Four years ago today I gave birth to a little firecracker named Lexi Mae, or Lexi the Loo as we call her around these parts.

It was a beautiful, sunny San Diego day, and while I was getting tucked into my hospital bed, thousands of runners, including her Auntie Lala, and cousins Tiffany and Tenille, were lining up at the start line for the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon. Grandma Vangie and Grandpa Jim suggested that we name her “Marython” to commemorate the special day. Instead we chose Lexi Mae, Lexi being an ode to my dad, her Grandpa Dick that she’d never get to know whose middle name was Alexander, and Mae in honor of her Grandma Vangie whose middle name is Mae.

She slept well for that first night, mostly on my chest, which continued to be her favorite place to sleep for about six months. This picture was taken the first night she was born while we were still in the hospital.

Though she doesn’t let me cuddle her as much anymore, now that she’s a  big girl, she still likes to crawl into bed with me and cuddle in the middle of the night. She takes my hand in hers and says, “Mama, can you cuddle wiff me?” My heart melts and I say, “Of course I can, baby.”

Photo taken after her dance recital, I do not normally put her in marscara and blush

I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always as long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.”
Happy Fourth Birthday, Lexi the Lou.

About a year ago, I received an email with the subject line, “HOLY SHIT!” With curiosity I promptly opened the email to read that the sender of the email had found me via Twitter. She proceeded to list a slew of similarities that the two of us had, like her dad had died the same year as mine, she writes books on grief, and, most notably, she had been a contestant on Don’t Forget the Lyrics and she thinks we may have met each other in the holding room at the production studio.

HOLY SHIT was right! I immediately responded, and told her that yes, we had met at the taping of DFTL and gave her my cell number so we could catch up.

A few days later we were on the phone chatting like school girls about life, loss, kids and Wayne Brady. I found out that Alicia is an accomplished song writer and a successful author of several books on grief. She has been through the loss of her mother and father, plus a few miscarriages as well.

We’ve kept in touch periodically over the year via Twitter, namely when I was asked to audition for another singing game show and wanted to drag her with me, and this week I am excited to feature her on the Dead Dads Club site. As she says in the first line of her post, she usually writes sober articles on grief, but this time she decided to bring a little levity to the subject. If you are someone who has experienced a major loss, you will know and appreciate the importance of laughter. Sometimes, in the height of grief, it feels like you may never laugh again, but then something inane will make you bust up out of the blue. The post is entitled “Griefspeak (or the Secret Language of Condolences) and she breaks down some frequently heard phrases during times of bereavement.

Check out her post on the Dead Dads Club site, for a good laugh, but also, if you experiencing a time of grief or know someone who is, you’ll want to follow her, check out her blog and read some of her books. She is a dynamite lady with healing words and big heart.

Well that’s a wrap on American Idol, Season 11, and what a wrap it was. Last night’s star-studded, partially awkward finale show did not disappoint. This year, America got it right. Though I originally predicted Joshua would win (and was broken-hearted to see him go), Phillip Phillips was my second choice, and he rightfully won the competition. Phillip is the only contestant whose music I would buy and who I would go see in concert. Plus he’s easy on the eyes and so full of heart I can hardly stand it.

photo via Fox

To quickly recap last night’s finale, here are some of the highlights and some of the awkward moments:

HIGHLIGHT: The opening number with all the Top 24 contestants topped off with some stellar dancing by former So You Think You Can Dance dancers (as a little teaser for tonight’s SYTYCD premiere).

AWKWARD: Joshua doing man-splits and then falling over himself, having to be caught by his fellow singers.

HIGHLIGHT: Phillip singing Bad Moon Rising with John Fogerty, though none of the youngin’s in the audience knew who JR was. (Can you name the 80’s film that used this song?).

AWKWARD: Jessica’s performance with Jennifer Holiday of I Am Telling You. Though their voices blew me out of the water, I was not sure how to handle to theatrical mugging of Jennifer Holiday. I hate to say that, because I know she’s a legend, and most of America loved it, but I am telling you, it freaked me out.

HIGHLIGHT: Rihanna’s performance. Loved everything about it: Her voice, the song, her back-up dancers, the lighting & the set, everything.

AWKWARD: Fantasia’s outfit while singing with Joshua Ledet. I’m all for showing off your girlish figure, it’s just that someone

Three years ago, while at one of my first training runs with Team in Training, I was gregariously greeted by a spunky fellow runner, “Hi Mary Burt!”

I tried like hell to place her, but I couldn’t. Thankfully she could tell that I was at a loss so she introduced herself, “I’m Melissa Houston, from Francis Parker!” Still nothing, until she corrected herself with her maiden name, “Oh, I was Melissa Cary in high school.”

“Ah of course!” Big hugs. “Your hair is different.” I said trying to cover up the fact that I couldn’t place her right away. In high school she had a curly, angled-Bob, which had since been chopped off into her adulthood, distinctive short hair do.

We spent time catching up, friended each other on Facebook, and cheered each other on throughout the season. Each week, I became more and more impressed and inspired by Melissa’s tenacity and total kick ass attitude. At each Saturday morning run, when I was barely able to muster good morning wishes to fellow teammates, and just prayed that I could make it the minimum miles assigned that day, there was Melissa, always dressed in a snazzy running outfit, a huge smile and ready to conquer whatever mileage, hills, or obstacles might come her way. She always pushed herself to maximum output, asking occasionally to go farther than was scheduled.

I remember her focus and determination to beat her time each week, or to “PR” (personal record) in endurance-sport-speak. She pushed herself week after week, with qualifying for the Boston marathon in her far-off sights (which she ended up running in 2011). I would watch her encourage her teammates who were struggling, and light a fire under their behinds with phrases like “Suck it up, princess” and “Embrace the suck.”

For Melissa, there were no excuses and there was no obstacle too big to get over. If she didn’t succeed the first time, she would come back a second time, stronger and ready to dominate; and dominate she did.

Last Thursday Melissa was in killed a tragic car accident. It has been a shock to those her knew her and if I think too hard about the two little girls she left behind I start to weep. Yesterday morning,

When I am asked to answer the question, “What is one thing people don’t know about you?”, I have a few go-to answers: 1) I know nearly every lyric to Ice Cube’s Predator CD, 2) I have a gold tooth 3) I can’t ride a bike (well I finally learned a few years ago but I’m not very good at it) 4) I have an unusual phobia of unicorns and 5) I may (or may not) have won a chunk o’ change on a singing game show a few years back.

But since I have blogged about ALL of those things over the past few years, I can’t very well claim them to be things that no one knows about me. So when the good lookin’ people of GoDaddy.com asked me to name a little known fact about myself, I was stumped.

Finally I came up with a fact that not many people know about me, and the people who do know, tend to forget.

I don’t have my ears pierced.

Sometimes it feels like I’m one of only two adult women in this whole country who don’t have our ears pierced. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, there are probably closer to ten or eleven of us.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to have them pierced. When I was a teen, I tried three different times, but each time they got infected and I was too wimpy to deal with the blood, puss and pain, so I let them close up. Now there is so much scar tissue in there from the three failed attempts that I don’t think it’s even possible to get a needle through there.

So, for the past twenty-seven years I have either gone sans earrings or worn clip-on earrings, which has been somewhat of a pain, because:

a) They hurt.

b) It’s hard to find cute clip-ons (thank God for Nordstrom who came out with these silver and gold hoops last year that actually look like real earrings).

c) Clip-ons don’t tend to stay on so I have lost countless earrings over the years.

d) Friends and family tend to forget that I don’t have pierced ears so every once in awhile I get a pair of real earrings that make me swoon. Like these:

Bonus information: I don’t have any tattoos either, which isn’t as shocking as the no piercings thing, but just proves that I’m a wimp. Or maybe I just think I’m the pristine Anastasia Steele.

Since this post was sponsored by Go Daddy, how about an interesting non sequitur about the genius marketing wizards who are mack daddies at url stuff (for lack of understanding all that they do) and continue to bring all the boys to they yard with their commercials? Did you know Go Daddy actively employs and promotes corporate women? The chief human resources officer, VP of PR and VP of marketing are all women, as are several high-ranking individuals in the legal department.

I wonder how many of those corporate women don’t have pierced ears?

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Go Daddy. The opinions and text are all mine.