A little about my family...

Yesterday I signed up for a parenting website (thanks MA!) which has all kinds of different activities to do with your child. And it's supposed to be activities that you can do with stuff you have on hand. As far as I can tell, it seems like there's enough to do a different activity everyday for the first 5 years of your child's life. And it seems very organized.

Anyway, that's not the point. You have to sign up on the website in order to have access to all the different activities. So I did and then it asked me to fill in a little profile information. The typical stuff, who are you and where did you come from. But then it had a blank for "A little about my family...". My family...my family?...MY family!!! It was the first time that someone had asked about my family and I didn't feel the need to talk about my mom and dad, my brothers and sister, and my in-laws. It wants to know about my immediate family. Just the three of us! I had realized the shift before and that we were now a family. But I don't think I have ever instinctively talked about Stanton and Chaselyn and not the family that I have known the previous 27 years of my life. It nearly made me cry...ok, ok, I did cry, but only a little.

Some people may say that Stanton and I were a family before we got married. And to that I say it was more that Stanton and I joined each others families when we were married. We were a married couple, not a family. But now, in another amazing feat for a baby, she has made us a family. How spectacular!!!

The profile went on to ask about family traditions. Our little family isn't well established in this area. Most traditions that I think of are linked to holidays. And in that area, we are still primarily entrenched in our extended family traditions. Chaselyn is only 5 months old, it's hard to really establish traditions that quickly. But the question got me to thinking about what kind of traditions our family will have. Day-to-day traditions like sitting around the table to eat, bedtime routines, cuddle time, etc. need to start early. Other traditions like summer vacations, holiday festivities, birthday rituals, and other special treats will be developed along the way.

I would love to expand our horizons as far as traditions go. All we know now is what our families do. If you have some time, leave a comment on some of your favorite family traditions. I want Chaselyn to have those special kinds of memeories to carry with her when she has a family of her own one day.