While motionless at a stop light my eyes fixed on a peculiar sign saying “Is 65% sure good enough? Find out if it’s a boy or a girl!” Peculiar because the sign was attached to a day care facility.

My mind immediately conjured an image of parents in Small Town USA taking their preschoolers in for genetic testing to determine whether, in fact, they are boys or girls. As if birthing/knowing/raising our children only provides 65% assurance and we all want 100%, right?

Confused I started looking at the two adjacent little buildings and saw that one was an ultrasound facility. “Okay! I gotcha now.”, I thought as the light turned green and the semi trucks and I eased back into our crawl.

Somehow I couldn’t stop thinking of that little sign. Even a few months ago a pregnant friend told me she wasn’t going to find out the sex of her unborn child. My reaction? I went into my usual rant about being a planner and wanting to know. All on auto-pilot, all the words and phrases I had used all these years. I might have even said “You are nuts! I had to know.”, like I had so many times before. I wasn’t even thinking. Like the words were simply pre-programmed. I opened my mouth and then fell right out.

Looking back at that conversation I almost cringe. I am still giving people a hard time for not caring about the sex of their baby? In the first place who am I to say/think anyone is crazy for doing anything. Why would I care? Second, haven’t I learned a single thing? Did I really find out if my baby was boy or a girl seven years ago when I laid on that chilly table, goo dripping from my engorged belly? What did I do differently when I found out? A lot.

“We made out like bandits!”, my husband proclaimed when we heard that our baby was a boy. When the technician gave him a strange glance, he explained that girls are so expensive. We just escaped a world of outfits, bows, purses, shoes, accessories… you name it. American Girl, we escaped American Girl! The once simple butter-yellow room was soon accented by navy and denim. Blue wrapping housing blue this, that and the other thing flooded in when everyone found out. It’s a boy!

Evidently the joke is on us.

What do they always say… “if I knew then what I know now” I would do it all differently? Hindsight is 20/20. I wasn’t in the same space. I didn’t know. Rather than beat myself up for making gender specific choices, I’d like to fantasize a bit about sending my message for all new parents. I wish I could go to the ultrasound waiting rooms, maternity wards and the Lamaze classes and give a speech about not caring about if it’s a boy or a girl. About not choosing pink or blue depending on what the “results” were. I’d put it on the line and finally say the words I’ve been holding back for the past few years… I wish I didn’t push all the boy stuff on my children. There! I said it.

Sure, I never thought twice about my kids playing with what I considered “girl stuff” back then, but I never bought it. I remember when a friend gave me an outfit that she said was “too boy looking” for her girls and I donated it because I thought it looked too feminine for my son. Could I have been a little less rigid? Could I have gone toward the middle of the kid’s clothing store rather than taking a sharp right and spending my time knee-deep in skater pants and construction tees? Could I have placed less emphasis on gender in general? I wish I could go back, but today I sit right here knowing what I know for a reason.

Today we talk about the limitless possibilities for all people- boys and girls all around the world. You want to be a nuclear physicist, a nanny or a miner- go for it! You want your toes painted with polish- you got it! You want to play dress up as a princess or a tank engine- no problem! Be both at the same time! There are no rules.

Every step of my past has taken me to where I enjoy today. With both my daughter and my son feeling secure with being emotional and powerful, artistic and analytic, nurturing and athletic. Being everything that they are naturally without judgment, without censorship, knowing that every day we may feel different or the same.

Sure, I still get tripped up on the road to gender freedom and stop myself to explain it to them (or maybe to myself) that even though I was raised differently I can still open my mind to new ways of thinking. It’s never too late to find out that it doesn’t matter.

Halloween has always been good to us in a weird way. When Hope lived as a boy, it gave her the opportunity to dress up and feel like she wanted to. You could tell it was such a happy moment for her when she dressed up, her eyes beaming with pride and joy.

This year it felt different. Sure, it still had the fun and the merriment, but it lacked the desperation of past years. Now that she has transitioned, she doesn’t have to rely on Halloween to live life genuinely. The outfit doesn’t have to be “just right” and she didn’t feel the hesitation going out the front door, no matter how confident she felt inside the safety of our home. Yes, this year was different.

All week we finalized our costumes and talked about the Halloween party we attend every year. It was fun having a party to look forward to. The kids were excited to play with the other kids. I was excited to showcase my cheeky costume, ripped from the headlines. We laughed and giggled all week.

I guess I was carried away because I didn’t think of the fact that the hosts have not seen Hope since her transition and other families and kids from her past would be in attendance. When the thought struck me at how awkward this could be, I panicked. It felt like someone turned on the lights at 2am and everything looked drastically different.

Slowly I talked with Hope and Will, feeling like this was a conversation I should have had with them the moment we got the invitation. But I was in my glory, just living life and not over-thinking every single thing. Looks like that’s what gets me in the most trouble. I got angry with myself. No matter how much I explain the situation it’s going to sound like Hope’s transition is preventing us from going to the party. And it is.

Thankfully the kids dismissed the change in plans and saw the beauty of more trick-or-treating = more candy. Hope said she was secretly agonizing over the fact that people would be calling her by the wrong name and asking her questions that she didn’t quite know how to answer. Hope was relieved.

Will didn’t say a thing so I found him in a quiet moment and asked him if everything was okay. “I don’t think I can go to the party. I have a cough.” he said as if it was an apology just for me. Those big, brown eyes looking for validation. “Yes, it seems like you do have a cough. Maybe it’s best if we don’t give it to the other guests. Would you mind if we didn’t go to the party?” I whispered as I cuddled him in my arms so tight I thought he’d beg for air. “Better not. I don’t want to get my friends sick.”, the words were soft and warm. Tears filled the corners of my eyes as I nestled my head into his hair.

So often we focus on Hope, her feelings, her needs, her transition. And I have another child’s feelings to consider. Another child who has done an exceptional job of rolling with the punches and opening his heart so wide it could blanket this big city. Sometimes I wonder who the hero is in this story. Or if that role passes to each of us at some time or another. If that is the case, I’d say Will, only 3 years old, is the keeper of that title more often than not.

In moments of desperation he comes to you with a bear hug and an I Love You that could melt a dictator’s heart. His powerfulness delicately balanced by his extreme gentleness. To know him is to feel love. I can only thank the heavens that we were all given to each other.

When they reached the door, ready to go out trick-or-treating instead of the party, they turned back to give me kisses. This year was different alright. We might not need the costumes to feel good about ourselves anymore, but that doesn’t mean the fear is all gone. “You look beautiful Hope.” Will beamed as he looked at his sister with a mixture of love and pride and her smile extended from here to beyond.

Two years ago she told us that she felt like a girl inside. When it happened I was taken back. What did that mean? Did someone hurt her? Was someone filling her head with these ideas? I knew she had a close friend in preschool with a powerful personality and an extremely girlie-girl demeanor. Hope even confided that the girl asked her to wear girl’s clothes. (Now that doesn’t happen every day?!) Perhaps Hope is trying out how it feels to be a girl. Maybe she identifies with this little girl and wants to please her. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

From the very first time she confided in me that about feeling like a girl in a boy’s body, I embraced her. “Having a boy’s body doesn’t mean you can’t feel like a girl inside. Be who you are.” I would tell her again and again. Even though my husband and I embraced how she felt, nothing changed from an outsider’s perspective. She He was okay with wearing boys clothes. At home though, he’d knot these thin blankets together to make “hair” and wear long shirts and call them dresses. He was fine with the male pronoun, but often asked to be called by a girl’s name. At first it was Stephanie, then Hermione and then a couple others. His brother mainly called him the alternate names when they played. We never denied playing as a girl but we didn’t make any changes really for more than a year. Throughout that time, we always encouraged him to talk about his feelings and reminded him that we love him no matter what. Mostly it was the same… “I’m a girl inside.”

About a year after his declaration, he was drawing his self portrait as a girl. Living still fully as a boy, but with a girl’s self portrait, the changes drew attention from the private preschool my children attended. Thankfully we explained how we were handling his feelings and they supported us. But our friends and (some) family were very open minded and didn’t give a thought to a boy acting like a girl. (Some family wore blinders and chose to overlook “certain” behaviors.) “Going through a phase” was what I heard a lot. We, too, wondered when exploration turned to something more concrete. My husband and I agreed that we’d let him decide if and when that happened.

Slowly more girls clothes crept into the wardrobe. A shirt with pink trim became a staple. Some unisex (but more feminine looking) pants became instant favorites. She pleaded for pink sandals. All the time we talked about colors being for everyone. That there was no “boy colors” and “girl colors”, but that didn’t stop her from getting a dress when she wanted. Who was I to say that she couldn’t dress up and feel good about herself? At this point there was only “dressing up” at home.

In her heart this was the first opportunity to try on a girl’s clothes and a girl’s life. It was like she was Cinderella when she got home and could finally transform into everything she wished to be. By the time Halloween came around, she was thrilled to trick-or-treat as Harry Potter’s best friend, Hermione. More than acting like her favorite character, I think she did it to get the wig. At that point, things became crystal clear.