Let me introduce you to my stepdog, Sam. (A.k.a. Kathy’s dog, Sam. And Chris and Jack’s dog.)

Look at these long, blond eyelashes:

When channeled, Sam’s voice sounds like Marvin the Martian’s.

I am teaching Sam to sing. When I come over, I push a key on the piano and encourage him to try to hit the note. So he only seems to be able to sing one. But he sings with gusto. I have high hopes for him.

Kathy and I use our real names. G is “G” because it’s the first initial of his name. It’s not that hard to figure out who he is. Kathy writes a little bit about him in her other blog and book, too. But we use his first initial because if someone is Googling him (or Yahooing him or Asking him), the DHX shouldn’t be one of the first things they see. We don’t want his online identity to be very heavily tied to our blog — it should stay his. Chris and Jack’s names are totally made up to give them just a little more privacy. It’s not that their friends couldn’t (and haven’t) found this blog, but we don’t want this blog to be one of the first things random acquaintances see when looking them up online, either.