Perhaps in my first blogpost I should explain the name of this blog. Since I had my first child five years ago, in the middle of a Ph.D., and just about as far from my family as I could get while still remaining on the continent, it seems that most everything that has transpired has been at least 50% out of my control. And that may be optimistic.

It's not that I'm complaining, for after all, everything has turned out amazingly well -- really. We've had two more kids, I'm working on my dissertation, and we live in a place that we like very much and we get to see our family often, as well. The problem -- or more accurately, the confusion -- is that despite having been in this very chaotic, yet joyful situation for five years now, I'm still not accustomed to the randomness that pervades each day, the utter spontaneity of my children, the sense that no matter what project I undertake, it can be undone in a matter of minutes by otherwise well-intentioned juveniles. Part of this confusion, no doubt, stems from the fact that I am a creature of habit whose control-freakishness borders on the pathological at times.

But at the end of the day, if the choice were mine, I think I'd still choose the random happenstance, despite the cognitive inconvenienice. Why? Because this happenstance is the result of living with people who have an endless capacity to find almost everything interesting, who find the ordinary to be rather extraordinary, and who don't spend much time in mindless worry. Happily, things are already this way, so there's no choice on my part involved. I just hope to be able to appreciate the happenstance as long as I have it.