Just had to share this picture of Michael and Kegan. Michael is a bit impatient for his little brother to grow up a bit so they can play with his trains together. :-) And, I have to amend the previous birth weight I announced. I can thank my "he thinks he is so funny" son-in-law for the error. He told me 8 lbs. 11 oz. as Kegan lost an ounce when he peed! Mary has since corrected me - Kegan was 8 lbs. 12 oz. at birth. The peeing part doesn't count!

I have to chuckle as most of the pics Mary has sent me are taken on their king size bed. She has followed in my footsteps with making their bed a major living area in the house. Mine at the moment has 8 books on it (in a variation of having been read to wishing to read) along with a cat curled up in my stuffed animals and the folded playbill from the Vagina Monologues, which I saw last Friday night. I can usually relive the last week from what ends up on the other side of the bed.

I had not seen The Vagina Monologues before so I really didn't know what to expect. I would have been all wrong anyway. The various subjects covered made me laugh, cry, and even blush. And with all the edgy YA novels I read, I didn't think much could make me blush these days! At one point I was sitting there thinking - "I am watching this on a college campus in the South!" I don't remember ever reading about the comfort women who were held in prison-like conditions for the Japanese soldiers to rape and abuse during WWII. This act brought me to tears. I am glad I went to see it and will go again next year if the opportunity arises. Guess it has been done for several years at ECU with local actors, who were quite good.

One of my have-reads on the bed next to me is Liz Rettig's My Desperate Love Diary - a new 2007 Holiday House title coming out soon. It is desperately funny! Stand aside Rennison's Georgia Nicolson. You have been bested by a new clueless British teenage girl who shares her inner most thoughts and down right ridiculous actions and reactions in her laugh-out-loud funny diary. Kelly Ann is totally blinded by the hunkiness (in her not so humble opinion) of G, whose name she cannot even divulge in her diary for fear someone might read it and know who she is madly in love with. Like everyone in England doesn't already know from her actions! She is oblivious to the fact that G is the biggest slimeball in the school, taking advantage of her very obvious crush on him to the point of allowing her to buy his lunch when he is short on cash. G is quite willing to help her lose her virginity, but those who truly care about her keep inconveniently interrupting them, including her pregnant sister whose water just broke! It takes some time for Kelly Ann to lose her very distorted view of who does and doesn't deserve her attention and affection, but there is hope for her. The British slang is delightful and I found myself using a British accent in my head as I read and thought about this book. Hmmm - reminder to self - keep the British accent for internal conversations with self only!