2 + 1 = 5... and then some.

In 2002, I was young, and selfish, and promiscuous, and careless, and all of that led to Stevie Lynn. I will NEVER think of her as a mistake. She obviously wasn't an accident, either... I mean, I didn't try to prevent it, so that's not an accident hehe... Little did I know, that she would be my blessing. She would be the direction I needed to turn my life around... my reason to live... an endless supply of love, in such a little body!

Single parenting was never hard, physically. You don't need 2 to name a baby... or feed it... or change it's diaper... or give it a bath. I held her, and dressed her, and put her to sleep. I LOVED her! (I still do.) The hardest part of single parenting? To this day, the hardest part was witnessing those wonderful firsts... The first smiles, the first steps, the first teeth, the first giggles... and having no one to share them with. It was too much love to keep all to myself, but she would do something and I'd look around and there was no one... so I'd have a small pain in my heart... because it was about to explode with happiness.

It was me and Stevie for 3 years. Then, one day, God saw someone who needed us just as much as we needed him... and so we became 3. Our Nico... and we batted an eyelash and became 5... with Ava and Victoria. Since Stevie was 3.5, she's ever only known Nicolas as her daddy. Tomorrow, she turns 11. Tomorrow, her world now, and her past as she's known it, will change forever. Tomorrow, on paper, she'll take her daddy's last name. He'll go from being her stepfather to her father. We'll be erasing that thin line that has separated our family. 2 + 1 = 5.

It's like marrying him all over again. 

This joy inside... it's eternal.