The challenges of being a gay parent

Some of the things I struggle with most as a gay mom:

1. There are days when, for the life of me, I cannot get my younger daughter to put on her shoes.
2. When I see the things I dislike about myself in my older daughter, I react to them with a vengeance.
3. I struggle between wanting to raise fit, healthy girls and wanting to let them make choices about their food and activities.
4. Some evenings, I come home from work and let them play too long on the iPad, just so I can sneak in a few rounds of Words With Friends and collapse on the couch- only to spend hours after they are asleep going through digital photos of them on the computer.
5. Although they still both openly adore me, the days until my daughters find me utterly, embarrassingly uncool are dwindling.
6. Whether I tell them "no" or "yes" can depend as much on my mood as it does on the Family Rule.
7. My older daughter is getting to an age where girls can get mean.  I want to protect her from it, and yet I know that adolescence is itself a rite of passage.
8. No matter how many Build-a-Bears they have, they always, always want more.
9. Being a role model gets exhausting.  Sometimes I relish an evening in a hotel room because it is such a relief to have Pringles for dinner in bed with the TV on.
10. My girls are scared by what they see as a world full of problems too big for them to solve.  I struggle to keep their hope alive without sheltering them from reality.

Sound familiar?