welp, here goes nothing....

i guess i should start all this by saying that i am not really a "blogger" by nature. in fact, i am inherently pretty anti-technology. now, i know to most of the civilized world a blog isn't exactly considered the cutting edge of technology these days... but, for someone who thinks "the blue 'e' makes internet" and is satisfied with knowing nothing else... a blog is a really big deal.

don't get me wrong. i am not satisfied with being an ignorant fool all the time - just technologically speaking. quite the contrary, i actually can't get enough of "knowing stuff." when i told my beloved sister-in-law, carlie, that i was going to write a blog, she excitedly encouraged me to finally put all of my useless knowledge in one place. i think i am secretly proud of retaining information so easily, even if it interests no one but me and carlie.

so that is what this blog will start out doing: relieving my tireless mind of some excess information, tips, questions, thoughts, rants and an occasional cry for help i'm sure. while that is its intended purpose, i would like to go on record saying that i make absolutely no guarantees regarding what it will actually become. i encourage participation from whatever participants there may be, so feel free to leave a remark or ask a question. i am, however, an enormous baby so please take it easy on me. be honest, but no verbal abuse will be tolerated on my blog. other than me. i reserve the right to verbally abuse if i like.

i don't really know what to do next. so i will resort to my fall-back option of filling awkward silences with off-beat and sometimes inappropriate stories about my three children. i will start with a safe one for now. my oldest daughter, annalee, turned five today. five years old. this made me consider several things, which i will neatly list below.

1. i have been a parent - an actual mother to a human - for five full years. and she's actually pretty delightful.
   
2. can i keep describing myself as a young mom? sure, we started a little earlier than we planned (more on that later at some point, i'm certain) but, it's not like i was a teenager. i mean, i'm 27 and i think that still sounds young. but not when you've spent the last five years in pajama pants that are way too short for you.
3. i am exhausted, but have survived the trenches of mothering babies, toddlers and now pre-schoolers thus far. it wasn't pretty at times, especially in those short pants, but we are surviving. some days, it even feels like we are getting ahead. okay, that is a total lie. it never feels like that.

i guess that is all for now. i will leave you with a sweet and funny thing my middle daughter, marlie, said to tom and i the other night at dinner. he was jokingly asking her if she was made of various materials - i think food was involved - like "are you made of ham? are you made of cheese?" that sort of thing. marlie said to us, as if we were ridiculous for not already knowing, that "we are made out of family!" somehow, they get it way more than we do. they have these clear ideas about life and our make-up and what is important, and over the last five years... i've gotten a glimpse here and there of life through their eyes. i hope that this blog is a way to share those little discoveries and also panic out loud when i need to. join me, won't you?