I have never been one to journal daily regarding my kids whereabouts and activities, not that there is anything wrong with doing so. I am curious to know what is interesting enough to my family and friends for them to blog about. And most of the time it is what their kids and their gardens are doing. I find my kids interesting as well, and I owe it to them to make more of a note about what they are doing at the ages they are now. I also want to make note of the other thoughts that run through my head; those about education, religion or the lack thereof, politics, running, why Travis Pastrana can do death-defying feats on his moto-cross bike, but when he crash-lands, his Mommy is the first one on the scene. I want to tell people about my infatuation with a certain singer/comedian/pianist, who's Cd's are only available in Australia and the UK, but was the only person who could convince me to buy a canvas bag.

First, though, I would like to introduce us, and me. The first to come into my life was Todd, my husband. He's a hard-working, intelligent, handsome, complicated man. Eight years ago I loved how he cared about people, how professional he was at a young age, and his interesting, creative plans for his life, among other things. Now I still do. He is a carpenter, and knew he would be before he left high school. The economy really shook us, but he was resourceful when he needed to be. Todd did what he had to do to get us through the worst of it.

Then came Evan. He is 6, and he is Todd. Evan puts us in the weird position of basically raising Todd in an environment we control. Scary responsibility. He loves building things, and he already knows he want to be a carpenter. He's a natural leader, very gifted at math and mechanical things, but doesn't have much imagination for things that are not grounded in the real world. He doesn't like to read much either. He can organize sibling activities or bash sibling heads. We have to watch for both.

Even though Arin is 6 months older, Nina came next. She is a typical girl, but with a bug-catching brother. She loves craft projects and cute clothes, but she also loves to find worms and potato bugs with Evan. I can tell she will be my reader. She also the most social and needs to get out and go somewhere everyday, like me.

Arin is 5, and came to us in 2006 from Kolkata, India. He can be intense and obsessive, but has the most endearing smile you will ever see. He prefers interacting with adults rather than children, and until recently was more interested in packing up his toys than playing with them. That was before we discovered his interest in X-men. Often he will come to me first thing in the morning with some comment about Storm being from Africa, or a question about how Jean Gray can also be Phoenix. Now that he has the X-men, I have seen him take two action figures and make up a scenario between them: it has sparked his imagination:very exciting for us. It helps that both Todd and I are X-men fans and we each have our favorites.

I love trying to figure my kids out, and help them become well-adjusted, interesting, smart people. It is an awesome opportunity to me to be able to educate them at home. We have access to so many great resources and groups. I love to see the kids have time to just be kids, as well as play with and make good friends. I have made great friends through it as well. But my kids are only most of my life. I still run, and think, sometimes sing karaoke, and up until we became licensed foster parents I volunteered with foster care as a Guardian ad litem.

I want to explore everything here. We'll see how it goes