Xander meets his idol

Xander got to meet his favorite news reporter today!

I watch Fox 28 news in the mornings because it's on until 9 a.m., unlike other stations that switch over to Good Morning America or the Today show. Xander loves to watch Johnny DiLoretto, who travels to a different central Ohio locale every weekday morning to showcase a food, activity, community event, etc. I'm not sure when the obsession started, but since he started talking Xander has had to see Johnny every day. He used to scream "Johnny!" when he got up in the morning and saw the news on. Now he likes to watch him each morning as he eats breakfast. He has to know where he is, what he's doing, who he's talking to, what he's eating, and so on. It took me a long time to get him to understand that Johnny is only on TV Monday through Friday and that he'd have to watch NBC4 on Saturday and Sunday.

Well, today Johnny was in Delaware at Garth's Auction House. When I turned on the news I knew that this was the day I was going to try and get Xander to meet him in person. He was a little resistive at first since it meant an interruption in his routine and he wouldn't get to ride the bus to school, but once we talked about it he was really excited. Poor Jordis was woken up, quickly dressed and whisked to the car with a baggy of cereal so we could make it in time and still get to school.

Johnny was so nice. After his live shot he came over to meet Xander and talked to him as much as he could, since Xander was not willing to stand there for a conversation and kept roaming around. Johnny even posed for a picture with him and I was shocked that Xander came within a foot of him and stopped to say "cheese."

I wanted to stay so the kids could see him do an on-air segment, but it was pretty quiet in there and I wasn't sure if that would go over so well. Xander loved just meeting him though and then when we went outside we took his picture by the news van.

We had some time to kill before school so I took the kids to McDonald's and let them play outside on the playground while I got some coffee.

When we got to school Xander had to tell everyone that he met Johnny. I wasn't sure how he'd react, but I'm so glad I took him.