Someday....

Someday....

When Kaleb is older...(Perhaps as quarterback for the Ohio State Buckeyes... A mom can dream, right??)

I will get to finally scrapbook all of these millions (no really, millions) of pictures that I've taken over the past couple of years...

I might get to start sewing again, maybe even quilt.... (even though I just a large portion of my fabric stash (OH, THE HORRORS), patterns and "stuff".)

I might actually get a full night sleep and wake up when my REAL alarm goes off, and not when my child alarm who has a knack for waking up an hour before the real one does deems it necessary to wake up.

I might be able to read more than a paragraph in a book before passing out from sheer exhaustion.

But then again, I really don't want him to get older. I want him to stay little, and look up at me with those adoring, loving little eyes and that toothless grin forever. I cherish the moments when he looks up and me, smiles and reaches up for me to lift him into my arms. I adore the wet, slobbery, full-on kisses and the snuggles. I enjoy his busy-ness, even when it is late at night and way past all of our bedtimes.

Although I will say that I look forward him getting older--to seeing him play baseball, soccer and games with his brother, learn to read, write, go to kindergarten. I know that I will cry when those major milestone start happening. Heck, I've already cried when he's smiled, clapped, crawled and took his first steps.

So for now, I'll not complain much when I cannot scrap, quilt, read like I used to, etc. I'll enjoy the moment and what the moments with my little one bring. I'll smile and watch and wish that he could stay this way for just a little while longer.

New Additions... Welcome Greyson!

Photo by David Santel, Greyson's well-deserving Godfather.

I am so proud of my sister, Heidi.

Yesterday, she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Greyson David at 4:28pm.


He's 9lbs 3oz and 21.25" long. No small feat for a girl who started out weighing 100lbs wet!

Heck. That's no small feat most any woman who has given birth.

Amazing.

(Isn't Heidi beautiful?)

Little Grey David has LOTS of dark, curly hair, and the biggest hands and feet that I have ever seen on a baby. They're about the same size as Big K's!


Heidi, Ryan and their newest addition are doing extremely well. Mommy and Daddy are learning how to care for Greyson. I had the honor of teaching Ry how to change his first diaper EVER. HOW one has gone 26 years and 4 nieces and nephews and NOT change a diaper is beyond me. But I was honored.

(The role of Daddy suits Ry, doesn't it?)

I was fortunate to get to spend some alone time with Heidi and Greyson today, and I loved every moment of it. I was also honored to help Heidi with Greyson's care, as well. The time I got to spend with her was so special. Just thinking about it makes me tear up. I'm so glad Mom, Dad and Judy took Kaleb with them so we could have that time together.

(I look terrible in this picture because I had a horrific night of sleep on a very narrow cot with a very squirmy child.)

I was SHOCKED at how big Kaleb looks in the pictures Dad emailed me today of my little monkey next to G.D.

(notice that I'm trying out some little names for "Baby". )

I'm excited to make the trip down this weekend and spend more time with the newest addition to the Dulaney family. I can't wait for Uncle Greg and Cousin Evan to meet Grey Dave.

Obsessions, Part III... Kaleb

Kaleb.

What a kid.

He's only 9 months old. Or in the words of his wise brother, Evan. He's a half and three quarters.

Believe it or not, a child of this age CAN and DOES have obsessions. Granted, if you ask me again in a month, or even in a few days, those obsessions will have evolved and changed. But anyway. We'll go over his obsessions as of RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

1) Inch. Inch is his rainbow colored worm. His lovey. His comfort object. It's a beanie. We have 4 of them, if you count the one that Grandma has as backup at her house. 5 if you include the teeny beanie Inchie that he has. Now, I have to say, I'm a little irritated by this. Seriously. Aunt Emily bought him a puppy. We love Puppy. We, as in Daddy and Mommy. Kaleb likes Puppy, but he is no Inch. *sigh*. We even bought a back-up of Puppy in preparation of his pending attachment to Puppy.Kaleb has had his pictures taken with Puppy. I just don't think we're going to be able to convince him that Puppy is better than Inch. But anyway. At least Inch is a cute worm.

2) Right now, at this VERY moment, as I type this, his obsession is his brother's drum set. He's pulled the snare drum down 3 times. I finally put it on the ground to prevent him from hurting himself. He carries the drumstick around. I'm trying not to let my mind get the better of me and think that he's going to fall on it and poke his eye out or anything like that. A good mom wouldn't let that happen, right? Oh, Daddy just became the bad man. He took the drumstick away from the big K. Apparently he tried to shove said stick down his throat. But anyway. He likes the drum. And anything else that makes noise when he hits it. Maybe we have a future member of TBDBITL (Look it up in Google, for those of you who just don't get it.)

3) Rolling over and attempting to get away from us when we're trying to change his diaper, his clothes, etc. I can't tell you how many times he's gotten away. Naked. Right this second, and I type this paragraph, Daddy is attempting to put pajamas on K-Bob. It's not going well. There is some foul language going on. But we don't swear in our house. So it's all good. KB's favorite moments include the minute that I'm brave enough to allow him to run au natural.

4) Staying up late, getting up early (unless Mommy has to get up early, then he likes to sleep in to taunt me) and taking ultra-short catnaps at the most inopprotune times. We try to get him to sleep the first couple of hours in his own bed. Usually, that lasts until about 2:30-3:00. Of course, he typically doesn't go to bed until 11:00 or so. Despite the fact that he's incredibly fussy. Like he is RIGHT NOW. At 9:33 at night. Most nights, he'll go until he literally just passes out. Like he did in the picture to the left. On my leg. At around midnight. He made a valiant attempt to keep Mommy and Daddy awake until ungodly hours of the night. But failed. Thank God.

5) Cheerios, Gerber Puffs and Goldfish Crackers. Need I say more? Besides the fact that they're ALL over my kitchen floor, as evident in the picture to the left. We love them. Really. We take them with us everywhere. He's also all about food in general. He loves real green beans. And anything with cinnamon (His wonderful babysitter, Cindy, figured this out). He HATES the Gerber banannas though. Weird, huh? He's also a fan of something called Mum-Mums, which are rice rusks for babies, and the other random Gerber finger foods.

6) His tongue. He loves playing with his tongue, sticking it out, using it to give kisses. Very loving, wet, sloppy kisses. He's been sticking his tongue out at us since he was born. Every portrait session he's had has a picture of him with his tongue sticking out.

7) His favorite books are "Elmo is SO Big!" and "Hand, Hand, Finger, Thumb". I think I can recite both from memory. His eyes get so big and bright when I hold those two books up, though. It's so cute. We're working on "SOOOOO Big" with him. I think he'll get that one soon.

8) Water. He loves playing in the water. Be it the bathtub, his swimming pool, or the cat's water dish. We're learning the word "NO", in conjunction with the latter. But it's funny, and hard to keep a straight face when he gets into it. A few weeks ago, I set up his baby pool and filled it up with ICE COLD water. I figured I would do it the night before, so the next afternoon, it would be warm enough to play in. My mistake. My little munchkin decided to crawl into the pool, FULLY CLOTHED. Someone should really watch him, you know? He had a BALL. When we decided he was blue enough, we took him in the house and straight into the tub for a warm bath. No worries, he turned pink pretty quickly.

9) The toilet bowl brush. I have no idea why. We have to keep it blocked off. He thinks it's pretty neat. Gross, huh? And the toilet paper roll. He likes to un-roll it. And he's flushed the toilet a couple of times. Maybe I should try potty training him, eh?

10) His Baby Einstein exersaucer. Although now that he's walking, he has no interest in sitting in it. He must be outside of it walking around it. I credit this contraption for getting him to the point where he almost says "duck".

11) His wooden baby blocks. He LOVES those things. There are 40 of them. They hurt worse than LEGOs when you walk or trip on them if you're not paying attention. He also likes to eat them.

12) Celery. We like to give him celery sticks to chew gum on. I think they're cool on his gums. We have to keep track of them, though, otherwise he puts them places and it's usually a few days to find.

13) Mommy. Yes, it's true. He's obsessed with me. I'm not ashamed to admit it. My baby loves me, and I'm the center of his world. I love how his eyes light up with I walk into the room. I love the fact that he counts on me for his meals, and that I have the ability to produce milk for him. It's been a long labor of love, and I'm proud to be able to say that I'm close to being able to do so for a year. He loves his Daddy, too, and lights up when he's around. But I think it's just the age that he his. I know that the time will come when my kisses are gross, and life is all about boy-stuff and Daddy will be the awesome one instead of me. So I will enjoy every moment of it while I can!

14) Walking. Lord this baby can walk. Run, almost. He's been crusing the furniture for months. I can't believe he's now walking, and doing it so fast! Since learning how to walk, he's pretty much said good-riddence to crawling. Walking is much more fun! Daddy and I love to take him out and let him loose, especially at Grounds for Thought. I think people stop at least 4-5 times to marvel at the walking baby. Apparently, they aren't supposed to walk when they're this little. But this kid has done everything early, so why should walking be any different?

15) Shoe-strings. He likes to un-tie them. A lot. And then put it in his mouth.

16) Grass, clover, rocks, sticks and anything else "nature-oriented" that he can get into his mouth. Apparently, he's very much like his mommy, as I used to stuff my cheeks with these very things, plus an occassional bug or two. I usually try to clean out his cheeks when we're outside on a regular basis. But I'm sure he's swallowed a thing or two. He also likes to tear apart paper and eat that. His cheeks are stuffed with what I am pretty sure is more clover in this picture to the left, by the way.

17) His brother, Evan. Kaleb has been interested in his brother for a while now, but never as much as he has over the past two months. Now that he is mobile, he's all about Evan. He loves to hug Evan, tackle him, and his brother loves to make him laugh. Evan will make faces at him, and Kaleb will get this goofy belly laugh that just melts you, it's so stinking cute. I love that my boys love each other.

I LOVE this little boy. He is the light of my life, as he is his Daddy's too. He's constantly making me smile, whether its because of his giggle, his sweet, sleeping face, or his sad little, sleepy cry. He's usually a really happy guy, constantly babbling away, wandering around from Daddy, to Mommy, to Magic, and when his favorite brother is here, to Evan. It's hard, at times, to remember a time before he was here!

For Aunt Heidi.... Who requested bigger pictures...

Kaleb eating grass...

Obsessions, Part II... Evan

This kid....

This kid has a heck of a personality. He's such a loving guy. He's an emotional boy (he gets that from his father). He has a temper (also from his father). He also has attachments, that for the sake of this entry, we'll call obsessions as well.

1) Care Bear and cloud blanket. Those of you who are children of the 1980's may remember this bear as Funshine Bear. We just call her Care Bear. She comes to our house every other weekend with Evan. There was a time when we didn't go anywhere without Care Bear. This bear has been his friend since before he was born. If Evan is upset, angry, sad, mad, happy, joyful, playful, worried, or any other emotion that crosses our little boy's pathway, this bear has been there with him through it. Care Bear is the very definition of comfort object. As Evan has grown older, especially over the last year, Care Bear is not so much the center of his whole world anymore. Much like the Velveteen Rabbit or "Woody" from Toy Story, Evan has moved onto bigger and better things. But he still has that special place in his heart for his Care Bear, who on occasion is still brought out for high pitched conversations over the phone with his mom. But those times are becoming fewer and further between. Like Care Bear, cloud blanket has been with Evan from day one. Baldy, the Eagle and Ducky, the yellow duck, are two other frequent flyers that often join Care Bear and Evan when he stays with us.

2) GeoTrax: Okay, so this is one of those items that Evan USED to be obsessed with. Daddy and Jenn became more obsessed fell in love with them than he was, and went a little GeoTrax crazy. And managed to purchase nearly every set that was available as of 2 years ago. The three of us would spend hours playing with this fantastic train set, creating new paths, taking up the living room, kitchen and even Evan's bedroom with massive sets. He would get so excited on his birthdays/holidays when he would open up a new booster for his trains. He'd put on a conductor hat, pull out his train whistle and away we would go. To give you an idea of how much we have, it takes up 4 large storage bins. And now, Greg and I are planning to force this down Kaleb's throat share this awesome set with Kaleb when he gets old enough! And you should see the new sets! AIRPLANES and PEOPLE to go along with it. Awesome!

3) Star Wars. Holy hell This.kid.is.O.B.S.E.S.S.E.D!!!! Sometime last year, I think it was while waiting for Kaleb to arrive, Greg convinced me that it would be a fantastic idea to introduce Evan to Star Wars. I should have known that was SO not a good idea. If any of you know my past life, you know that Star Wars was my nightmare a big part of it. It's like God's punishing me for something. And now, it is once again a huge part of our every day life. If you ask Evan what movie he wants to watch, I promise, it will be one of the 6 in the series, or the cartoon version that came out last year. If you ask him what he wants to be for Halloween, it'll be a character. He has at least 4 light sabers, all the action figures, knows all the names of the characters, what's going to happen next, and how it's going to happen. Oh, and the opening credits? You know, "In a galaxy, far, far away..." He can recite them word for word. He asks thousands of questions about "how'd they do that?". Our bribe (which worked, by the way) for him to keep out of trouble at school was that he was allowed to watch 30 minutes after school if he stayed on green all day. I think he worked his way through the series at least 3 dozen times last year. Yeah. His 5 1/2 year pictures? With his light saber and storm trooper mask ON, of course. His bathroom at his mom's new condo? Star Wars. Can you sense me banging my head against the wall? I'm so proud. Really. Oh, and one of his favorite characters? Boba Fett. Life-size cardboard cutouts all over again. Sweet.

4) Sports. But I'm going to have to create subcategories for them. There are many to discuss. Which is quite an interesting anomoly, really, since Greg HATES sports. Especially professional ones.

4a) Cleveland Indians. Sorry Iowa Minnesota Twins Fans. I tried, I really, really did, to convert him. I even attempted to entice him with a Twins car flag once. And I hate to say it, but I think Kaleb is doomed, too. Evan's already working on brainwashing Kaleb. Alas, it did not work. His mom has more influence in that arena than I do. Amusingly enough, though, his favorite hat? Detroit Tigers, thanks to Uncle Kyle. We love it. His favorite minor league team? The Mudhens, the Tiger's farm team. Bwahahaha. Oh, the irony. But amazingly, Evan knows all of the Indian's team players, their positions, and what the latest scores have been. He's been to many games with his mom's family, as well as to the Indian's training camp in Florida. The picture of him on the left was from when he was at said training camp, and was on the Indian's official website two years ago.

4b) Playing baseball. This kid is good. I mean REALLY good. Like hitting-the-ball-over-the-house-when-pitched-to-him good. Yeah. Like I said, really good. Last year was his first time playing dis-organized t-ball. There's something hysterically funny about watching 12 4-year olds swarming a ball after it's been hit. Evan, however, knew what he was doing and took it VERY seriously. But I think he was only one of two. And he has a hard time understanding that he needs to wait his turn. I think every "inning", he would beg the coach to go first. That was last year, though. This year, we'll see what happens. Evan also is very good at corralling organizing his adult great-uncles, grandfather, and cousins into playing a game. And did they ever play-- for a good 2 hours! And they were SERIOUS about that game, too. Papa was so serious, the day after, we found out that he actually hurt himself pretty good-- pulled a muscle in his leg AND managed to get bashed by a ball. Ouch! You'll note in the picture to the left that he still takes time out from a "serious" game to flirt with the pretty girl from the other team. (You'll also want to note that professions of love were yelled across the field to each other during this game, as well. So maybe I should add that he is also girl obsessed.( He also loves playing baseball on the Wii, as well as the handheld electronics games. Unfortunately, Evan is so obsessed with playing ball, that when we tell him it's time to stop, or need to change how we're playing, he also tends to throw a tantrum. Sigh. But, such is life with a 5 and a half and three-quarter year old boy.

4c) Karate. Evan started Karate 2 years ago. Tonight, he is taking his test to become an orange belt. He started out at the basic level-- White. Then, he took the test and got his "star". Then a stripe, and another. Then he became a yellow belt. Then the stripes again and now, the orange belt. It seems like it's going FAST between yellow and orange belt. He JUST took his test recently. He's learned his new kata, and takes it pretty seriously. I haven't been over to see a test in about 6 months, so I'm anxious to see how he acts during the testing period, and how much he's grown in it. Greg and I were a little concerned about Evan beginning Karate at first, because Ev was having problems with fighting in school. But this sport has been one of the best things for him! He's so good!

4d) Soccer. Evan plays soccer in the spring and fall. And he's really good at this, too! It's been fun watching him come into his own just over two seasons. Last fall, he, along with his buddies, swarmed the ball. Evan made at least 7 goals every single game. This spring, he was still a scoring machine, but he wasn't swarming the ball. The kid would hang back and wait for the ball to pop out of the swarm of kids, steal it and run it in for a goal. It was both amusing and fantastic to watch at the same time.

On a side note, if you're one of those crazy parents who shout incessantly at your 4 year old kid to get the ball, run, score, whatever OVER and OVER and OVER again. Stop. All the parents hate you and your kid and wish you would shut up. I would never think that. That's why I crossed it off.

4e) Cleveland Browns & Cleveland Cavs. This one is his Mom's fault. She's from that area. We have no control over it. And he's not as obsessed with this as he is the Indians. Maybe it's not even worth noting...

4f) Ohio State University Buckeye Football. O-H-I-O. Okay, this one makes me proud. My favorite little 5 1/2-3/4 year old loves the bucks. Up until last year, he called them the bug-eyes. We worked on that one. He loves talking about the Bucks, wears their clothes, and is being brainwashed groomed to play for them when the time comes for him to go to college. Kaleb is going to be our little quarterback, and his buddy, Cooper, will be his fullback, by the way.

5) LEGOs. What kid doesn't love LEGOs? What grown-up kid doesn't love LEGOs Besides my Dad who I can remember many a night swearing at the tiny pieces as he attempted to walk through one of our rooms and stepping on them as he tucked his angelic little girls into bed? Evan enjoys them. He and his dad have made some pretty cool things with his LEGOs, too! His favorite? A helicopter just like the ones that are in the Coast Guard. (Which he's convinced Lindsey jumps out of, by the way- we've tried explaining buoy tender to him, but he just doesn't buy it. Of course, we've shown him rescues that the USCG has performed on Deadlist Catch, and it's MUCH cooler to think that's what his aunt does. Sorry Lindsey. Although he was quite impressed with the USS Healy. But I digress.) Where were we? Oh yes, helicopter. He's also made a dump truck and a few other cool things, too. He loves his giant bucket of LEGOs and creating stuff with those, as well

I'm sure there are more things that I could easily share with you about Mr. Evan's obsessions, but for right now, those are the big ones. Ask me about it again in a week or so, and I'm sure many of them will change. We've recently introduced the first two Harry Potter movies to him. He's quite impressed. Now, we're not going any further than the first two, but I would imagine that we have a miniature Harry in the making.

Next post, in theory, will be able Kaleb. And yes, I will get to my own obessions eventually, as well.

-jenn

Comments...

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-jenn

Adventures in the Country...

As some of my readers know, my work takes me all over Northwest Ohio. A large majority of my clients reside in the boondocks in the country. SO, I spend a great deal of time in a car provided to me by my company. A nice perk, no?

Well, for the first time in my career with my wonderful company, my car broke down. And I don't just mean it stopped running. There was a loud "POP" and then my motor sounded like one my grandpa's antique tractors idling. Not good.

Of course, this didn't happen anywhere near civilization. This happened smack dab in the boondocks middle of nowhere in God's country.

SO, I limp to a little drive that crossed a ditch into a bean field. The first call I made was to my boss. The second call? AAA, of course. Using my GPS, I was able to tell her exactly, to the mile, where I was, on said country road.

As I finished up with the AAA chickie, a man pulled up in a red pickup behind me, blocking my get-away. My first thought? Mass farming serial murderer, about to claim another victim and dump my body in the very, very deep, overgrown ditch. Fantastic.

As visions of my bloated, decomposing body being picked away by vultures, racoons and opposums flashed thru my sick and twisted mind (I've clearly been watching too many CSI, NCIS, Law & Order, Mentalist, Numbers, etc crime-type shows, eh?), he asked me what the trouble seemed to be.

I introduced myself, and found out he was the owner of the farm, about a 1/4 mile from where I sat. His name was David W. He saw this damsel..no perfectly able... clueless business girl, teetering on a rocky drive in high heels and being the good country man that he was, came over to rescue assist me.

He had me start my car, and as soon as I turned the ignition, shouted at me to stop. Being the intellegent man that he was, he knew exactly what the trouble was. One of my spark plugs had somehow worked itself loose! Apparently, this is NOT supposed to happen. He hopped in his truck, drove over to his farm, grab some tools and a new plug and came right back over!

Unfortuntately, the story doesn't end there. He couldn't get the plug to screw in, and when he checked the other plugs, they were all loose, too-- in a way that they were not supposed to be!

SO, I was stuck waiting for AAA. I spent two hours waiting. I read. I wrote notes for this blog. I make calls cancelling all of my appointments between home and Lima for the day. UGH!

Then, the towing service, Wright Automotive called. They couldn't find me. My good friends at AAA apparently didn't listen very well to my directions, and the tow truck was lost finding me. Now, I was on a country road, but it wasn't a deserted road-- it was a pretty busy North-South route. And my car is a billboard-type advertisement, so this shouldn't have been too difficult.

After finally getting the driver, Jeremy, guided to me and my disabled vehicle, he hooked it up and we were off. He took me to the mechanic of my choice and the mechanic took me over to the office where my mom works so I could steal her form of transportation for the day.

Anyway. That was my adventure for the day.

At this point, I'm currently waiting for word that my car is all better.

While sitting in my sweltering car today, waiting 2 hours for the wayward tow truck to find his way to my sputtering little vehicle, I had plenty of time to think about my encounter with David W.

He didn't have to take time out of his busy day to drive over to see what was going on. He didn't have to go back to his house and get tools and the PART to fix my car. He could have ignored me. He could have stopped out of curiousity, heard I'd already called AAA and went on his merry way. But he didn't. He stopped.

I thought about how many times I've passed by stranded vehicles or ignored a possible person in need before. How often have I passed up an opportunity to offer my assistance to someone.

Who have you stopped to help today? Is there a senior neighbor, maybe shut-in without family nearby to visit or help them out? Is there a volunteer organization that might need some assistance? Can you donate something to a shelter or food bank?

David W. is a fine example of what is right with the world. We hear so much about what is wrong, that sometimes, we need to stop and look at what is right. And we need to take a good look at ourselves and our actions, and decide what we can do to continue making this country and world a better place, too.

Thanks You, David. Thank you for making my world a better place. Thank you for giving me a little more faith in people, and the goodness that resides within them!

Obsessions... Part I: Greg

It's funny. We all have our obsessions. I think that over the next few posts, I'm going to explore and discuss some of our family's fun little obsessions.

Greg is enthralled with quite a few different subjects...

(Just in case you're wondering, Kaleb "got" him in this photo, if you know what I mean)

It's a Wonderful Life. (IAWL) For those of you who live under a rock, it's a Christmas movie. If you're one of those rock-dwellers, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT tell Greg that you have a) never heard of it or b) never seen it. You will get a lecture about it, and then forced to watch it. To understand this particular obsession, let me tell you a little about our house.... In our hallway, we have two It's a Wonderful Life posters and a Harvey poster. Why the Harvey poster? Well, Jimmy Stewart stars in it. But I digress. Our bedroom is decorated with IAWL memorabilia... Including a butterfly "painting" that his mother got him that is similar to one seen in the corner of a living room in the movie. Yeah. It's that bad. Oh, and he has a Christmas Village of the town featured in IAWL. We even call our son, Kaleb, "George". I call Greg "George" from time-to-time, as well. Really. Greg has even written a book about the movie that started out as a senior project when he was in college, if I remember correctly. He pulls it out and edits it from time-to-time. Someday, he hopes to publish it. Oh, and he's watched the movie about 5 bazillion times. He can recite it word for word, with the inflection that the characters give. He believes that in some ways, his life is like George's. Oh, and the most romantic thing that he has ever said to me is that I am "his Mary".

Stephen King is another area that Greg is obsessed with. Not nearly as much as he is with IAWL, but darn near close! He has every book ever written by King. Some, he has in both hard and soft back. King has started publishing comic books, and these, too, have been added to Greg's collection. I think he has all of the movies based on King's books, as well. I, on the other hand, try to steer clear of his books. I read Misery once, and was rather disturbed by both the book and movie. Now, the movie Green Mile, I didn't even realize was one of King's books.

He also loves A Christmas Story. Heh as all the ornaments, t-shirts, etc. Oh, he also has a LIFE SIZE version of the Leg Lamp, thanks to his handy-dandy father. Thanks to Dad, we now enjoy the Christmas Story leg lamp in all its glory year around. I will say that I did put my foot down last year, and it is currently stored. My 9 month old and 5 1/2-3/4 year old boys do not need to be caressing the leg. It's bad enough that we have 2 other lamps year-round in the house. He's been to the Christmas Story house in Cleveland several times. 2 years ago, I got to go along. We purchased tours as well as a plethera of other little things for my dad and uncle for Christmas that year. OH, and we also got them a gift certificate for the chinese restuarant featured in the movie. Unfortunately, by the time they got around to going, the resturant had closed due to economic times. He also loves Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer (Burl Ives version-- 1964) (again, has all the ornaments, and is particularly obsessed with Hermie, the wishing-to-be-a-dentist elf). Come to think of it, he's pretty obsessed with all things Christmas. He loves most of the old Christmas movies, including Mickey's Christmas Carol. I'm working on convincing him that Santa Conquers the Martians really is an excellent Christmas movie. I try to torture share this movie with him it at least once every holiday season.


I think one of his biggest obsessions is the rock band, Poison. He is over-the-top obsessed, along with his brother, Lance. I think that if he were given the option to leave me and marry Bret Michaels, he probably would. Am I serious? Yes. I think that there are more photo albums of Poison in this house than there are of our children. Greg recently put a Poison sticker on the window of our van and shows it to everyone. Last year, I surprised Greg by taking him to the Poison concert in Detroit. I was 8 months pregnant. Seriously. We went to see C.C. Deville, the lead guitarist, a couple of times. One such time is pictured to the right. Yes, that is Greg and Lance on stage, rockin' out with him. Greg even unplugged C.C. from the amp by mistake. He'll never live it down. We watched Seasons 1, 2, 3 of Rock of Love. We try to catch any interview or appearance that Poison makes. He rescues discarded CASSETTE TAPES (despite the fact that we don't even own a cassette player anymore) at garage sales. You should see the memorabilia box he has in storage with concert t-shirts, and more. If there is anything you would like to know about Poison, he's your man! (although Lance is probably currently winning in the obsession race between the two. Not only does he have a Poison Green motorcycle, he also has a billboard in the stairwell to the basement. Now that, my friends, is obsession).

He's also pretty obsessed with music in general. He has about 5 bazillion songs loaded onto his Zune. I can close my eyes and randomly pick a song off of it, and he can name the song, artist, album it is off of and sometimes even the year. Usually, within a note or two. Favorite genre of course is rock-- especially 80s rock-- hair bands, mostly. Greg gets back at me all year long for torturing sharing my Santa movie with him by making me listen to every song under the sun at deafeningly loud decibles. Fortunately, Kaleb is now with us most of the time, so the music has to be a little lower. It seems that he's passed his love of rock-n-roll on to his boys, though. Both of them enjoy it-- Kaleb sings along in his sweet little baby babble and Evan, well, he is currently requesting KISS (and laughs about Gene Simmons' tongue), Black Sabbath (only ONE or two of these song), a few other old-school groups and of course, Poison. He's so proud. Greg also loves rocking out with Guitar Hero and Rock Band. He also owns several guitars that he doesn't get out and play nearly often enough.


I've been told that when we own a bigger house, he will be taking over the basement, and turning it into a man-cave. Poison will take over one wall, and IAWL will take over another. What a combination.

Don't get me wrong. I don't list out these obsessions to pick on him. I love that he's so into these things. At times, they might be a little exasperating, like watching IAWL for the 5 bazillion and oneth time, but for the most part, I think it's fun, and he's introduced me to so many different things in the 3 1/2 years that we've been together. I like to think that I've introduced him to a few things, too.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the kids and their obsessions, as well as the things we've forced on introduced them to.