Born Tiger

Still no baby, so it's a great opportunity to catch up on John stories. Was he born with a college affiliation? Absolutely! As much as can be done (since only a small portion of anything to do with children is actually in the hands of the parents) we planned his birth around football season. John had a sign on the hospital door that read "It's a Tiger". He came home in a tiger baby cap (made with love by his G.G.). When he was 9 days old he attended his first Clemson tailgate (missed the game because it was a noon game in the high 80s or 90s) decked out in Clemson gear from head to toe...literally. No brainwashing here, he was just born into a Clemson family. He slept through a lot of football games his first season, but stayed for most of each game except short trips to the tailgate for a snack. At one tailgate he blew away his competition (Knox, my old roomie Claire's son that is 5 days older) in a drinking race. When I was in college, did it ever occur to me that I'd be spending a significant portion of my half-time tailgating time nursing in other people's cars? Not quite. At one of the games we took John to get his picture with the Tiger. They have a pep-rally before each game, and we knew that would be our best chance to catch him. We were there early and were the first ones to get pictures with the Tiger, who really enjoyed holding John. Right after than we ran into the twirlers, who REALLY enjoyed holding John. So, right from the beginning he was not only a Clemson fan, but a ladies' man as well. He was pretty hungry in this picture, and if you look closely, you can see where his focus is. I've entitled it "Got Milk?" (John, if you're reading this years from now, "Got Milk" was a huge ad campaign.) Unfortunately it's gotten more difficult to make it to games, but we still made it to a few tailgates last year, where John discovered fried chicken....yum, and we'll definitely do our best to give Spicy-Ann the same introduction this year.

Alright, having trouble posting pictures right now. I'll try to put them up soon.