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.