jumping in with all six feet

The worst part about starting a project like this: scrapbooking, saving christmas cards or wedding invitations, writing a journal, cataloging kids' art- or homework, is that I always feel like I have to catch up my entire life before getting to this moment. Not this time!  If you aren't up on the events that led me to this place, you can browse the past at hurricane.  For now, we're just jumping in at the present.

A brief synopsis of each participant in this chaos:

Enchilada (E for short) is a sassy, spirited and beautiful nine-year-old who's in the third grade at our local elementary school, to and from which she can WALK BY HERSELF (this is a big plus in mom's life)!  She is passionate about many things, up to about 15 per day.  Sometimes her passions last, like her concern about global warming, her serious goal to be the President "after she's a grandma," and her voracious appetite for books of all kinds.  Some are more fleeting, like her on-again off-again interest in American Girl dolls, doing the laundry by herself, or becoming a full-fledged member of Club Penguin.  She's an excellent artist, loves the monkey bars, and plans to go horse-back riding when staying with her dad in seattle this summer.

Lollipop (L for short) is an affectionate, silly and charming five-year-old.  She's just finishing a year of kindergarten at the University near our house, where she's been learning all about ancient Egypt (she can write her name in hieroglyphics) and medieval times (when they believed in dragons even though "turns out, they didn't exist!").  She is afflicted with what we call "magnet disease" which means she must be physically touching someone else at almost all times, usually in some sort of snuggling position.  She is nearly always pretending to be someone else-- her current repertoire includes Bindy the jungle girl, a teenaged celebrity called Ameliadora or something equally complicated, a baby polar bear, and any supporting role to one of her big sister's leads.  She has an extremely expressive face and is constantly pulling out words and phrases that no five-year-old should know or use (she informed me at the zoo recently that giraffes are "prehensile" animals, which means they can grab things with their tongues.  I had to look it up.).

And as for me, the mom, I'm trying to figure out what that means, mostly.  In addition to that major role I'm also a homeowner, a landlord, an architectural historian, a small business owner, and sometimes kind of a teenager.  I don't really know how to stitch it all together but I'm having a lot of fun trying.  I'll do separate posts about my career endeavors-- it's pretty complicated when someone asks what I do.

For now, buckle up and enjoy the ride-- we sure are.