My son Mark Andrew (Marko for short) was born in April 2010. His baby brother was born at home in April 2012. We hope to have lots more... someday.
Here's our family:
Me: lover of poetry, photography, nature, dead languages, and bacteria. An admitted nerd, I hate being compared to Anne of Green Gables (but people do it all the time anyway). Nowadays my favorite thing to do is be with my baby. And blog. I've developed several hobby horses since I became a parent: real food, natural childbirth, attachment parenting, gardening, and the role of Catholic women in the family. My husband sometimes gets tired of hearing about all that stuff for hours on end, so I talk to you guys instead.
John: The guy who opens all the pickle jars around here, does more than his share of chores, plays airplane with the baby, talks in silly voices, and will go a mile out of his way to avoid waiting at a long light. He works as a software trainer to keep us in potatoes while he looks for a job that will actually use his new masters in library science. He puts up with my attempts to doctor his various maladies with real food and natural remedies, but we haven't cured him of much yet. I'm lucky to have found a guy who misses us while he's gone at work, who enjoys doing the taxes, and whose idea of a great Saturday is playing with the baby and snuggling with me.
Marko: He's beginning to grow into his parents' personalities. Like John, he wanders around the house closing all the cupboards and shutting all the doors. Like me, he gets upset if the whole family isn't together 100% of the time. Like both of us, he's a little shy around strangers; unlike either of us, he would love it if we went on a new adventure every day.
He is my sunshine, the light of my life, my favorite thing, and lots of other mushy stuff that sounds trite until it happens to you. His worst trait is his tendency to grow up right before my eyes and not be a tiny squishy baby anymore.
Excuse me while my heart melts into a little puddle and drips onto my shoes. I can't take this picture down because it's too perfect. But Michael actually looks like this now:
What the heck, Michael. Slow down.
Michael is turning out just like Marko, only more so. More busy, more intense, more eager to get to that next milestone way earlier than I expected. His favorite things are the trashcan, the litterbox, the toilet, and of course Marko.
I've been blogging since 2004 on several different blogs. My first blog is Enchiridion, a poetry blog which is still up but updated rather infrequently. Then the blog I had after I graduated from college and before I got married was called Sniffles Predominating, which is about everything but mainly pictures. This blog has some stuff about cooking, some stuff about parenting, some stuff about the baby, and a lot of stuff that doesn't really fit anywhere particular, categorized "thoughts." I consider "thoughts" to be my best work; you might want to start there. Or you could read my top twelve posts of 2010 here. Poke around a bit, and if you like what you see, why not subscribe? Oh, and you can email me here.
