock women in concentration camps so they would die out. (“I would have an enormous tower built just for myself, where I can oversee the entire concentration camp and gleefully watch them all die,” he wrote. “If I can’t have them, no one will, I imagine thinking to myself as I oversee this. Women represent everything that is unfair in this world, and in order to make this world a fair place, women must be eradicated.”) His idea was to imprison a few select women in a lab, where they would be artificially inseminated to propagate the species.
We have all endured catcalls and men openly touching themselves in front of us while licking their lips like we were steak. I’ve personally had strange men expose themselves to me in broad daylight, men I dated force my hand and my head to places I didn’t want to go, had male employers corner me in small solitude rooms and make unwanted advances. I’ve had drunken frat boys try to force me out of my clothes, put their hands up my skirt and drunkenly dry hump me in plain sight. No one helped. I’ve dated men who kept pushing past where I felt comfortable and didn’t care that I said stop. It breaks off little pieces of your self-esteem, it chisels away at your sense of safety and soon you feel as worthless as they make you believe that you are. When I’ve spoken up for myself, I’ve been called a cunt, a bitch, a tease and a dike because if I didn’t submit to their will then obviously it was because something was wrong with me.
I have held my breath and my tongue more times than I can count and I can’t anymore. What Elliot Rodger did was shocking but not surprising. I watched his video and physically became ill at the callousness with which he spoke of massacring women because he felt rejected and alone. He had no care for their lives, it was completely narcissistic and outrageously removed from humanity. He equated women with animals to be slaughtered and why wouldn’t he? Our own government has done so on several occasions.
Look at us. See us! We are people. We are not property. We are not animals. We are not inanimate objects put on this earth solely to bend to the will of man. We are more than sperm receptacles and objects of desire. We have thoughts, dreams, goals, wants and needs. It frightens me that this man did this with no remorse, no second thoughts. It was like a spoiled child who wanted a piece of candy and had been denied and decided that the entire population needed to be eradicated because he was mildly inconvenienced. Worse still, he is not the first who has done this and he will not be the last. This makes me sadder than any words could ever convey.
When you lie awake and think about the horrors this man wanted to inflict on women, please remember that #YesAllWomen matter.
2014/05/26
Truthful Tuesday, March 16,2010; sorta!
It seems today almost slipped by without recognition; I forgot to vent for the week. I really didn’t have much to be truthful about today, this week is much like last week, or so I thought. That was until I was surfing around the web and came across this little gem. No, I will not link to the actual page for the sheer fact that I refuse to direct traffic in the general direction of ,what I consider, a crock of s*it. That which I am referring to was an article about Mommies complaining, more specifically Mommy bloggers complaining under the guise of enlightening others in on our ‘real’ life day to day happenings. Here I thought we were trying to make it easier on everyone.Apparently, to paraphrase, this author says that Mommy bloggers that operate under the guise of being honest and telling it like it is are actually not telling the general public anything they don’t already know. In fact, we are boring her with our complaining.Basically, you made your bed..now lie in it and take your medicine like a man! Oy vey, apparently, this broad is not a Mommy and has never had to defuse a toddler meltdown bomb in 60 seconds in the middle of mass! If she were, she wouldn’t be such a mean, sarcastic b*tch! Here I am preaching sisterhood and friendship and this woman thinks we should all keep our collective mouth shut and just keep on pretending that its all good ,because we are boring her; maybe even annoying her. You know what’s really annoying? Someone who doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about telling me how I’m suppose to feel, or at the very least, react and deal with my life as a Mother. So, sufficient time has been spent being truthful about my feelings on this subject..now, off I go to take my medicine (code for deal with my lovely children). Oh wait, they are being angels today and have been sleeping for about 4 hours.I know, I will go write another post and perpetuate my bad behavior…after all, it is Truthful Tuesday (well, it was when I stated writing this post)!Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
2010/03/17
What is Dia de Los Muertos ?
Next weekend is for celebrating at our house; Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos.
My girls are so excited that next week is Halloween. It’s their favorite holiday. It’s the magical time of year when the air is crisp, the leaves are changing colors and the world has suddenly become a more beautiful place of crimson, caramels and golden yellows and we all get to be anyone or thing we want to be for one day, the only limitation is our imagination. I think I’d like to be a unicorn!
As a Latina, it also means it’s time to start preparing for Dia de Los Muertos. Thanks to the new movie Book of Life, I’ve decided that this is the perfect year to teach my girls about Dia de Los Muertos. It’s part of our Mexican heritage. They’ve seen the sugar skulls but I’ve never explained the celebration because death is such a touchy subject for children. This is the year I tell them all about it so that they can celebrate too.
Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday that lasts for 2 days, November 1-November 2, November 1^st is Dia de los Inocentes, honoring children who have died. In preparation of the holiday, the graves are cleaned and those of the children are decorated with white orchids and baby’s breath. November 2^nd is Dia de los Muertos, honoring adults, their graves are decorated with bright orange marigolds. On Dia de los Muertos we honor our dead with festivals and celebrations; it’s a marriage of indigenous Aztec ritual and Catholicism.
We believe that our dead loved ones would be insulted by mourning or sadness, so on Dia de los Muertos we celebrate the lives of the deceased with food, drink, parties and activities that they dead enjoyed in their life.
I like that Dia de los Muertos recognizes death as a natural part of the human experience, a continuum with birth, childhood, and growing up. On Dia de los Muertos, the dead are also a part of the community, awakened from their eternal sleep to share celebrations with loved ones. It’s a very healthy way to look at death and takes away some of the fear of the unknown.
The most familiar symbol of Dia de los Muertos are the calacas and Calaveras (skeletons and skulls), which appear everywhere during the holiday: in candied sweets, as parade masks and even as dolls. Calacas and calaveras are almost always portrayed as enjoying life, often in fancy clothes and entertaining situations.
In addition to celebrations, the dead are honored on Dia de los Muertos with ofrendas—small, personal altars honoring one person. Ofrendas often have flowers, candles, food, drinks, photos, and personal mementos of the person being remembered. For example, if I were to make an alter for my Uncle Ramon it would include lots of sweets and Rompope ( Mexican eggnog) because I remember when we were little he had a sweet tooth and always had candy on him and if he came during the holidays, he always brought Rompope.
Here is a recipe for Dia de los Muertos Cheesecake
Crust
Filling
DIRECTIONS
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of International Delight. The opinions and text are all mine.
For more awesome recipes and ways to use your International Delight creamers, check out their Facebook and Pinterest page.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of International Delight. The opinions and text are all mine. Later this week, I will be posting a tutorial on how to do the day of the dead make-up my brother and I are wearing in the photo above.
What’s your favorite Halloween/ Dia de Los Muertos tradition?
2014/10/20
Better Than Christmas Morning Cake Recipe
Is there anything better than Christmas morning? Thanksgiving is next week but I am seeing Christmas everywhere, now! It seems the entire world needs a little Christmas now because all of my neighbors have their holiday decorations up.
My mind has been on all things delicious and Christmas. I’m a hair away from putting up twinkling lights in my kitchen to give the holiday music playing just a little umph. I’m so in the holiday mood, that I’m planning Christmas cards and THIS year, I’m getting them ordered before the week of Christmas. Heck, I’ve even ordered and received our matching Christmas morning pajamas.
Obviously with all of this holiday spirit going on in my head and my heart, I had to make something to share with the people I love, especially the little ones. I don’t know about you but there is not much that my little girls love at the holidays more than chocolates and peppermint, so I made a recipe to provide sheer happiness to my girls.
I call it the Better than Christmas Morning Cake because…it just might be!
Ingredients
½ cup boiling water
4 ounces German Chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup cocoa
1-teaspoon baking soda
1-teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
4 large eggs, separated
1-teaspoon vanilla
1-cup buttermilk
½ can sweetened condensed milk
7 ounces Peppermint International Delight
1 jar chocolate fudge
8 ounces heavy whipping cream
¼ cup sugar
1 box of Andes thin mints
Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat two 9-inch cake baking pans with baking spray. Dust with flour and tap out any excess. Set aside.
2. In a medium heat-proof bowl, pour boiling water over German chocolate. Stir until smooth and set aside.
3. In another medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
4. In large mixing bowl, use mixer on high to beat sugar and butter for 2 minutes.
5. Add egg yolks, one at a time, until well incorporated.
6. Reduce mixer speed to low and add chocolate mixture and vanilla.
7. Add flour mixture by thirds, alternating with buttermilk and ending with dry ingredients.
8. With clean mixer beaters, in a medium bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks. Use a rubber spatula to gently stir a half-cup beaten whites into batter.
9. Fold remaining whites into batter.
10. Divide batter into two pans. Bake on center rack for 35 minutes. Cool in pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes.
11. Poke top of warm cake every 1/2 inch with handle end of wooden spoon. Drizzle condensed milk mixed with peppermint creamer evenly over top of cake; let stand until milk has been absorbed into cake. Drizzle with fudge topping. Run knife around sides of pan to loosen cake. Cover and refrigerate about 2 hours or until chilled.
12. Spread whipped topping over top of cake. Sprinkle with Andes bits. Store covered in refrigerator.
13. Serve it to the ones you love, while listening to Christmas music under twinkling lights. Bonus points if you’re wearing matching pajamas!
What’s your favorite holiday recipe to make for your loved ones?
For more awesome recipes and ways to use your International Delight creamers, check out their Facebook and Pinterest page.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of International Delight. The opinions and text are all mine.
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2014/11/17
Dad Refuses to Abandon Son with Down Syndrome, Mom Divorces Him
In Armenia, a baby boy was born with Down syndrome. His father, Samuel Forrest heard his newborn son’s cries, as he excitedly waited outside of his wife’s delivery room to meet him. But the new father was not immediately invited into the room. Instead, this happened.
“This pediatrician walks out of the room with a little bundle — that was Leo,” Forrest said. “She had his face covered up and hospital authorities wouldn’t let me see him or my wife. When the doctor came out, he said ‘there’s a real problem with your son.’
Forrest was told that Leo was diagnosed with Down syndrome.
He was shocked, as any parent would be to get such unexpected news, but he held his son and all he felt was the overwhelming, unconditional love that we all feel when we hold our newborn for the first time. Of course there is a time of grieving for what you’ve lost and a time for processing, you have to wrap your mind around this new reality; what you get not matching up with what you’ve expected.
Next, he walked into his wife’s hospital room, holding his precious newborn son, beaming with new father pride and then the other foot dropped. His wife presented him with an ultimatum: if he chose to keep the baby, she would divorce him. She had already discussed it with the doctors and decided to abandon the child to an orphanage, a practice that is accepted in Armenia. To me, that feels like throwing children away like garbage.
Forrest didn’t want to lose his wife. He loves her. But he just could not find it in his heart to abandon Leo. He refused to give his son up. Wasting no time, a week later, Leo’s mother filed for divorce and left them both.
Now, this dynamic father/son duo are alone in the world and need a lot of help. Forrest is planning to move back to his native New Zealand so that he can get support from his family and friends.
Forrest was asking for donations to his GoFundMe page, to help cover lost wages so that he can stay home with Leo, at least for the first year. He was hoping to raise $60,000 but when I checked this morning he had raised $272, 787, which will go a long way in insuring that Leo is taken care of.
I hope that when Leo is older and told the story of how the world did not abandon him and his father in their time of need, it will help alleviate some of the sting of the fact that his own mother abandoned him.
As for the mother in this story, I feel sorry for her. She is missing out on the honor of loving and raising her child because she can’t see past his disability. People are more than disabilities and every single child deserves a parent’s devoted and unconditional love. I won’t condemn her because I think living with the guilt of abandoning Leo will be enough of a punishment for her lifetime. I feel sorry for her. She is probably one of the most hated women in the world today thanks to this story going viral.
Someone made the comment that in the United States a woman who found out that her baby had Down syndrome in utero could simply abort the fetus. I guess that is technically true thanks to genetic testing but the question is how many of us would?
It’s not a decision I could make, that’s why I refused genetic testing for Down syndrome with my first two pregnancies because for me, it wouldn’t have made a difference but that is just how my heart chose and it’s easy to sit on my moral high horse when I never actually had to make that decision.
I want honest answers, so comment anonymously if you want to, but what do you really think of the practice of being able to walk away from a baby born with Down syndrome or any other disability?

2015/02/06
Take Care Now so You Have Them Later
*Disclosure: I received product and compensation for this post from Colgate Total Repair but all opinions are my own.
My teeth are very important to me. They always have been. Having nice teeth is a virtue that I put a lot of stock in. I’ve always had a healthy fear of periodontal disease since it runs in my family and I’ve seen what it can do. 25-years-old and having to replace all of your actual teeth with dentures has always been my biggest fear so I brush my teeth like these are the only teeth I’ll ever have because, well, they are and I visit the family dentistry office as needed. That’s why I always emphasize the importance of preventive dental care to every person I meet and most especially to my own children.
Imagine my horror when I went to the dentist this summer, after a year and a half of giving my appointments away to my children for checking brackets, checking oddities and etc. when my dentist said that she thought she noticed some early-stage periodontal disease. WHAT? I felt all the blood rush out of my head and I was sure that I would faint.
I couldn’t even hear anything after she said the word because the blood swooshing around in my veins was deafening. The icing on the cake, “We could have caught this earlier had you not given your appointments away to your daughters.” Those girls are on their own from now on. They still have some baby teeth that are being taken care of by the kids dentist. My teeth are forever teeth and I can’t chance being toothless because their bracket felt “not right”. Tough stuff, kiddo, Mommy needs her teeth for chewing.
I started using the new Colgate Total Daily Repair Toothpaste to help me get stronger gums and teeth. What makes Colgate Total Daily Repair so much better than the toothpaste that I used before? It not only helps repair early teeth damage by demineralizing weakened enamel but it helps repair early gum damage by fighting plaque and helping prevent gingivitis.
Colgate Total Daily Repair helps to prevent plaque, gingivitis, tartar build-up, cavities and bad breath. Truly, it leaves me feeling more confident that I am doing what’s best for my teeth and that I will have my own beautiful smile for years to come. They say that the proof is in the “pudding”, well, I went back to my dentist after a few weeks of brushing with Colgate Total Daily Repair and flossing twice daily and they said that the condition is improving. That might sound funny to some but to me, it means everything so I’ll be over here brushing with my Colgate Total Daily Repair and flossing if you need me.
You can learn more about Colgate Total Daily Repair on their Facebook page.
2015/10/20
Is the Starbucks Red Cup Debacle Just a Marketing Ploy?
I don’t drink Starbucks coffee that often because honestly, it usually tastes a little burnt and I prefer my Nespresso but the other day, on the way to physical therapy we stopped in for a chai latte and I noticed the cup was red which to me signaled my brain that it was the start of the holiday season.
A couple days later I saw a video that was being circulated around the Internet, Joshua Feuerstein, an Arizona-based evangelist who describes himself as a “social media personality,” was up in arms because the cup was too minimalist for his liking.He posted on his Facebook page that this year’s spartan red cup illustrated Starbucks’ dismissal of Christmas as a Christian holiday in favor of political correctness. He went on to crack jokes and decided to fight against the “war on Christmas” by giving his name as “Merry Christmas” when ordering. To really stick it to “the man” he wore his Jesus shirt and carried his concealed weapon into Starbucks. (I found that part the most offensive and scary myself).
In the video, Feuerstein says that Starbucks “wanted to take Christ and Christmas off of their brand new cups. That’s why they’re just plain red.” Feuerstein said that instead of boycotting the coffee chain, he wanted to start a “movement,” so he went into a Starbucks–with his gun, as Arizona has an open-carry law and Starbucks has not outright banned firearms–ordered a hot drink, and told the barista that his name was “Merry Christmas,” which was subsequently scribbled on his red cup.
“So guess what, Starbucks? I tricked you into putting Merry Christmas on your cup,” Feuerstein said in his video. He urged his Facebook followers to do the same. The video has been watched about 12 million times and nearly 500,000 people have shared it.
Anyways, the video and verbiage in it made me feel like maybe the entire thing was a marketing stunt on Starbucks’ behalf, honestly. Anyways, I carried on and then I began to see all sorts of social media posts about some people being outraged that “Christmas” had been removed from Starbucks and then the rest of the people were outraged that the Christians were outraged. It quickly escalated to religious persecution by way of making a mountain out of a molehill.
Me, I am a Christian of what some might say is the worst kind, a Catholic, and this is what I think. If you don’t like Starbucks’ cups or you feel that they are stepping on your right to religious freedom, don’t buy their coffee. Don’t give them your money if you are so offended. But what I don’t say is to get over it because if it bothers you and is important to you, then draw your line in the sand. Mine however is not over coffee cups. That, my friends, is not the deciding factor to my ever-lasting salvation. I get my religion at mass and at home, I don’t need it on my coffee cup for validation.
On the other hand, if you feel that you can tell the Christians to get over their butt hurt over the cups, I hope you are not one of those ridiculous people who enjoy the benefit of all the Christmas holiday rituals (and time off) but don’t actually believe in or celebrate the birth of Jesus (yes, I already know that is not his actual birthday. I have the History channel.) P.S. A holiday tree is not a real thing people. It’s a Christmas tree. You can’t have your anti-Christian beliefs and celebrate Christmas too. Well, you can but then that makes you kind of an asshole.It’s like pretending to be homeless for the free food.
Like it or not, Christmas is a religious observance holiday and if you don’t believe in the religion then you shouldn’t be celebrating the holiday. If you want to celebrate the winter solstice or whatever, fine but it’s not Christmas so lets not pretend that we are celebrating the same thing. Celebrating “Christmas” and not being a Christian is the same as having a quincinera and not being a 15-year-old Latina girl or having a Bat Mitzvah and not being Jewish. These are religious celebrations. Christmas (not Winter Solstice) is a religious celebration.
So while you’re making fun of the Christians being up in arms over their coffee cups, I’ll be over here at drop off sipping my Chai Latte minding my own business. And if anyone wants to wish me a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah or Happy Kwanza I will happily accept it because even though I may not celebrate all of those holidays, I do accept well wishes and good tidings from all. I will smile and I will thank you because I don’t think you are trying to convert me. In my mind, you are saying, “Debi, live long and prosper!”
Are red cups worth getting upset over to me? No. It’s a cup, people. But if it really offends you, you have every right to not buy your coffee from Starbucks and I can respect that because I am an adult and as long as you’re not making the decisions for me, it’s not my business.
When did we start living in a world where people feel like they have to run every single thought, word and coffee cup design through a filter before they say it out loud? Stop that. I’d rather I know you, the real you, no matter who you are than only know some diluted, politically correct version of you. By over thinking every single word that comes out of our mouth, we are diminishing any hope of establishing true human connections.
Be happy, people. Just be yourself and let others be.
Do you find the Starbucks Red Cups offensive and why?
2015/11/09