In My Mom Era

I swear, sometimes I don’t even know how my own brain works.

One minute, I’m introducing my kids to Halloweentown. The next, I’m watching Dancing with the Stars, Googling Shirley Ballas, and remembering just how much I love fictional men with fangs. Naturally.

Let me explain. Or at least attempt to.

First Stop: Halloweentown

Remember how I mentioned in Halloween, the Gegg Way that I wanted to introduce the boys to Halloweentown? WELL. WE DID IT.

And Declan LOVED IT! There is something genuinely wonderful about watching your children discover a movie you remember loving as a kid.

But Nora, Adaline, and Colton? They were SCARED of Kalabar. So there we were repeating, “He’s fake. It’s all fake. It’s just pretend.” Over and over.

And then, every time he came on screen, Nora started reassuring everybody else: “IT’S OK KIDS!! IS FAKE!!” ❤️❤️❤️

MY HEART. She needed reassurance herself, and somehow became the official reassurance officer for everyone else.

We started Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge, too, but then it was time to head off to trunk-or-treat. The Cromwell witches will have to wait for another day.

Then Came Dancing with the Stars…

I finally watched Dancing with the Stars Horror Movie Night, and OH. MY. GOD. I LOVED ALL THE DANCES.

But THE ANNABELLE ONE?!?! Connor Wood and Rylee Arnold’s contemporary inspired by Annabelle: Creation was absolutely mesmerizing. The creepy doll movements, the choreography, the storytelling — it was an entire little horror movie told through dance.

If you haven’t seen it, WATCH THIS. Then tell me that isn’t wonderfully creepy.

Watch Connor Wood and Rylee Arnold’s Annabelle-inspired dance on YouTube (Dancing with the Stars / ABC). The embedded player was unavailable, so this link opens the performance directly on YouTube.

Guest judge Shirley Ballas was there, too, and I wondered whether she was related to Mark Ballas. Turns out she’s his MOTHER. Mystery solved. Except apparently I can’t learn one new fact without taking the scenic route through six unrelated obsessions.

And Then… Vampires.

One dance was inspired by Sinners, a movie I knew almost nothing about. I started asking questions. 1930s Mississippi? Blues music? Michael B. Jordan? Interesting.

WAIT. THERE ARE VAMPIRES?! Well, why didn’t anybody SAY SO?!

And suddenly I was revisiting every vampire obsession I’ve ever had. The Vampire Diaries. Damon Salvatore. Klaus Mikaelson. Elijah Mikaelson. Oh, Elijah. Those suits.

And Damon? If he showed up at my doorstep tomorrow, Tyler might have some competition. KIDDING, HONEY. Mostly. 🤣

I loved Damon and Elena. I loved Klaus and Cami. I loved Elijah and Hayley. And now I’ve remembered I don’t think I ever finished The Originals!

Then I remembered True Blood, which I think I only watched the first season of. And THEN I remembered J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood. I read somewhere around 10 to 15 of those books before having kids. STEAMY doesn’t begin to cover it.

So Now I Want to Watch ALL OF IT.

Naturally, I now want to rewatch The Vampire Diaries from the beginning, rewatch and finally finish The Originals, finish True Blood, AND watch the Black Dagger Brotherhood adaptation.

Because clearly I have unlimited free time. HAHAHAHAHA.

And I can’t watch any of it while the children are awake. The vampires in those shows don’t exactly LOOK fake. Between the blood, the biting, the scary faces, and the violence, we’ve come a very long way from reassuring Nora that Kalabar is pretend.

And then there are the other scenes. You know. THE SCENES. 👀🔥 Let’s just say these are absolutely after-bedtime shows.

Imagine me explaining Damon Salvatore to the child who kept yelling “IT’S OK KIDS!! IS FAKE!!” No thank you. I’ll save that conversation for another decade.

And Because My Reading List Wasn’t Long Enough…

You may remember my confession in My TBR Is Completely Out of Control (And I’m Not Sorry): I have 3,888 books on my Goodreads Want to Read shelf. THREE THOUSAND. EIGHT HUNDRED. EIGHTY-EIGHT.

So naturally, instead of making that number smaller, I found EIGHT more paranormal romance books I want to read. Some of the new series on my radar:

• Immortals After Dark by Kresley Cole — A Hunger Like No Other. Scottish werewolves, vampires, and fated mates? SIGN ME UP.
• Night Huntress by Jeaniene Frost — Halfway to the Grave. A half-vampire hunter and a charming British vampire.
• Midnight Breed by Lara Adrian — Kiss of Midnight. A secret brotherhood of vampire warriors. Sound familiar?
• Lords of the Underworld by Gena Showalter — The Darkest Night. Immortals with demons and complicated love lives.
• Dark-Hunter by Sherrilyn Kenyon — Fantasy Lover. Ancient mythology and romance.
• Guild Hunter by Nalini Singh — Angels’ Blood. Vampire hunters and archangels.
• Demonica by Larissa Ione — Pleasure Unbound. A demon hospital and a very tempting doctor.
• Dark / Carpathian by Christine Feehan — Dark Prince. Ancient immortals and supernatural bonds.

And THEN I learned that True Blood is based on Charlaine Harris’s 13-book Sookie Stackhouse series. THIRTEEN. MORE. BOOKS. So I added Dead Until Dark and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire to my reading list, too.

Oh, and I absolutely want to reread the Black Dagger Brotherhood books. I’ve lost control of this situation. Not that I had control of my TBR in the first place.

Anyway, Happy Halloween!

I started by showing my boys a childhood Disney Halloween favorite, watched Nora bravely reassure her siblings that Kalabar was fake, enjoyed some incredible spooky dancing, and somehow ended up planning an entire vampire television marathon and adding ten books to my already enormous reading list.

All because I wondered whether Shirley Ballas was related to Mark Ballas.

Welcome to my brain. It’s a fascinating place, but I wouldn’t recommend visiting without snacks.

Happy Halloween! May your candy buckets be full, your children eventually fall asleep, and your fictional vampires be ridiculously attractive.

Now tell me: Are you Team Damon, Klaus, Elijah, or Eric Northman? Or are we throwing the entire Black Dagger Brotherhood into the competition? Because I genuinely don’t know if I’m prepared to make that decision. 🤣❤️

*I WON’T MAKE THAT DECISION*

Kelly

In My Mom Era