Welcome to our new home on the web!

I finally decided to simplify our lives (OK, my life) a bit. It was too much work to keep up with three different blogs, so here we are with our single family blog: Raising Hill. Welcome!

Hilltot will continue to post, and Babyhill will start posting as soon as she wakes up enough to get involved. And of course, I will post on behalf of the Hill parental units (King and Queen of the Hills? Yeah, right...I think those roles have been filled by Hilltot and Babyhill).

Also, in the interest of not having to change monikers as the little ones grow up, they will henceforth be referred to as "the Bullet/Zack-zack" and "Mei-mei". Hilltot received the nickname of "Bullet" from his A-Mah after she spent over two weeks watching him ricochet off the walls. He's also called "Zack-zack", which is a German phrase that roughly translates to "hurry up" or "chop-chop". It is very appropriate for him -- it evokes his particular combination of speed, energy, impatience and mischievousness. The only reason I'm a bit wary of using Zack-zack on this blog is that most Americans will pronounce it "zaaak", which I do not like (therefore zaaak-zaaak is twice as grating to my ears)*. It's pronounced more like "tzok-tzok". And after spending all of this time explaining the nickname, I'm relatively certain I will shorten it to ZZ. Because I'm lazy like that.

"Mei-mei" is the Taiwanese/Chinese term for "little sister", which is what I was also called when I was growing up. Zack-zack already calls his little sister Mei-mei, because it's easier to say than her name.

So, here we go! As there will now be three of us posting to this blog, be sure to look at the signature of each post if you are confused about who is writing.

*Yes, I realize that we gave him a name that will inevitably be shortened to a nickname that I'm not very fond of. And it's not even the name that bothers me, it's the sound of the "a" -- the "aaa" that sounds like you're gagging on something ("aaaack"). However, I'm fine with it if he chooses to shorten his name himself. I just see no need to shorten it myself in the meantime.