John Sehmel

John came to us in Sept. of 2003.

During Andrea's pregnancy, we tried and tried to come up with a name for the new baby without any luck. We had beaten our heads against the wall searching for names when we were expecting Luke, and had had a difficult time finding a name for him. This time, we had the same problem, without the option of using the name of 'Luke'. Thus compounding the dilemma. Eventually we agreed on "John", partly because it's an ancient and respected name, and partly because there doesn't seem to be too many John's these days. There are millions of Justin's and Jeromy's and Joshua's and Tyler's. According to the U.S. Census, in 2003 John was only the 17^th most popular name. When I was born it was #2. When my father was born, in 1925, it was #2. Now it's slipped to 18^th place. However, from 1880 to 1923, John was the #1 name given to baby boys in the entire USA . Good reason to resurrect such a fine name. But we didn't know any of that at the time, it just seemed like a good name for a little boy who couldn't be named Luke. It wasn't until 6 months later I found out a distant cousin is named John Sehmel, and was becoming a big name in College Football. Sorry John, we didn't mean to steal your thunder. Hopefully that John Sehmel will go onto becoming a house hold name in the NFL, so that my son can brag to his grade school buddies accordingly.

John is just a good, wholesome name.

My son is a good wholesome boy.

He is very sweet.

His mother and him share a very special bond. He clings to her much more than Luke ever did.

While he is mostly sweet, he can also be very stubborn. Sometimes he gets frustrated, and lets everyone know about it.

I think he is going to be a bruiser.

He is all but fearless. He thinks nothing of jumping off tables and climbing up trees. But he is a little concerned about "monsters", as we all should be.

He likes to play with toy soldiers ("guys"), hot-wheel cars, toy guns, and Tonka toy trucks and dozers.

Like his brother, Luke, he has been convinced by his mother that pickles have no place on hamburgers. Fools!

He does how ever like black olives, so he is worthy of the name of Sehmel.

For the first two years of his life, we could not separate him from his ever present "Binky". He HAD to have a pacifier in his mouth or he would howl.

Sometimes he would hoard three or four of the things as though they were gold. He was the binky miser. Then, one day, we told him he was too old for a binky, and he said "OK", took it out of his mouth, handed it over, and never wanted one again. Talk about cold turkey.

He is a very good boy, and an absolute joy to have around. It really does seem like Heaven is missing an angel with this one. I love him dearly, and it hurts to write this while removed from him. Sometimes I'll turn to Andrea as we lay in bed and tell her how much I miss the boys, even though they are just ten or fifteen feet away behind a door.

He is so brave and adventurous that we have to pay extra attention to his whereabouts, as he has wondered off frequently, and scared the hell out of us more than once by rapidly disappearing. Either he has grown out of this stage, or we have gotten better at tracking him, as this doesn't seem to be occurring as much lately.

He has taken to riding his scooter every chance he can, and is also very proficient on the Yamaha PW-50. He has a toy Springfield 1903 that he carts around like other kids carry a stuffed animal or a blanket. I guess he's my son alright! :)

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