Who is the guy in my little boys bed, the one with the man legs?

I don't know who this stranger is although he resembles my son in a familiar way.

When JR (Joseph Ryan...not Junior)  was a boy he was self conscious about his teeth, not only were they a tad crooked, but they were giant. I kept trying to assure him that someday his face would grow and his teeth would not look as big. He did not believe me.

My son had a favorite stuffed animal, a dog named Max.  Max went everywhere with him, but as he grew older, he was a bit embarrassed by his attachment to his puppy.  When we went to the movies he'd ask me to hide Max in my purse until the lights dimmed and then he'd reach for his favorite hound and they'd snuggle until the lights came up.

My little cowboy grew attached to a pair of big black boots that were way too large for him.  He would clump around the house in those black leather 2 steppin mommas wearing nothing but a pull up. 

JR was such a happy kid and he had a deep belly laugh. He loved to make up words and if you asked him how he was he'd say,,,"jajizzel...ha ha ha" He thought he was hysterical, he would just crack himself up and then run around the living room, dining room and kitchen and dive bomb into the couch 

He was forever making things out of bits and pieces of other things. He loved to tie ropes around his big ugly men and dinosaurs and then hang them from doorknobs and build a giant house out of those big plastic multicolored blocks and then knock them down.  He was always busy doing something and was never bored.  He would sit and entertain himself for hours and act out sound effects and voices for all his action figures.  Once his power ranger men emerged from a hunk of dry ice in the sink, we still have the picture.

Forever hauling all his stuff from one room to another, by bedtime he was exhausted.  He filled his dads old briefcase with all sorts of junk and couldn't leave anything behind.  He never traveled light.

Another time, he and his friend Matt got stuck in the mud and lost their boots, its a long story but he came home completly covered ... all I could see was the whites of his eyes.  He looked at me and said, "What?"

While waiting for a ride to a birthday party the back of his jacket got caught on the garage door.  When I opened the door, he went flying up to the ceiling but never let go of the gift.

When Sam had an accident and bit through her lip from twirling and falling, he went up to his bedroom, got down on his knees and said a prayer.  "Please God, don't let anything happen to my Sammy, I should have been watching her, its all my fault." He was in the basement playing, not anywhere near her.

When I was about to announce to the family that I was pregnant with our youngest, I stood up and told my crew that Sam was not going to be the baby anymore. 
He jumped up and said, "Are we going to sell her!"

JR was sort of a homebody and I loved that.  When he'd go to a birthday party he'd tell me to wait until he was preoccupied playing with some of the other kids
 and then
 I should sneak out when he was not looking.

My little buddy was so confused when I told him we were going to have a car pool for kindergarten.  He just could not figure out how in the world someone was going to fit a pool in their car.

He wanted a dog so bad that he adopted one.  Her name was Cinamon and she lived around the block, he would take her for walks and play with her at out house, feed her and bring her home,

He earned his own money to buy a hamster ...wanted it in the worst way.  We bought this elaborate set up, a super modern mansion hamster home. We had no idea his hamster was going to have him for dinner....my son was good enough to eat...another story.

Once he had a dream there was a tooth in his ear and there was....we had to go to the doctor to have it removed...  another story

JR joined the school band, he played the drums.  The set took up his entire room.  My dad was sure he was going to become a rock star and was headed down the wrong path in life.  I used the drums every morning to wake everyone up...rise and shine, bam bam!