Tigger Rallies for Obama

Last night Senator Obama held his last rally on the campaign trail in Manassas, VA, about an hour outside of DC. Since Papa Tigger and I have never seen Obama in person, we bundled up Tigger and set out to Virginia.

Although we expected lots of people and lines, we were completely unprepared for the nearly 100,000 at the event!

Luckily, our credentials from the HRC rally the day before got us into the staff area. So we had a good view of Obama:

This picture is from underneath the press riser:

After the rally was a less fun experience. The rally was on the Manassas fair grounds and there was only a single lane road (seriously) leading out of the main parking area. In fact, parking was so difficult that the event staff parked people on the Manassass speedway on the fair grounds. Here are all the cars on the speedway sitting for 2 hours (again, seriously) after the event waiting to get out. Luckily, Tigger was fed, bundled up and asleep in his car seat and didn't mind at all.

Tigger & HRC

Papa Tigger produced a rally for Hillary Clinton last night, on behalf of the Obama campaign. It was a great event. Under 1,000 were expected, but ~3,500 showed up. It was her last rally of this election cycle...

The crowd (at about half-full, 2 hours before the event) and the press - way more cameras than we expected!


Both Mama Tigger and Tigger got to meet her back stage after the event.


And a family shot:


Unfortunately, Tigger had just fallen asleep after the excitement of the rally, and Mama Tigger thought it best to keep him in the stroller, rather than wake him up for the picture. Next time, I suppose!

Happy Halloween

Last night was Tigger's first Halloween! He was a spider and was quite the sport while we put his costume on:





Here he is all done up:

Once Tigger was all suited up, we went to a neighboorhood Halloween party. He pretty much slept through the whole thing, despite Papa Tigger turning him upside down and playing with him!

Finally, here's a pic of a neighbor's yard decorated for Halloween. Kind of funny (and sad)!

Clint's Onesie

You may remember the Birthday and Baby Extravaganza back in August where we had a onesie-decorating project at G-Ma and G-Pa T's house. Family and friends decorated onesies for Tigger's impending arrival.

Well, he's here and is big enough to fit into some of them. Below is the first in the occasional series, "Tigger's Designer Duds"....

Clint:

(Tigger's staring at the ceiling fan):

He's going, pretty much every 3 hours. We are already master diaperers...

Two Month Checkup

Today Caleb visited the pediatrician for his two month checkup. He's doing great! His height and weight stats were:

22 1/4 inches long
10 1/2 pounds

Both of these are the 10-20% percentile for a two month old. If you adjust for him being premature and compare him against one month olds, he's at the 50% percentile. He's our happy, chubby baby!

He wasn't too happy though with the shots. He was scheduled for four shots today, according to the AAP's standard immunization schedule. I've been reading What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children's Vaccinations, which presents a rather pessimistic view of vaccinations. Though the author does stretch the results of some studies to present a dooms-day view of vaccinations, it's a good perspective to weigh against the pro-vaccination view we hear from the medical community.

Though Papa Tigger and I don't want to get caught up in the current herd mentality about vaccinations being dangerous, we recognize that there might be a small grain of truth in the hype. Ultimately, we'd rather be safe than sorry.

We talked to the doctor today about delaying and spacing out the two-month vaccinations. She recommended the AAP schedule, but said she frequently accomodates parents who want to deviate from the schedule. She did strongly urge us to complete all four vaccinations before Caleb goes to daycare (though it's hard for me to imagine him getting polio at daycare).

So our decision was to do two vaccinations (DTaP and Hib) today and do the other two (Polio, Prevnar) in a month before he goes into daycare. He was quite a champ and only cried for a few seconds after being stuck. Unfortunately, this means a few days of soreness, fever and fussiness, which is no fun for any of us:(