Cast of Characters

This blog has turned out to be a lot of things that I wasn't expecting. It's at least partly a journal of daily occurances, and I decided it would be nice to have a post where I talk about my family, since I refer to them in such weird terms. I'll put a link to this post in the sidebar.

USJogger: That's me. No, my name isn't USJogger, nor is it Hiram Ulysses Jogger (and extra credit points to those of you who get that joke.) Half of my regular readers already know who I am and where I live, and if you don't, it's probably easy enough to find out. But I keep with the pseudonym partly because I don't want this blog to show up by Googling my real name or the name of my university. So, do me a favor. If you choose to comment, don't use my real name, even if you know it.

Mrs. Jogger: My lifetime companion, friend, and co-parent. Our twentieth anniversary is May 24, 2007, and if I could go back in time, the only thing I would change is that I would have snapped her up even sooner.

The first Little Jogger: Our first child, born in spring of 1995, is extremely bright, very mature, and somewhat stubborn. She likes math and science (and has just recently made her Middle School's Science Olympiad team) and does music and Girl Scouts and wants to go out for track next year, as soon as she is elligible.

The medium Little Jogger: Our second child, born in spring of 1998, suffers all the usual strife of middledom. He is very sensitive, very curious, and very loud! I don't think he ever rests until he collapses.

The littlest Little Jogger: Our third child, born in spring of 2001 (are you recognizing a pattern here?) is by far the brightest of all of us. Currently in kindergarten, he's reading at pretty much a first grade level. He has a huge vocabulary and a huge imagination.

The oldest and newest Little Jogger: Our fourth child, adopted in summer of 2004, was born in Ukraine (or possibly western Russia) and entered an orphanage when she was around six. She's currently 12 -- we celebrate her birthday on July 1, but don't know exactly when it is -- and suffering all the slings and arrows of impending adolescence, piled on top of the tribulations of being adopted, having a weird accent, and, to hear her tell it, having the two strictest parents in the world. Our life has become somewhat stormier since she came along, but also a lot more interesting.