The end of email updates

For some reason, I have long been loathe to jump on the blog bandwagon. Apparently, I have finally gotten over my initial reticence and am ready to go. I tried to keep up regular email updates, but would end up putting them off until I was overwhelmed by the prospect of actually getting far-flung friends and family up to date on daily happenings. This way, hopefully, I can do shorter, more frequent posts whenever the mood strikes. I predict this will be quite frequent in the first month and then taper off considerably. :)

This will also serve as a record-keeper of sorts as the kids continue to get older and we continue not to enroll them in school.

I just noticed that this forum apparently feels official enough to make me capitalize.

So, here's the interesting stuff-- the collection of anecdotes I've been saving for my next update:

• Larkin tells us (and most people) that she loves us. A lot. Finn does everything Larkin does. One day in the car, after everyone had repeatedly expressed their undying affection for Emile, I made some comment about how he must be one of the best loved people around. Larkin: "Yeah! Emile's the best lover in all the nine states!"
• More on free love. This morning Emile mentioned the possibility of seeing a local friend, Josh, and Larkin exclaimed, "I LOVE Josh... [long pause] who is Josh?"
  
• Many many months ago, when Finn was still pretty new at putting multiple words together, he came out with this after I zerberted his belly while helping him dress: "you cheeky Jenny!"
  
• Larkin enjoys telling stories, jokes, etc. There was a brief period of time when she particularly liked telling Scary Stories. "Listen to this one... this one will make you shake with fear!"
• Some idiomatic faux pas are too amusing to correct. Larkin likes to race to a goal shrieking, "Whoever gets there first gets a rotten egg!!" Quite the motivator.
• Me: "I was thinking about making some popcorn." Larkin: "Me too! My brain was just winding up to think about that!"
• We have been dealing with our annual ant infestation and the kids have been very vigilant about checking the perimeters of the house for ants. They've learned they should distinguish between live ants and dead ants, the former getting more immediate and direct attention than the latter. I was summoned from across the house by Larkin's excited shriek of: "Half a live ant!!" Huh?
• Our kids rarely say "yes." Finn's standard is "Yeah, sure!" and Larkin says "ya-yuh" (imagine a drunken redneck affirmative).
• And, one of our recent favorite parental amusements: Finn constantly asks Larkin "why?" To her credit, she usually tries to come up with an answer, and I've even heard her say "I don't know, let's ask Jenny to look it up online." Sigh. I think I've already noted the passing of the simple "I don't know" as an acceptable answer.

So that catches us up to date. I'll try to post relatively frequently.