I admit it I have never been your normal parent. My children have never had the PTA type mother that makes sure there is a cooler in her child's lunch box to keep their apples crisp. Hell, they don't even have lunch boxes, we use paper bags! It doesn't seem to bother Cade and I have nothing to wash out at the end of the day.

I started to think about how different I am while sitting at lunch and watching these two mothers stroll in with their $450 vehicles, that is what I call anything that a child rides in over $150, a vehicle, it is not a stroller! I tried not to listen to their conversation and talk about their perfect suburbia house lives, but I couldn't help it. I chuckled to myself as I imagined if I told them the way I raise my kids. I am sure they would be appalled!

I am not jealous, nor envious, nor would I change a thing about me or my kids, I have decided I am unconventional. Yes, that is a nice word for me, unconventional. I am fun, loving, and strict when I need to be.

When I first found out I was pregnant with MacKenzie I was twenty two years old and had know Spark, Kenzie's dad, for about four months. I had just spotted Michael, we call him Sparky, when I first arrived on the island of Maui to live for an undetermined amount of time. Spark was, and still is, tall, dark and gorgeous, and he was a bartender that could throw a glass of water six feet up in the air and catch it behind his back. Yep, the rest is history: Kenz was born about 11 months after our first meeting.

Most parents, after finding out they are expecting, are planning the child's nursery and registering for their baby shower. Not me, I was trying to determine how I could nutritionally feed my baby, a fetus at the time, when the only thing Spark and I could afford was beans, rice and pasta. I need to mention, we didn't own a car, we both got around on bikes, or have a place to live nor did I have health insurance. Plus I had to figure out how to tell my family that I was pregnant with a guy's baby that they didn't even know I was dating.

Kenz arrived May 7, 1993 healthy, happy and gorgeous! We bought a car for $250, found a one bedroom apartment, and somehow prenatal vitamins offered enough nutrients to the umbilical cord to sustain my daughter.

While other parents were planning on which pre-school to send their child to, or which Montessori gave their child the most freedom to express their independence at the age of two, I frolicked on the beach with Kenzie, she played naked and loved every minute of it, for her first five years. Kenzie didn't attend preschool. She attended the school of Heather Hogan. I nurtured her, gave her unconditional love, and spent every second I could with her.

Jax came along when Kenzie was four and Cade arrived when she turned eight. My sister used to laugh at me, I never carried a diaper bag. I thought they were hideous and unnecessary. I brought along two diapers and some wipes in a plastic baggy. My children didn't have bottles. I don't claim to be super mom, I just thought they were unnecessary. I breast fed them all until they were one, and at four months I taught them how to drink out of a sippy cup. I was able to stay home with them because none of my children had a nursery with $150 teddy bears. Which meant Pottery Barn didn't get my paycheck. It wasn't worth it to work and leave my child to pay for a decorated nursery. None of them even had their own room until Kenzie turned four. They slept with me or near me until they hit one. I was too lazy to go far in the middle of the night if they needed me. The only people that sleep better than I or require more sleep is a baby!

My kids eat sugar. I love sugar and so do they. They eat dessert every night as soon as we are finished with dinner, and so do I. I hate to cook but I love to bake. We drink pop, we burp, fart and laugh at each other. I sing at the top of my lungs while driving them to school and I make weird faces when I pick them up.

I do not do their homework for them, ever! They do it. I don't build projects, they build them. In California fourth graders have to do a mission project. My older two have already done this. Part of the project is to build a mission. Missions look a bit like churches or a monastery. My children built their own missions out of shoe boxes, sponges, tooth picks, and rubber balls. Other children bring these beautiful and architecturally perfect specimens in on wood and I can only think, "Boy their dad or mom stayed up late building that." Where is the lesson in doing it for your children? Guess what? Both of my children got A's and I got a letter thanking me for not doing their project!

I tackle them when we play football. I throw the ball as hard as I can when we play catch. I don't let them win. They beat me at pig, but I beat them at horse. It takes me awhile to warm up my shot! I don't pretend they are something they are not. I don't live through them. I don't try and sugar coat things, I am honest, forth right, and their life coach. I suck at cooking dinner and don't try to do it often. I let things slide and decide which hills I need to die on and which hills I need to let them climb.

What they do get from me is: love, hugs, kisses, encouragement, band-aids, punishments, family time, game time, talk time, and independence. I give them enough freedom to learn independence but not too much to make me uncomfortable. My comfort threshold I am sure is way higher than yours. I want my kids to have fun and bond with their friends. I want them to create memories and realize that trust once earned is a huge gift. They know that if they break that trust with me they will lose a lot. I respect them and they respect me.

I don't play by societies rules. I play by my rules which seem to be working out. Remember, MacKenzie never went to pre-school, Jax went to a play pre-school, not academic, and Cade was the one that attended the most main stream academic pre-school of the three.

MacKenzie is a 4.3 honor student. She is in all AP classes and taking a class at the local community college as a Junior in High School. She has taken chemistry, physics, calculus, trigonometry, and the list goes on. Jax has been on the A honor roll, meaning all A's his entire life. He has received one B. He was asked to be tested for the GATE program here in California, which stands for Gifted and Talented Education. Cade is right their with his siblings.

Weird enough, they eat sugar, their strollers were cheap, their clothes when babies were from Sears, they loved their binky's and blankeys, they say bad words at times, ask my friend Alison, she is the mother of Brendan, Jax's friend, at five Jax's favorite word was f..., they don't always ask permission to go to the snack cabinet, they build their own projects, type their own papers, have an insanely crazy mother, they never attended a special school before actual school started, went to half day kindergartens, never owned a thing from Pottery Barn, their rooms are generic, but they are loved and it is evident!

Be happy with whom you are and the parent you are. Don't compare yourself or your family to the Smith's down the road. At the end of the day all a child really needs is love, understanding and acceptance. If a child knows they are loved and accepted they have self-confidence and a high self-esteem, which are two traits that are required to win at the game of LIFE!