This makes the first of three babies scheduled to enter our family this year. Our other niece Lauren (the Marine) is having a girl in December, and we follow up with another boy in January. Oh, and just to add to the fun, Roger’s sister LaNell is getting married in October. What a happy year for our growing family!

But back to the cuteness at hand…

Isaiah is only 3 days old in these pictures. Megan is being a great mom, showing me and Roger how to change the baby and telling us what to expect (eating, pooping, and sleeping – got it!). She’s had a great mentor though – Chanell is one happy grandma! And speaking of happy grandparents, James is pretty excited too. We missed seeing him due to work, but we saw the Clemson outfit Isaiah would be wearing this Saturday for the game, so he can cheer for the tigers along with Grandpa.

Roger and I got some practice in while we were there. Isaiah is the youngest baby I’ve ever held. He’s so sweet!

Roger was taking all of the pictures, so I don’t have any of him holding Isaiah. But I promise you he held him AND fed him. He was a natural!

We’re so happy for Megan. She’s feeling great and being the best mama. She even had time to baby me through a spell of nausea that hit while we were there. Oh the fun of pregnancy! She’s totally in love with Isaiah, and he’s obviously pretty fond of her too.

And Grandma’s pretty proud too.

More pictures of Isaiah are at our photos site.

Last Friday Lauren graduated from Marine boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. We’re so proud of her. As her mom said, she’s an adult now (and yes, there were tears soon after). I asked Lauren how the final test (known as the Crucible) went, and she told me it was “fun.” According to Wikipedia:

…the Crucible is a rigorous 54-hour field training exercise demanding the application of everything a recruit has learned until that point in recruit training, and includes a total of 48 miles of marching . It simulates typical combat situations with strenuous testing, hardship, and the deprivation of food and sleep. A recruit is given three MREs and four to eight hours of sleep through the entire 54-hour event.

Yeah, that sounds like “fun.”

We got to the base around 6:00am so we could find a good seat, and the Marines were already up and practicing the ceremony for the 1,000th time. The weather was awful, but we didn’t mind too much. After all, if Lauren could deal with total hell for 12 weeks, we could deal with a little rain.

Unfortunately the weather didn’t let up, so the ceremony was moved inside. There’s not as much room inside, so the Marines didn’t march by the crowd as they would have outside. But they still looked great. From my vantage point, graduation went something like this:

• An officer yells or grunts something I don’t understand.
• All the Marines move together from attention to saluting to at ease.

I asked Lauren later if she could actually understand what they were saying or if she just knew what to do and when. She said at first, the officers speak normally to them and slowly. Then they speed it up and get louder until you’re used to it. So yeah, she knew what they were saying.

After graduation, we walked down to greet the toughest member of our family. Here she is with her parents and recruiting officer. The uniform she’s wearing is called her “Service Charlies.”

By the way, the little tag on her shirt is not a name tag. It’s a medal to let you know Lauren knows how to use a gun. She also explained to me a few combat tactics she learned, including her tan belt in mixed martial arts. I’m a little afraid (and totally proud!). Definitely getting my niece whatever she wants for Christmas!

There’s more pictures on our photo site, including some from family day where you can see more of the base.

One day they taught us the song “My Old Man.” They told us the words were:

My old man’s a sailor, what do you think about that?
He wears a sailor’s collar, he wears a sailor’s hat.
He wears a sailor’s raincoat, he wears a sailor’s shoes,
and every Saturday evening he reads the sailor’s news.
And someday,
if I can,
I’m gonna be a sailor, the same as my old man.

Then they said we were supposed to substitute our own father’s occupation for the word “sailor.” Well I wasn’t sure what my dad’s title was. I guess I wasn’t the only one because the teacher told us we could ask our dads about it when we got home, and we’d sing the song again tomorrow.

So I headed off home, and do you know what my dad’s title is? SYSTEMS ANALYST. When I told him about the song, he started cracking up. So I tried all night to fit the 5-syllable word where the simple-and-easy “sailor” was before. But hey, I loved a challenge.

I mastered that song and I never forgot my dad’s job title. I’m sure I surprised many an elementary teacher later when they asked, “And what does your father do for a living?” And my 8-year-old face lit up and rattled off, “He’s a systems analyst!” Yeah, take THAT Miss Teacher! Just don’t ask me to spell it.

On a sidenote, I was trying to find the words to “My Old Man” online because I couldn’t remember every line. And I came across a hilarious Smothers Brothers routine. It’s a fitting find, because I used to watch the Smothers Brothers show with my parents. I loved Tom Smothers as the yo-yo man.

What’s your dad’s job title? Or your mom’s? You could change the song to “My Old Lady.” Although I guess that would mean your wife. Well, whatever. Can you top systems analyst?