stepmom rant (labels suck)

This is not a rant about Josh in anyway. I am extremely blessed to have gotten this fantastic kid in my life. It is a rant about the labels that come with stepparenting. in particular, I feel the need to express my displeasure with putting the word step before son. I feel that once I have a biological child, if I refer to josh as my stepson and my bio kid as just my son/daughter, that might make him feel like I don’t love him every bit as much as my bio kid. I will. I have not a doubt in my mind about that b/c I already love him like he’s my own. However, I am not josh’s bio mom. He has one of those, he doesn’t need another. I don’t think that Josh doesn’t see me as a stepmom. He see’s me as the cool lady he gets to live with every 2 weekends. I’m like a cool aunt, but with more authority. And who came up with the step part anyway? What does that even mean? Step. Bah! I just don’t like it. I need another word. Some other way to describe it. I’m the one he bakes Christmas cookies with. I’m the one he watches Jimmy Neutron with on my laptop while cuddling on the couch. I’m the one who lets him have 3 cookies before bed. I’m the one who steps back and lets his dad do the heavy parenting (ooh maybe that’s where step comes from) b/c that’s the way we roll. (Side note, I totally wonder what it will be like when we have a bio kid that I have to help with the heavy parenting. I’m a bit scared.) I’m the one who makes him eat food he doesn’t want to try b/c he hates new foods. Actually, Jon does all these things with us too. There just isn’t a good word to describe my part, so I fall back on stepmom. I don’t’ feel that that offends in anyway, or at least I hope it doesn’t. But I don’t like to call josh my stepson b/c it just doesn’t describe our relationship the way I want. On the other hand, I’m not comfortable calling him my son (it just sounds like I’m trying to claim being his mom, and I’m not. As previous stated, he already has one. I don’t want him or his mother to think I would ever try to take her place.) I’m his…sarah. I guess that will have to be good enough. It works for us now. It just irritates me that there has to be a label at all. Any other stepmom’s out there feel the same way?