Family

How would you describe your family's culture?

Those are the other two members of my family, Tama and Mr. D, right in the middle of a Ticklefest.

I'm not sure they even knew I was there. I don't know when Ticklefests got started, but they're now a mainstay of our post-dinner, pre-bedtime family time. Right up there with bike rides, wrestling matches, and board games.

We are big-time into fun. We like to make each other laugh. The laundry can wait a bit.

And here's a story that will give you some insight into the role music plays in our family life:

A year into owning an iPod (it was birthday present from those Ticklefesters up there... his idea, her money), I finally got the technology that enables me to play iPod music through the speakers in my car.

The day I got it all working I was juiced up, and after showing Mr. D how it works, exclaimed, "I'm so excited about my new toy!"

"Mommy." He looked at me sternly. "That's not a toy. That's a part of life."

Exactly. (If you haven't heard us sing together yet, there's a little audio clip in my full profile.)

So: we like challenges, and asking questions, and science experiments. We like lying on the earth and swimming in the ocean. We prefer our tents to most hotel rooms. We think maps and myths are cool.

Most of our friends live in families that are put together differently from ours. It rarely comes up. But for sure there are now a bunch of kindergartners and parents in this town who "get" two-mom families in an easy, organic way.

Still, we are sometimes frustrated by the larger structures that seek to deny what seems to us a simple and undeniable truth.

We are a family. And we're a part of life.

(Thanks to Mombian for getting the ball rolling;
I'm looking forward to reading about some other families!)