Home Again, Editing a New Book and Missing a Wee Boy

Well, I'm back home again.  If you want to know where I've been and what I've been up to, I think my middle son's latest blog post will do a better job of filling you in than I could do myself.  (I told you about my "daddy blogger" son, right?  The man behind Daddy and the Doctor?  You know that brand spanking new must-read blog that you simply must check out?)

I can tell you this: I'm missing a little man dressed in miniature sweat pants and dinosaur t-shirts.  Missing him bad.

Just for kicks, I decided to change the picture banner across the top of my home page today.  How do you like it?  In the pile of mail the post office had been holding for my globe-trotting husband and myself, delivered to us in a huge bundle today, we found an envelope containing the prints we ordered from our baby's recent senior picture photo shoot (he's due to graduate from Notre Dame in May).  I've had a fifth matching frame put away for five years now, so that he could join his older brothers in this line-up of handsomeness.  So that up there, that's my string of Pearls--oldest to youngest, starting from the left.  My original string, anyway.  It's getting longer by the minute, it seems!

I've spent most of the day going through the galley of Erin's Ring with a fine-toothed comb.

I love the cover!  My publisher picked the perfect image for this story!

I received the galley from my publisher while I was down in VA hanging out with G-Man, but I couldn't bring myself to start working on it there.  I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on it and give it the attention I should.  Not when I was distracted by levels of cuteness heretofore only seen by these eyes of mine in five sons and three granddaughters.  To illustrate, here is a picture of my little buddy, taken during one of the early morning visits we had while his exhausted parents grabbed a few hours of much-needed sleep.

He's a determined little sleeper...
unless it's the middle of the night!

But now that I'm home, I'm hard at work trying to ferret out every little typo in ER, so that it will be all set to go to print...and then I can relax and look forward to the upcoming wedding of son #2!  Which means another trip to VA!  And another visit with my grandson, along with my three granddaughters!  So much excitement...I think I need a nap!

Introducing a New Little Boy...and a New Blogger!

I've been AWOL again.  But here's why.  (Get ready for a photo dump made up of pure cuteness.)

TA-DA!!  IT'S G-MAN!!


He's a deep thinker.  (Like all my grandchildren, he's a genius.)



He and Papa see eye-to-eye on things already.



He does interesting things with his little hands.



Sleeping is pretty much his favorite.  (And eating.  And pooping.
And keeping his parents up til ungodly hours.)



He was Grammy's date last night,
while his mommy and daddy had a rare dinner out.

Not only did this little guy come into the world and make my middle son a daddy...he made my boy a blogger, too!  That's right, son #3 is now in the family biz.  He started a blog called Daddy and the Doctor, in which he will chronicle his son's life in once-a-week posts.  (He's written three posts so far, in order to go back and start from the beginning, when G-Man was born on October 5.)  My son is not an M.D., so if you want to find out why the blog is named thus, you're just going to have to click on over and see what all the hype is about!

You really need to check this blog out!  (It's worth it just to get a peek at the heart-melting photo of my boy holding his newborn son, which he used as the banner for his home page.)  Even though I have a special interest in the content of this new blog (obviously), I can also objectively say that he's an entertaining writer and I believe almost anyone would get a kick out of reading his blog.  There are a lot of "mommy bloggers" out there, but not that many "daddy bloggers," as far as I know; so I think he fills a unique niche in the ever-growing blogosphere.  When his popular and friend-rich wife Preciosa posted links on her Facebook page, his blog got hundreds and hundreds of "hits" almost instantaneously.  His mom is absolutely tickled by his blogging success.

I've only got a few more days here in the land of adorableness, and then it's back home to prepare for the big trip back down this way for the wedding of son #2.

Life is busy.  But it's good.  Very, very good.  And now I've got to go--because a very handsome young man just came to hang out with me.  So I'll leave you with one last shot of my little guy, taken just moments ago.

Good-bye for now. (And don't forget to visit Daddy and the Doctor!)