Standing Up, Allergies, and Campaign Rallies

Last week was a very busy week for Brock. He turned 10 Months old last Monday. On Tuesday he pulled himself up on the couch for the first time and he's been crawling a lot. He also likes to open and close dresser drawers. He could do this for hours. He hasn't smashed his fingers yet and I try very hard to protect them but I know it will happen eventually. On Friday I left him sitting alone in his room for a couple of minutes and when I got back this is how I found him.

He was smiling at me like he knew he just did something new and awesome - standing up by himself at his little table. Later that afternoon he was standing up when I went to get him up from his nap. I am very proud of him for standing but now he refuses to take his nap. He just stands there and cries. When I lay him back down he cries even more and stands up again in 2 seconds.

On Wednesday I had to take him to the doctor for a follow-up on his ears. His ears looked great and the doctor was going to give him the flu vaccine but decided he needed to have an allergy test first to see if he is allergic to eggs. The vaccine is contraindicated in people with egg allergies and because Brock has always had rashes she decided we should check this to be sure. We went to the hospital lab where we are known so well. They took 2 tubes of blood from inside his elbow and he sat very still and didn't cry until she took the needle out and then he only cried a tiny bit. I was very proud of him. I think he is tough. We got the results today and it's not good. Brock is allergic eggs and milk. We are still waiting for results on the peanut allergy.

And finally, the political rally. I got an email from the McCain campaign saying Sarah Palin would be in the area on Sunday. They provided campaign offices where tickets would be available so on Friday I went and picked up tickets. Well, it didn't matter if you had tickets because they apparently gave tickets to a million people for a place that holds 100 people. It was so crowded we could hardly walk and of course I couldn't see anything. It was also super hot. We found the line for people with tickets and it was the longest line I have ever seen. If we went to the end we would have stood in one spot for hours and there was no way we would get close to see her. Then we find out she's speaking much later than the time they had said previously. We finally left because it was way to hot to stand there for that long when we couldn't even see anything. I did buy some buttons so at least I got something out of it and when we were leaving we had to stop for the campaign bus to drive thru the intersection. Jared saw her husband through the bust window. This picture is inside the movie theater near the rally. We went inside to cool off. As you can see, Brock was not happy about how our afternoon turned out.



They said on the news today that this rally was the biggest in presidential campaign history in our state and was 4 times bigger than the #2 rally.

10 Months Old!

Brock Waves Bye-Bye

Brock waved bye-bye this morning when Jared was walking towards the door. Neither one of us was waving so he thought of it on his own. Last Friday Brock waved to his picture on the computer monitor and also to a picture of Jared and did other random waving during the day. That was the first day he did any waving. Then on Saturday we were cleaning up the garage and Jared walked outside where we couldn't see him. A couple of minutes later Brock started waving. I wasn't sure at the time if he was waving because Jared was gone, but now I think that is why. Yesterday he waved to himself in the mirror. All of these times he did it without us trying to get him to. Before, when Jared left for work in the morning we tried to get him to wave and he would just stare at us. This is a video of him waving last night.



These are pictures from the past week.

Brock has been making a tiny mouth a lot lately.

Shoes!


We found this basketball when we were cleaning out the garage. Jared gave it to me a long time ago. I knew it was a good idea to keep it all these years.


Brock gets up on his knees now to play with one of his favorite toys.

9 Months Portraits

Here are some additional pictures from August.

New Friends

Our friends, Josh and Sara, adopted two children from Africa. They have been waiting a few months for the adoption to be completed and on August 19th they traveled to Guinea to pick up the children. Aminata turned 4 years old on September 1st and her brother, Andrew, is 6 days younger than Brock. The children are adorable and we are very happy for Josh and Sara. I added the link to their website to the right. The stories Sara posted about their trip are very interesting. On Monday we attended Aminata's birthday party. These are some pictures I took at the party.