Nationalities

For some strange reason, my children have been very interested in the countries where our ancestors lived. I've always thought of myself as an American, but my grandparents were from Germany. My mom's parents spoke German in the home when they didn't want my mom to know what they were saying. My mom was born in 1940, so being German wasn't something that you announced with pride to your neighbors. My father was mostly German, but his mom was a little English, Irish and Scottish.

My husband is a mixture of Swedish, Polish, Dutch, and French. He's about 1/4 each. Somewhere in his mother's line is a Native American grandmother.

I explained to my children that they were Americans, but they were not satisfied with that comment. So then I started naming all of the nationalities. My 13 year old son stated, "So we're mutts." Yep, that's us. American mutts.