Obsessions

My 3 yr old has several passions.

Among his favourites are fans, and lights.

Matthew's first word was 'light'. We never found it odd since it was Duncan's first word too.
(Joey's first (and currently only) word was Backpack - too much Dora?)
Back to my obsessive 3 yr old.

Everything to him is a fan. If it spins, it's a fan. If it has anything remotely resembling blades, it's a fan.
A + sign is a fan.
His toy helicopter has a fan
The windmill in Thomas the Tank is a fan
Walmart is a delight because the ceiling is covered in his two favourite things - fans and lights. He notices them all, and makes sure that I take notice of them as well.

He has a nightlight in his room. It's one of those 70's lava lamps. It's orange, and has big blobs of yellow wax that
form slow moving bubbles throughout the night. He loves it. He is constantly unplugging it and bringing it downstairs to plug into every outlet to make sure it works everywhere.
He has lately taken to unscrewing the lightbulbs in lamps around the house.
In fact he has climbed up onto my kitchen counter and taken the spare lightbulbs out of the cupboard above the oven.
He really likes lightbulbs. They make light.

Tied into his light obsession is his candle fixation. particularly LIT candles that he can blow out. I'd get one of those automatic relighting trick candles if I wasn't worried about him burning the place to the ground. He loves candles. He loves to bite candles, blow candles, smell and lick candles. I have removed most of my candles from display, with the exception of one decorative tealiight hidden amidst an assortment of silk flowers in a lovely centerpiece. Somehow Matthew found the candle hidden in there - why he would even bother to look in there is beyond me, but he found it, and it has become almost a little joke now. He takes the candle and waits for me to notice it's missing, at which point I hunt him down sternly saying "Matthew did you take mummy's candle".
He will of course admit it with a big wide grin. No remorse for this boy. My tealight is dented, come out of it's metal casing, had the wick removed, and is in poor condition, with teeth marks and dents. But I leave it out, and we play the game.

I gotta give him something.

It's either that or have to read in the dark, since all the lightbulbs will be removed from my lamps by my lighting thief.