After much deliberation, we have succumbed to peer pressure from family and other outside forces--after all, blogging is cool, right?--and have decided to create our own blog. For those not in the know, our title comes from an obscure word Rosalyn found in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary). An evestigation is "an earnest seeking after," which seemed appropriate, since we do claim to be seeking after something--a degree, a sane child, happiness, truth, a reason to go shopping . . .

This opening post represents our attempt to join the modern/postmodern information superhighway(s) or internet(s) (which we all know is just a series of tubes, as our good friend, the senator from Alaska has told us). While we make no promises that this post will be erudite (like some we could name), we can promise . . . well, actually, at this point, we probably shouldn't make any promises. Really, we know that this is just an excuse to indulge our inner exhibitionists (and your inner voyeurs) and talk a lot about ourselves. Because really, this is all about us.

In the immortal words of Emily Dickinson (Dan says I'm trying to show off):

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog! (blog, whatever)

Or, in Dan's words, this will be an up-to-the-minute, slam-bam, thank-you-ma'am digest of all the happenings in Pennsyltucky. (Which really means that we will be posting lots of pictures of Andrew at sporadic intervals. And maybe a little news. If you're lucky. Which you probably aren't.)

Ahem. After all that preliminary throat clearing, we ought to at least provide our faithful readers with some reward for their efforts.

Most of the entertaining episodes in our lives center, not surprisingly, around Andrew. Several months ago we paid nearly $30 for a projection mobile to put on Andrew's crib (http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=2001&e=detail&site=us&pid=30905&selcat=bgtoys). In theory, this would soothe him to sleep. In reality, Andrew didn't know of its existence until the last week or so. As he’s learned how to sit (and stand) in his crib, he’s also discovered the mobile. And it terrifies him. For some reason, Dan thinks it’s hilarious to find his son, sitting in his darkened room after a nap (or first thing in the morning) staring at the fluttering birdies, moving lights, and sobbing as if his heart will break.

Our other entertaining discovery was the realization that Andrew likes books. Quite literally, he has a taste for them. Earlier this week we went to Barnes and Nobles and purchased a little book for Andrew on colors. He seemed to particularly like it, as it’s just the right size for him to hold easily. I put it in his crib, to keep him entertained for a few minutes when he first wakes up. The other day, I was working on my dissertation (something I do actually do on occasion) when I heard him stirring. As I was in the middle of a passage, and as he wasn’t actually crying, I left him in his crib for about ten or fifteen minutes (hoping vainly that he would go back to sleep). When I finally got him up and brought him into another room, I noticed little white flecks on his face. Somewhat alarmed, I opened his mouth and removed a wad of soggy white paper. I couldn’t figure out how he had gotten access to that much paper in his crib, so I went back to investigate. And there discovered the remnants of his new book. Apparently, Andrew had sucked on the corner of the book (and the binding) until it started to disintegrate, and then proceeded to chew the corner off. Clearly, we have a budding bookworm on our hands!