I put a lot of thought into how to talk about the children on this blog, reading a number of thoughtful posts on the subject, scouring the lengthier versions of The Children's Bill of Rights in Divorce for anything the exes might legitimately raise, and discussing it with the children and with my partner. In the end, I felt confident I wasn't going to harm the children's actual security nor their sense of security by blogging (as long as I wasn't using it as a forum to air grievances, which I never do online, or, actually, anywhere besides mediation, counseling & family court). I went with blog names to protect the wee beasties when their dates and potential employers Google them someday.
Choosing blog names turned out to be almost as hard as deciding whether to blog about the kids at all. I knew I wanted to avoid anything cutesy or names that judge the kids. I wanted privacy while still keying the kids' blog names to their real identities in a way that allows folks who wander here from my offline life to recognize which kid I'm talking about. I thought about using first initials but it's hard for readers to follow a personality without a name to hang it all on. I wanted to go with geography names related to the places they were born, but a couple of the kids already have actual geography names. I hit on mythology names almost accidentally and then when I saw a dragon god I knew I had something workable - related to the blog theme, pretty unlikely to be duplicated in the homeschool blogosphere, not adorable or too weird to remember or distractingly themed.
So I give you the dragons.
First, the boys. "Vishap" was my firstborn, a thirteen-year-old son now, blue-eyed and mechanically minded. "Bullar" is eleven, the second-born son of my womb, and is quick-witted and diligent. "Typhon" is the boy I gave birth to third; eight years old and hazel-eyed now, he does everything largely. "Scultone" is sixteen as I write, fluffy-headed and serious. Scultone is my stepson via the same ex-partner who is dad to my three sons-by-birth.
"Naga", an eight-year-old colorhound who wants to try everything (except new food) just because she hasn't before, and "Mireu," a ferocious and snuggly four-year-old as of this writing, are my stepdaughters via Robin.
The girls have time at our house on nine days in every fourteen-day cycle. The boys are at our house eleven days in every fourteen-day cycle, except during summer, when we see them eight days out of fourteen. We have days when it's just girls, days when it's just boys, days to ourselves, and many days when they are all here together. It's crazy and we love it. Shared custody is an immensely rewarding way to parent when you have a plan you feel good about.