Tonight, Davey was being a little fussy before bed.  We both have the stomach virus that just does not want to go away.  So I was holding him and singing to him.  I just make up little silly sings.  Tonight was "Little Boy"  and the lyrics are "little boy" sung over and over.  I can't even remember the tune now, darn it.  Anyway,  I sang for awhile, and he listened, and then I stopped and he clapped his little hands together for me.  Sweetest thing.  He knew it made me smile so I sang some more, and he clapped some more.  :)  And we did that for just a little while.

If all goes well, we will moving to Arkadelphia at the end of the month.  We've found a house that we like a lot.  It was built in 1965.  It has a great backyard with a double fence even.  Perfect for separating the dogs from Davey when he goes outside to play.  (the dogs love Davey, but they are getting older and I am always afraid he will hurt one of them by accident and that they will then snap at him instinctively.  So we just keep them apart – Davey loves Daisy daisy daisy!  He loves to tell her to HUSH – as she yaps very loudly when she wants something.  He loves Koko too, and she watches over him at night sometimes when he sleeps.)  Ok big parenthetical digression there.  Anyway – house.  It sits up on top of a large hill.  David is trying to figure the logistics of mowing that front yard.  The house is on about 1/2 acre on a corner lot. The inside has lots of updates – new paint, some new cabinets, new countertops and backsplash (granite and it's really pretty).  The floor is almost entirely wood laminate.  I need to take some pictures of it soon. 

Our offer has been accepted, and the loan preparation is progressing.  It's the most efficient bank that I have ever worked with in all the houses we have bought. (5 - this will be 6 geez)  We are having a house inspection on Thursday.  Hoping that that does not reveal something dire. 

It will be so nice for David to not have to drive anymore.  It's 2 miles to school from the new house.  We will miss Papa Jerry and Pearl and also going to see Ma Mutt and Gretta, but it's not far and we will come see them lots.  We will have to come back to Mama Pearl's anyway.  We love it out here.  I will miss Davey's mountain!  Let's have a picture of the mountain – there's probably an old one posted somewhere, but just in case:

(I don't think this picture really does it justice, but writing this in February, I had forgotten how beautiful and green it was here in the summer.)

It's been a couple of weeks since I took these photos, but I wanted to get them up on the blog and write about them a little.  I need to work on timeliness, although I guess it does not matter too much. 

We went to eat spaghetti and Little Italy in Glenwood a couple of weeks ago.  It's a great place.  The little boy LOVES spaghetti.  He has the slurp of the noodle down.  Noodles noodles noodles he says!

Eating the noodles becomes very messy business! 

After Davey enjoyed his noodles, we took him for his first haircut.  He did so great.  He just sat and looked around and took it all in.  We didn't get drastic – no clippers, but she trimmed it up nice.  He was starting to get a mullet. 🙂

At one point, he gave the lady who cut his hair such a nice smile.  Darn it, I had her business card and name.  I need to find that.  The lady who cut his hair for the first time needs a name!

David had to take one of his hold the camera out in front of him photos.  I like this one.

The other night, I had gotten into bed to read for awhile.  We let Koko in at night to sleep and she sleeps at the foot of the bed.  I heard her chewing on something.  And chewing.  And chewing.  It just kept going; so I got up to check out what was going on.  She had some yarn in her mouth.  I had no idea she liked to eat yarn.  She had not done it in the past.  I'd let a ball of cotton yarn (connected to my in progress knit-a-long dishcloth) fall to the floor and she'd found it.

So this is the ewww part.  I started pulling on the yarn to get it out of her mouth.  I pulled and I pulled and I pulled and I pulled.  The yarn just kept coming in one long continous slimy strand.  I think I pulled about 3 feet of yarn out that she'd swallowed.  Then I followed the string of yarn all the way back through the living room, through the dining room, around the corner in the kitchen, back to my computer table.  I guess she was going to eat that entire ball of yarn.

Silly Koko.  It could have been bad I would imagine had she actually swallowed all that. 

ewwww.

Davey woke up from his nap just in time for the inauguration.  (I really have to hesitate and concentrate when I type that word for some reason.)  We both enjoyed it.  Davey likes to clap when everyone is clapping.  Obama gave a great speech.  We liked the music too by John Williams –  "Air and Simple Gifts" played by Yo Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman on violin, Gabriela Montero on piano and Anthony McGill on clarinet.  Finally, I also very much liked the poem by Elizabeth Alexander.  I can't imagine being commissioned to write a poem for the inauguration.  Pressure!

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.

And now maybe I have recorded a little of this day for Davey to read about when he gets older.  He won't remember clapping or dancing a little to the music.  But he watched the mall filled with people with me, and he listened (in his way) to the speech by President Obama.

It's Monday and David is back at school.  Every so often, Davey will stop and say dada?  then he says work – but it sounds like work with the vowels drawn out and no r. 

There are toys scattered from one end of the house to the other.  He likes to have them all around him.  Blocks are a favorite this morning ("bocks").

This morning we read books.  I said, "Davey do you want to read the Numbers book?" He went and grabbed it off the shelf.  He recognized the spine.  Really.  He did! 

We have been working on Davey saying Opa and Oma.  Today we had a breakthrough, and Davey now calls Opa and Oma, "Oop and Elmo". 

Davey loves Elmo at the moment.  We just got him an Elmo chair and he has a little Elmo from Nanny and Pa.  "Elmo Elmo" he says.  I guess Oma and Elmo sounds abit alike to him.  We have watched a little Sesame Street on netflix videos, and we have shown him some Elmo youtube videos.  He loves them.  "Elmo Elmo Elmo"!!!!

Davey loves blueberries for breakfast.  Loves them. David thaws frozen berries, and Davey will eat one after another.

Davey has a cold.  I have had it for several days, and I was hoping he would get nothing worse than the sniffle he has had.  Last night he had a fever though, and he was not feeling great today.  He played pretty normally though.  When I say "where is your ow?" – he holds his head.  He puts his hands on his temples.

When we ask him how old he is, he holds up his little right pointer and says "ONE!"

We built him his first fort which he has enjoyed thoroughly.  You can often find Daddy and him playing in the fort.

He loves cookies.  He looks at our beverages and says "drink".  He says "Meat!".  He loves crackers.  He loves "yo" (Yogurt). 

On New Year's Day it was a little chilly outside, but we put Davey's hat on and his little red vest, and he was good to go.  He just loves to go outside; it is as if he does not even feel the cold.  He walked and walked and walked.  Then he sat for quite awhile on the ground and played with leaves and sticks. 

I love that look he does out of the corner of his eyes. 

He wants to go charging into the woods amidst the brambles and barbed wire.  He also wants to charge down hills, although he does seem to know when he needs to take my hand.  He also knows immediately when it is safe to drop my hand again.

Finally it is time to go inside, and as you can see Davey is not too happy about it.  He recovers quickly though as you can see in the next picture:

I can hardly remember what we did last New Year's Eve.  We were back in Tennessee…I think.  No we were, but I don't remember it very much.  I guess we were still kind of tired with little Davey?  So I thought I would go to my blog archives, because surely I had posted an entry about the last day of 2007 and the beginning of 2008?  Nope.  Only one small entry in all of January.  So much for that.

So this year, I won't make that same mistake again, although I think I have recovered some of my memory making ability.  Yesterday, I made roly polies and then some cinnamon rolls with the leftover dough.  I'd made herring salad the night before, although I didn't have enough pickles so I had to add some more yesterday.  I have to say it was the best herring salad I'd ever made.  I made some pico de gallo and we had that with chips with our herring salad and rolls for dinner.  Is that an odd combination?  It seemed to work well together. 

Davey tried a few bites of herring salad.  He seemed to like it ok, but he was not coming out of the highchair trying to get more of it.  He did like the roly poly.  I made punch too.  Just like we made at home – ginger ale/pineapple juice/and frozen strawberries.  The floating strawberries freak David out a little but he had some too. 

After dinner, David took some herring salad and roly polies to Janis and Jerry.  Janis was actually not there, but she tried the roly polies later and liked them.  Jerry liked them a lot too.  Not so much on the herring salad.  Well like we always said at home, "that's ok if you don't like it; that means more for us!". :) 

We watched some Elf…again.  There was a 24 hour marathon of it on I think USA last night.  That might have been too much Elf even for me. 

Davey went to bed at 8:30pm.  David and I played Warhammer together until around 10:30 or so, then I went to bed to read.  We were asleep by midnight except that I think Davey woke up around then fussing a little.  He went right back to sleep though.

Ok so I think that about sums New Year's Eve.  Today on New Year's Day, we went to lunch at Janis and Jerry's.  We got our black-eyed peas.  They were good with cornbread, roast, rice, and cabbage.  She made a blueberry pie for dessert which was wonderful.  After lunch, we played in the yard with Davey for a long time.  He never wants to come in.  I confess that I promised him a cookie if' he'd come in.  That did the trick though.  "cookieeeeee" and he was headed towards the door.  All that outdoor time wore him out,and he is down for nap number 2.  Tonight we will have leftover herring salad for dinner.  Maybe a roly poly for dessert.

NOW I have an entry to look back on when next year I wonder what we did on New Year's Eve and Day!

(Davey tries some herring salad.)