February 2005 Archives

(1) He's clapping! He started doing this when we were in Stroud for Hannah's baptism but we weren't able to get him to do it again until a couple days ago. Now, all we have to do is say "Clap Clap Clap" and he does.

(2) He's got a tooth! Or rather, he's getting a tooth! It's been making him incredibly cranky. I've been trying to find different things for him to chew on. One thing he loves to chew on ... Daddy's watch. Unfortunately, Daddy takes it with him when he goes to work, hence me looking for other teething toys. Hopefully the crankiness will stop or at least let up a little very very soon.

And the biggest first ...

Noah is getting SOOOO close to crawling. Last night we spent quite a bit of time cheering him, pushing him, and trying to bribe him into crawling forward. Chris said that yesterday he took a couple of good crawls forward but he can't seem to remember exactly how he did that. I would think he'd be getting frustrated, but he still seems very excited every time he almost does it. He's just a better optimist than me, I guess. In other news, he was doing some clapping last night, too. His clap is so cute. He uses his whole arms to do it and always gets this big smile on his face. Now that he can clap, he'll be able to cheer himself on after he finally figures this crawling thing out.

Well, today is President's Day and I'm sitting at home so I decided to write a little bit about one of the most important people in my life. Without her I wouldn't be here and thanks to her guidance and home-cooking I am the man I am today. Tomorrow is Mom's birthday (I won't mention which one) and in honor of that special day I present to you 10 Things I Learned from my Mother:

1. There is a magical number in this world, and it is 298. Any time you don't want someone to know an amount, be it the price of your house or how much you make in a year, all inquiries can be immediately dismissed with the answer: 298.

2. Liver and Onions WON'T kill you, but it sure makes a fellow feel pretty nasty for a couple of hours. I'll never understand how ANYONE can like the taste of LnO.

3. Always be on time. I don't think my mom has ever been late to anything, ever. How does she pull that off? She taught me to get there early no matter where you're going. If her and Dad tell us they'll be in Ft Worth at 3, we go ahead and set another couple of places at the LUNCH table because we know they'll turn up early.

4. You reap what you sow. Mom always said I was a cranky baby, but I never believed her. Now that Noah is here and he acts just like that, I guess I believe her.

5. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are viable candidates for ANY election. I don't think my mom has ever told me who she voted for in any election. If it were a race between JFK and a dead man, she still would tell me she voted for Mickey Mouse.

6. When that 3rd blank tile shows up in Scrabble, somebody has DEFINITELY been cheating. Ask mom to tell you this story sometime.

7. People love pineapple juice in their Kool-Aid. I've never met any of these people, but they must exist because why else would mom pollute a whole jug of Banana-Berry Falls with this stuff.

8. Babies eat ANYTHING. Mom says that I used to eat whole dinners pureed in the blender into a big mish-mash of home-cooked goodness. I used to think that sounded gross, but now that I'm older, wiser, and lazier, I think that sounds like a great way to save energy.

9. Kids learn how to spell "tired" a lot faster if you say, "I think Myra is a T-I-R-E-D girl!"

10. Be nice to your mom because when nobody else is around, she's always there for you.

Happy Birthday Mom! We love ya!

...or is it to sleep.

(Myra last night after putting up a fight. "I don't need to go to sleep!")

I love this recipe! It's one I found in the Oklahoma FCE Cookbook 2000 given to us as a wedding gift by Big Granny. (At the time, she had been a member of FCE for 60+ years.) It's fast to prepare and tastes great. Serve them with a salad, some mashed potatoes, corn, and dinner roles and you have a "fancy" dinner that doesn't require a lot of time in the kitchen.

We went to Stroud last weekend for Hannah's baptism. I figured that while we were in Oklahoma, maybe my good friend Elizabeth could give Myra and Noah their first haircut.

We had a great visit in Stroud for Hannah's baptism. The kids had a lot of fun playing together and us adults had a great time catching up, too. Angie told us a great story about Kennedy that I just HAVE to share. This is a second-hand story, so if I get the details wrong, sorry.

Kennedy was resisting sleep one night and was making noise, playing, and whatnot. Angie could hear her over the baby monitor and rather than trudge up the steps to get her settled down, she decided to try out the fancy-schmancy two-way radio feature of their baby monitor. She pushed the button and told Kennedy to lay down and go to sleep. Soon, Kennedy was wailing and throwing a fit and so Angie had to go upstairs, calm her down, and get her to sleep. The next morning, Angie asked Kennedy why she was crying the night before and she said, "My room was talking to me." Puzzled, Angie asked her what the room said to her. Kennedy replied, "It said, 'LAY DOWN! GO TO SLEEP!'"

Yes, technology can be a VERY scary thing.

Myra helped me out a great deal while bottling some beer last night. Chris got some nice pictures, too. Check out the Sasbrewing Blog for a run-down on the action.

Noah said his first word (about a week ago)! It was "Mama"! At first I wasn't sure if I was hearing it correctly but then Josh pointed it out. Someone else was hearing him say "Mama"!

Noah has developed a new type of crawl to help him get around until he figures out the real thing. He is a "floor swimmer." He lays on his belly and moves his arms and legs just like if he were crawling, but he never lifts his body off the ground. He just slowly drags himself forward on his tummy. He kind of looks like an alligator. It's a good thing that he doesn't have any teeth yet, or else the the Crocodile Hunter might jump on him just because he "looks a bit grumpy."

After some thought, we have decided that my Beer Bloggin' posts have gotsta go! They just don't appeal to enough people that read the Davis Family Blog so they're getting the boot. From this moment forward, no more beer related posts will appear on TheSquatch.com. Instead, they will have a new home at the Sasquatch Brewing Company Homepage. That's OK, I really only planned on keeping my Beer Blog as a way to keep a journal of my Home-Brewing. They tell me the better records I keep, the better my beer will get. There will be stories about my misadventures as well as detailed logs of exactly what goes into every batch of SAS Brew. See you there!

Noah is trying SO hard to be a crawler. He does all kinds of things in an effort to make himself mobile. He can scoot backwards and is constantly doing that every time he hits the floor. The problem is, he can't control where he's going. He usually inches backwards until he runs into something that stops him. Then he calls for help until someone comes over and turns him around. One time he actually backed into a big pile of Myra's toys. When he realized what he'd done, you could see his eyes light up! He immediately rolled onto his back and started shoving anything he could grab into his mouth.

Last night, we started moving forward...kind of. I would put my foot behind his to give him something to push against and he'd rise up. He'd rock. He'd get up on his toes and jump. Finally, he'd move one foot delicately forward with me cheering him on. One thing kept stopping him: his hands. He NEVER moved his hands even an inch and so he could never get anywhere.

Suddenly, he got a bright idea. He got into the pushup position and rocked. Then he pulled up both hands at once and flopped forward on his belly like a seal! He had done it! Noah had moved forward! He giggled, squealed and snorted. Then he did it all over again. Eventually, he moved about 5 feet forward across the floor. It looks like he's gonna need some more work unless we want our boy to have constant strawberries on his belly.