Lent.

I gave up my message board addiction for Lent.

That's not news to most of you, but now that I don't have the message boards as a vehicle to get my thoughts out, the blog will have to suffice. For now.

Girls update: They're almost 5 months old now (zOMG!) and they're the awesomest kids ever. Katie just figured out how to roll from back to belly on a regular basis and Natty is still learning that solid foods are not the devil.

I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what they'll be like at 2 or 3. I think they'll be good kids, but on the shy side. We still haven't socialized them very much. It's difficult to get both of them out the door and the weather is so crappy that most days it's just easier to let them roll around on their activity mats. M. and I are really looking forward to when it's nicer out so we can take them for walks and get them out in the world.

Other stuff:

Speaking of Lent, I've been thinking a lot about how we're going to introduce religion to the girls. We want them to know religion, which won't be difficult because we spend a lot of time watching documentaries and news programs about religion, but we don't want them to be forced into a religion or a set of spiritual beliefs just because either M. or I believe those things.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want them to be able to think for themselves at an early age. One of my parenting "I will never..."s is that I never want our kids to think that they have to do anything in order to be loved or appreciated by M. or I. They're already loved and appreciated and will be until they day they die. I don't want to be the kind of parent that says that they have to go to college/play a sport/play an instrument/do X, Y and Z extracurricular activies orthey're not worthy humans.

We also want them to be members of the international world, not just Americans, even if they don't leave the country (for whatever reason) until they're in their teens. I think it's harmful to tell a child that they're American and that Americans are the best people in the entire world because they're Americans. That sets them up for a world of hurt later in life since everything we do now has world-wide implications. If we don't encourage them to learn a foreign language, or think of things on an international scale (i.e. "We do things this way in America, but other countries do this same thing like this"), we'll just be preventing them from job opportunities and even life opportunites when they're older because they may not be able to think that other countries are just as worthy of respect and admiration as the US is.

M. puts it a better way.

We want them to be citizens of the world.