Sideways Dancing Okapi

Our family is not the most orderly or organized. Our home is a bit out of order, with some piles lying around...toys on the floor and the dishwasher almost always needs to be loaded or unloaded. Five people and one small house can be a bit chaotic. And when I say small, I mean small. As is about 1600 square feet. One living area. No play room. No media room. All three bedrooms just a stone's throw (if you are a two year old) from the living area. Not alot of places to be alone around here.

But, we laugh alot. We have alot of fun together. Our kids are always with us, usually in the same room and if not, they are within shouting distance. We have one TV and while right now it's just really Iain and I who share the TV, when our kids are old enough to watch TV with us at night, I believe we will all five be in front of the same one.

We have a few rituals that have evolved, that probably make no sense to anyone else. When we talk about them, we don't even try to explain them because, well, we can't. One of them is the Cheetah Run. I can't even say where it began but every night, Iain and Duncan run around the family room, in a chase, pretending to be cheetahs. Thus, the Cheetah Run. Lately, Duncan decided that he was not going to be a cheetah anymore but wanted to be a sideways dancing okapi. So he is, and he dances sideways during the cheetah run. Finn and Claire and I usually sit on the sidelines for the race and watch Daddy and Duncan run through the living room, dining room and our tiny galley kitchen, in circles. Everyone laughs, and at some point during the race, Iain grabs Duncan and cheats by pulling ahead of him or cutting through the kitchen backwards and backtracking through the dining area. It's just a thing. We do it. We look forward to it and our kids seem to take some crazy comfort in the ritual. Lately, Finn and Claire have gotten to be more a part of the action while Iain carries one of them.

Baby Sideways Dancing Okapi.