not to us

I'm not even sure if "inaugural" is the right word, but whatever.  You guys don't come here for the literary greatness, that's fo' sho! 

It's my first post on the "new" site.  For anyone out there who's a little bit geeky, the site is "new" because we're now running on Drupal 6.  For all the rest of us who are NOT geeky, the site is "new" because it looks different.  LOL!  :)  The design (the look-different part) isn't finished.  There are several finishing touches that need to be polished and developed, but it's close enough.  I love the finished product (that I've seen on Photoshop), and I hope you guys will like it, too!

Anyway, onto the fun stuff!  I've got several things I want to get "on the record", so this post will be a little scatterbrained.  I'm glad to be back from vacation and back to a reliable internet source!!  I missed you guys!  :)

Favorite Song

Ruby has known how to sing several songs for quite a while now...probably close to three months.  Her "reperetoire" includes: I'm Yours, Twinkle, Twinkle, Jesus Loves Me, I love You, Lord, Old MacDonald, and several others.  She has never shown a distinct preference for any particular song, though.  Until now...

While we were driving to Ohio, Mike was scanning through the radio channels.  We passed a pop station that was playing Battlefield by Jordin Sparks.  We're not particularly fans of the song.  I don't know why, we've just never chosen to listen to it.  However, the little bit that Ruby has heard while scanning has stuck with her.  Over the past couple of weeks, she has talked about "that Battlefield song."  On this day, however, she asked us to go back and play Battlefield.

When we told her that we had passed it and it was now over, she was really upset.  She couldn't understand why we could play some songs at will and not others.  I tried explaining "downloading" but it didn't work.  All of a sudden, I remembered Pandora.  Praying that Battlefield would be the first song on the Jordin Sparks channel, I thumbed in the necessary details.

BINGO!  The music filled the car, and Ruby was a happy girl.  :)

Social Graces

Tonight, we visited our county fair.  (There will be an entire post on this later, I promise!)  We sat down to feast upon a most delicious elephant ear, and Ruby was enjoying the cinnamon-sugar goodness.  After a few minutes, a pair of older ladies sat down across from us, faced away from us.

Our little social butterfly tried to initiate conversation by saying, "How are you?"

The women didn't acknowledge her at all, and so I told her to start by saying, "Hello!"

The women turned around and acknowledged Ruby.  I told her that it was now the appropriate time to continue with "How are you?" or "What's your name?"

Instead, she chose a different route:

"I just had a fart" were the next words out of her mouth.

The two women, Mike, and I all burst into peals of laughter.  They were great sports...even encouraging Ruby to enjoy the rest of her time at the fair (without telling everyone about her more gaseous endeavors.)

Burke's First Word

For those of you who don't know, Burke waited until he was nine months old before he would even tolerate a spot of pureed nourishment to touch his precious lips.  Then, he spent a world-record seven days on traditional baby food before moving on to chunks of table food.  And honestly?  I think he would greatly prefer for me to give him even bigger chunks than I'm already feeding him, just two weeks later!

So it should be NO surprise that his first word involves food.  :)

Tonight, we ate dinner at KFC.  Ruby had a kids meal, and she got a pack of Cinnamon Teddy Grahams.  Amazingly, she *wanted* to share her Teddies with Burke.  Apparently, he loved them. After the first couple of bites, he started signing "more" repeatedly. 

I've been trying to teach him the sign for nearly a month, so I was really shocked when he actually used it without any prompting.  Just to be sure, I said, "Do you want more?"  He started grinning, dancing, and then whining when I didn't oblige.  He signed again, and I gave him the Teddy.

When he finished that bite, his hands clasped together again, and he looked at me, eyes full of hope.  :)

I was so thrilled!  He hasn't done hardly any babbling for us, so I was really curious about what sort of activity was going on in that noggin' of his.

Obviously, it's pretty simple:  Eat.  Eat More.  Eat Again.  Eat More Again.

:) :) :) :)  That's my boy!

Burke's First Moves

Burke was kind enough to give Mike and me a couple of scoots before we left for vacation, and we officially declared him a Crawler.  By the time we got back to him on Thursday, he was scooting like nobody's business.  It's quite an untraditional crawl, I must say.  It's not pretty by any means, but he gets where he wants to go, so we'll count it!  :)

He's also dancing like a fool!  Sometimes, he'll just start dancing to his own music in his head.  Other times, he'll hear music from the radio or a toy and start shaking his little body.  Still other times, he'll dance on "cue".  We can either ask him to dance or he'll watch one of us "dance" and then join in.  I'll admit, it's quite endearing.

We've gotten some video of his moves.  Hopefully, we'll have them posted soon!  :)

Hope you all are doing well!  We'll try not to be as much like strangers.  Y'all do the same, y'hear?