In which I describe my family

First we have Animal and Mineral. They are twin boys. They have been fighting since they were in utero, when Animal was supposed to be born first. I was told by my doctor that they could not change places. Late in my pregnancy, two weeks before they were born, they did. (Thus began my skepticism of mainstream health care practices.) Mineral was born first. Here is a picture of them at about a month old.

Aren't they precious?-- Note Animal is eating Mineral's head. That picture was taken nearly 7 years ago. Not much has changed.  

Next is The Informant. She will be 5 soon. She has never met a human being with whom she didn't long to share her entire life story. Along with anything else you've ever made the mistake of saying in her presence. She will happily describe my TTT in detail, along with information about Mineral's eczema, Animal's love of tomatoes, and the plot of The Sixth Sense. "Rosebud was his sled!" she gleefully exclaimed to a playmate. "I knew from the beginning that Kevin Spacey was Keyser Soze," she once whispered to me conspiratorially.

Keeping track of the world is often quite useful; she lets me know when the house is about to burn down or when My Materpiece is awake from a nap. On the other hand, another word for informant is tattletale. 

Finally, we have My Masterpiece. It took me four tries to get a child who nursed for a year, loves to cuddle, sucks her thumb charmingly (meaning: when she's tired; not all the time) and has a sunny disposition. She's two-and-a-half and has never climbed out of her crib. She loves laying on her tummy and rolling a matchbox car along the carpet, doesn't complain when her routine changes, and recently started replacing Ts with Ns ("I want to go DOWNSNARES!") 

She giggled when I posted that picture. My Masterpiece.

The other players in my house are my husband, also known as My Chemical Romance; the fish; and Maizey, also known as the Dog Without A Downside. 

Upside only. 

That's my family.