Little Brendan

Here are some pictures of the first pep rally we attended at ND--just before they played Penn State. (You can click on the picture to make it bigger). The bottom picture shows all of the ND players in suit and tie. Brady is the dude in the front row just over the top of the cheerleaders head (to the left of the podium). If you look close you can see Zibby's ugly mohawk. "It's probably the the best I've ever seen."

There were nearly 45,000 people at the pep rally. Beings that we sat in the middle of all of the dorms with the die hard fans with painted bodies, oddly colored hair, and chants that probably shouldn't be repeated, Brendan kept looking at us with that look that said, "What in the heck are we doing here with these people?"

As for a little update on Brendan...

His vocabulary has increased substantially. I can't remember all the words, nor can I remember what I posted on the last blog, but here is my best effort:

He loves to point at the ducks that live in the pond across the street and say "Duckies" Mel or I will then repeat the word and then he'll say, "Fishies", for the fish that we feed bread to whenever the ducks are MIA. He loves to say "kuck" for truck--the 'tr' is a tough one still. Once you say truck, he'll say "car". He still loves the words grandma, grandpa, sock, shoe, horsie, cow (which sounds a lot like car), "Come on Momma!", "Hi dada", we're working on "school"--sometimes he says it sometimes he doesn't. One Mel's favorites is to go shopping and he will suddenly burst out a friendly "Hi" to everyone that passes and if they don't acknowledge him he'll keep saying it again and again until they do at least give an annoyed smile. He loves to go on walks, especially if there is dirt or "tra'er" (tractor's) involved. He loves to say ball, loves to eat pretzels (as long as he has at least one to hold in each hand), he often times throws a fit when it's time to eat unless you get a spoon or a fork for him to hold in his hand. He loves peaches, cottage cheese, hot dogs, eggs, rice krispies, apple sauce, ham, cheese, juice (he drinks it like there is no tomorrow), purple grapes, and will at least try anything that mom and dad are eating. He knows the oven is "hot" and if we bring him food and he either sees us blow on it or tell him it is hot he will say, "hot" and then blow out his mouth, even if there is no food to blow on. I could go on and on, but I know from personal experience that the longer the blog entry looks, the less likely people are to actually read it. So I will call it quits for tonight. Oh by the way, he is now sleeping in a big boy bed and thankfully had absolutely no problems with the transition. He also knows where the "baby" is and kisses Mel's stomach every time we ask him where the baby is. The other day, we went out to lunch with Brother and Sister Boyle here at ND and he asked me, "Did you ever think you could love someone so much?" It really hit me. I know Mom used to always say that, but it had been a long time since I had actually stopped and thought about that. How true it is. The love that we both have for him is only understood by someone else with children that share that same profound, undescribable love.