One of the cool things about Austin...

...is his love for music. He has always responded well to music, even since he was a baby. When there were times that he was fussy early on, and he couldn't be calmed, Keith would turn on some music with a nice rhythm to bounce to (because he has no rhythm of his own to speak of) and Austin would almost certainly calm. The funny thing now, is that he has developed a taste for music very similar to Keith's taste.

It makes sense, really. Keith would always choose songs and music to bounce to that had a consistent beat and would be as calming to him as Austin. Well, very often, that music would be...shall we say...heavy in nature.

About a month ago, Keith and Christine managed to find an office desk that they could agree to and set it up in the guest bedroom...the family desktop then followed. The first day it was installed, Keith was sitting at the computer and Austin was in his lap. When he began to play some music on the computer, Austin smiled, laughed and started bouncing in his arms. Essentially, Austin was dancing (or thrashing/moshing) to the music. Christine and Keith had a good chuckle and thought nothing of it until the next morning.

The following day, prior to going to work, Keith was checking his email (as he does every morning). Austin crawled into the room, sat on the floor, and started bouncing up and down on his rump, laughing while looking up at the computer monitor. Keith laughed at him and continued with his email until Austin started crying. That was when the music went on...and Austin started bouncing again laughing. He was asking for the music!!

Well...a month has passed and he still loves his music...some videos are here for your viewing pleasure. The first is him listening to Symphony X's "Set the World On Fire". The funny thing is how he really responds to the music turning on an off. Keep in mind, he is standing on Keith's lap....Keith's arm is around him for support only, Austin is doing the bouncing on his own.



This next video features Austin once again enjoying "Set the World On Fire", preceded by Devin Townsend's "Vampira". Again, his responses to the pauses in the music is precious (to us anyway) .



Later, we played some Enya, to find out how he would respond. He started bouncing when he heard Keith click the mouse to hit play, but soon stopped and rested his head down before bouncing again to encourage Keith to change the music...then fussed while Keith searched for a new track to play. You can see him spark up a bit to the heavier Firewind ("Allegiance") and Godsmack ("Whatever") before being befuddled by the soothing sounds of Edwin McCain ("Could Not Ask For More"). By the end, he seemed happy to hear some Dream Theater by the end of this video.

An update...with some more videos

Austin had a fun week...

On Monday he went to spend lunch and the early part of the afternoon with his great-grandparents. Everyone seemed to have a very nice time and Austin enjoyed going up and down a single step that they have between their screened-in porch and living room. As the story was told, he would crawl up, look at everyone, laugh, come down, look at everyone, laugh, crawl back up, look at everyone, laugh, etc, etc, etc. As you might imagine, this continued to happen for some time. Austin doesn't get an opportunity to play on the steps at the house, because they are to big, so when he had the opportunity, he really took the chance to have his fun.

 

 

Yesterday, Grandma/Grandpa, Great Grandma/Great Grandpa, Kevin and Peggy came over to visit for dinner and a picture slide show. Kevin brought his laptop over to plug into the TV and show us all pictures and tell stories of his and Peggy's recent adventures in South Korea, where they spent their vacation a week ago. The pictures were very cool and it was neat to see how different (and at the same time, how similar) other cultures can be.

On a sadder note (ok, not really "sad", but Austin was far from thrilled with the development)....Austin went through his first boyhood rite of passage: his first facial scratch. He slipp and his cheek landed on the corner of a garment box...the result can seen found below. A first of many to come we are sure.

Additionally, we have 3 more videos from the late summer to share with you...we hope you enjoy them!!

Talking it up in his new family room!!!



Playing with the green ball



We love the pose he strikes here, sticking his chest out

ALBUM: 2008-09 Week 48

ALBUM: 2008-09-25 Sunset

ALBUM: 2008-09 Week 47

Wow...been a long time, huh?

It took a while...longer than most of you may be comfortable with...but the Waldron Family Computer Network is now fully operational!!!! That means that all the videos and pictures from the last few months are now available to all of our friends and families.

Before we get too far, a new address for you all to put in your books. If you don't have it already, our new address is:

103 Charlie's Place
Chittenango, NY 13037

Okay...now, with that out of the way...

Yesterday, we drove to a local apple orchard and had fun picking our own gala apples! Earlier in the summer, we had heard about the impact of a hail storm on local produce, but thought nothing of it at the time....the local reports were likely being dramatic. Well...fast forward a few months, and we couldn't find nary a single apple without hail marks (little divots) in the skin. We probably only found 3-4 apples that had not been effected. It was disappointing to see all this fruit (all of which is still edible) that the farmers won't be able to get top dollar for just because of summer storm months prior. We forgot to take the camera with us when we went to the orchard, but we did manage to take a couple of cute shots with Austin on the front step when we got home.



Later in the evening, Keith went for a bicycle ride...a pleasant experience in CNY...not as many cars, and not the feeling that you could get run off of the road at any moment. After he returned home, the sky looked beautiful...so we took a few pics of the sunset. We get a pretty one almost every clear night, but this one looked particularly cool with how the clouds were positioned in the sky. We took these pictures from our deck.



From this point forward, you can once again expect a posting or 2 per week...probably not the every day or every-other-day, that we were able to do before...but we will be doing our best to keep things moving and never again let things go dormant as they have been since our last posting.

The house is coming along...all the furniture is in place with the exception of one chair in the family room. Boxes still reside in the extra bedroom upstairs, but we keep the door closed, so we tend to forget that there is a mess in there that we eventually need to address. Over the next couple of weeks, Christine plans on getting things on the walls (right now there is only a single clock hanging in the morning room, otherwise, the walls are barren)...as the rooms are completely decorated, pictures will follow. But until then...you will just have to let your imagination take over.

Austin had his 9 month checkup last week (ok, he is 10 months, so we were a month late)...but anyway...he continues to measure ahead of the average child in head circumference (90th percentile), length/height (75th percentile-29.5 inches), and weight (90th percentile-23 pounds, 14 ounces). The doctor said that he seemed to be in good health, and was pleased with all the efforts that Christine makes to be sure he eats solid foods and that they are quality/healthy products...often homemade by her.

As far as the summer is concerned...it went quickly. We were thrilled to have Katie come at the end of August, and enjoyed our visit back to NJ Labor day weekend. Speaking of visiting...the blog is as good a place as any to extend the following invitation: All are welcome to visit whenever they would like. We have a guest room for just that reason. Should someone wish to take a train, there is a station about 15-2o minutes away, and we would love to pick people up there should it be convenient for them. Please do not feel as though you need to wait for a formal invitation to come visit us. We had an open door policy at the old apartment in NJ, and the same policy holds true in this, our new home.

The rest of this posting will be consist of links to videos posted today for your viewing pleasure. Hope you enjoy...expect more updates later in the week!


THE VIDEOS

Distracted Crawling to Moxy



Playing with multiple pacifiers



Playing at Mikey's Table



Hanging out on the floor



Playing in the sand



Talking to Himself in the Mirror



Playing with Walker and Toys




Ok...carpel tunnel syndrome is kicking in, so that is it for now. Hope you enjoyed this posting...there will be more soon...Have a great week!!

ALBUM: 2008-09-20 Sunset

ALBUM: 2008-09 Week 46