Bear Tales: What I have learned from living with Anthony

When Anthony first moved in with me I did not really know what to expect. I did not know how everyday life would go or how we would get along. What we would eat or what we would do when we were bored. These past three months have been a huge learning experience for the both of us. I continue to learn more and more about him everyday and I continue to fall more and more in love as well. Here is what I have learned and noticed so far:

Anthony does NOT like to wake up in the AM. He does a lot better when he stays up all night than he does when I have to wake him in the mornings to drive me to work. It is a struggle just about everyday to get him out of bed. I have found that coaxing him with food (sounds funny I know) does the job pretty well. So now I tend to make him breakfast in the mornings when I can.
Anthony goes through stages. Sometimes he will be in a bored stage at which point he will spend more time with Bear and I and be more clingy. Other times he will be in a gamer stage when he will spend hour after hour and stay up day and night on a game. He does also have a grumpy stage where he will grumble around the house and not play back with me when I am cute with him. He tends to come out of his grumpy stage pretty quickly though.
Anthony can go days with out sleep. I am not sure why he does this but sometimes he will just stay up for about 2 days with little (meaning like 1-2 hours) to no sleep at all. He will eventually crash and go back to a normal cycle.
Anthony has food cravings. Not very many men have these. Or at least men that I have known. Some of his cravings include jelly doughnuts, wings, and grilled burgers.
Anthony does not get aggravated much at all. Much like myself he has a very long fuse. We do get aggravated by many of the same things like the dog being bad or Bear screaming for no reason.
Anthony WILL help me if I ask for his help. He is not one to just jump up and start helping but if I ask him to help me he will normally drop everything and come to help.
Anthony LOVES his baby boy! He has a great bond with Bear and it is growing day in a day out and it just warms my heart to see them together.
Anthony also really loves me. I used to be very insecure but now he has shown me the great amount of love he has for me and our family. I know that we are the most important thing in his life.
Anthony is lazy. I love this man to death but he is LAZY! He always tries to do things the easy or quick way and never wants to do the unnecessary. And with 99% of everything he would rather do it later even if he could do it now.
Anthony can eat 2-3 times as much as I do. He does not eat lunch unless I make him lunch or leave him leftovers in a container and tell him to eat them, so typically dinner is his only mean unless I made him breakfast that morning. So the fact that he eats over two times as much as I do at dinner is not all that surprising, but the amount he can inhale really surprises me some days.
Anthony loves to cuddle. A lot of couples grow out of cuddling. We are not that couple. If I am laying on the couch a lot of times he will come up and cuddle me for no reason. I absolutely love it. We will also give up space just so we can cuddle, like in the bed. Instead of putting bear in the middle and getting a good amount of space, we put him on the right side so we can cuddle, even though we end up super cramped because Bear takes up 70% of the bed with all his pillows.
Anthony gets hot really easily or maybe I get cold really easily lol. We do not typically touch the A/C it tends to stay at 78 degrees. But we do have fans that we flip on and off. He always wants it on when I want it off because he will be sweating with I am literally freezing.
And stuff I have learned about budgeting. Living with another person or two is WAY more expensive than living alone. It is not even double but triple the cost because together you want more. You want more for each other, when alone you tend to deprive yourself of stuff and say you don't need it or can live without it. When in reality you can but when you are with another person you want it if not for yourself but for them. Like paper towels for instance. I never used to buy them when I lived alone and when Anthony moved in, well now I can't live with out them!
Stuff I have learned about food consumption: Food goes WAY faster with 2 than it does with one. I used to cook every other day. I would have enough food for the night I cooked, the next day for lunch, and dinner the next day. Now I cook EVERYDAY! I almost never have leftovers for lunch too. We can go though a loaf of bread in 4 days compared to the 2 weeks it took me alone. And we can go through a tub of butter in 2 weeks compared to the 2 months it took me alone.
And last but definitely not least! Eating habits. I have noticed that our eating habits have grown together as well. I used to be ok with just eating a frozen pizza for dinner or on some nights even a few snacks like some cheese cubes and fruit. Now a days I have to cook because I can not leave Anthony with no food and he will not cook for himself unless I tell him what to make and step by step tell him how to make it. He also likes many things that I never ate before like fried foods. He likes to fry his fries, egg rolls, and other things that I would usually put in the oven. He likes to dress up his sandwiches when I could settle for a plain one. He won't eat baked beans or anything with seeds in it (like smoothies or jams). He won't eat anything with a gritty texture like grits or oatmeal or even couscous. He likes his rice to be short grain not long and his meat to be cooked well done. He does not like Dijon mustard or too much onions. He will not eat sweet salads or just a salad alone they need to be a side dish. He prefers red meat over white and laughs at the thought of a meal that has no meat. He hates sugar cookies and is really picky about icing and cake too. He likes stuff to be spicy and full of flavor. Stuff with weak flavor is never a hit. He typically does not like anything that is southern cooking, like chicken and dumplings, grits casserole, or even sweet potato casserole. He does how ever like chicken pot pie. He will eat mostly anything I put on his plate even if he does not like it, but I still try very hard not to serve things that he does not like. Oh boy I could go on and on about this mans eating habits! But I think I will end it here with some pictures. Because after all pictures are worth a thousand words.

This is a meal that we made together. Note the fried fries and egg rolls and hey even a fried egg! And a coke on the side lol. Not so healthy if you ask me.