Movies, Music, and More

First of all, today is my Mom’s birthday, so Happy Birthday Mom.

Okay, now that that’s taken care of, lets move on with more fun stories about Austin. You know, all you parents of multiple children out there can attest that you love all your children the same, and Angie and I feel the same way with Austin and Lucas. But at this point in our lives, it’s Austin that provides us with all of our “blog fodder” and thus he’s the only one we ever seem to write about. We’ll have to watch Luke more closely I guess, and as he starts talking more and more I’m sure he’ll soon be making contributions here as well. But for now you get Austin Unscripted and Unedited (see Streaking post dated June 11th).

As we’ve mentioned before, Austin has an amazing ability to see and/or hear things and instantly commit them to memory. Here are but a few of our favorite examples of late:

1. Cruella Deville – Granted, Austin has seen 101 Dalmations more than once, but really, when compared to his other movies, I don’t know that I’d even put it in his top 10 favorite movies. So far as I know, he really has only seen it a few times. Yet, one of his favorite songs of late has been the Cruella Deville song. And he can sing the whole thing. And when I say sing, I mean really sing. He holds the notes he’s supposed to. He fluctuates his voice accordingly (I’m sure there’s some technical musical term for this, but neither Angie nor I have the first clue about singing so we have no idea where he gets his abilities – Jeff Corry can attest to my complete lack of singing ability from back in the mission days!). At any rate, Austin loves this song, loves to sing it, and sings it quite well.

2. “Panda”monium – Austin loves everything about Kung Fu Panda right now – AND HE HASN’T EVEN SEEN THE MOVIE YET!!! He even knows that Jack Black is the voice of Po the Panda. When Austin practices his Kung Fu he doesn’t say he’s Po the Panda, he says he’s Jack Black being Po the Panda. At any rate, as I said, he hasn’t even seen the movie yet, but a few days ago Angie and the boys were at the store and they saw Kung Fu Pez dispensers. Austin just had to have Po the Panda and said Lucas could have the tiger one, don’t know the name of that one. So Angie bought them for the boys, but they were put into the Crawford Store for Austin to earn. He gets Crawford Bucks for completing chores on his chore chart, and every Saturday we open the Crawford Store and he can buy whatever’s in the store (prizes and prices may vary as decided upon by Mom and Dad). At any rate, Austin decided to purchase his Pez dispenser this week from the Crawford Store and as he was playing with it he announced, “Prepare for pandamonium” and then proceeded with all his Kung Fu kicks and chops.

Angie and I just started laughing uncontrollably. Austin doesn’t really know why it’s funny, but then he just keeps saying it because it makes us laugh. I personally have never heard that on any of the commercials for the movie, but I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. It’s just something he heard and picked up on.

3. Indiana Jones – Again, Austin has never seen any of the Indiana Jones movies, yet inexplicably he knows the theme music. On Sunday we were at my aunt and uncle’s house (down in Molalla, OR) where they have quite a sizeable yard and surrounding wooded area. They have a rope swing strung between a couple of trees on their property which Austin was playing on for quite some time. Meanwhile, Angie and I were up on the deck sitting in the shade, chatting with relatives, and keeping an eye on Austin and his whereabouts. Suddenly Angie taps me and says “Listen to him” and points down to Austin. We could hear him over at the rope swing singing the Indiana Jones theme. You know how it goes,

Ba Da Dum Dummm
Ba Da Dummm
Ba Da Dum Dummm
Ba Da Dum Dum Dum
Ba Da Dum Dummm
Ba Da Dummm
Ba Da Dum Da, Da Dum Da, Da Dum Da…

We just gave each other our patented “Holy Cow, that’s our son and he’s a genius” look and started to laugh. Seriously, he amazes us all the time with his memory.