Merry Christmas!

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

"Yeah, ha ha. Reindeer antlers. Nice."

"Stupid elevated trees."

Books, books, books

Spencer loves books. And we love that he loves books. We've been reading to him since he was born. He didn't know we were reading to him, but we were. And now we get our reward...he loves his books! We have many, many books, mainly board books with cutesy titles, catchy, rhyming text, and colorful animation. He will sit in a lap and follow along. He will even 'help' turn the pages. Fred once tried to let Spencer turn the pages on his own, and he read whatever page Spencer turned to. It went something like this: 'a long time ago'...'there were dinosaurs'...'a long'...'there were dino'...'a long time ago'...'there'...'a long time'...'there were dinosaurs'...as Spencer just went back and forth rapidly between the first 2 pages. It's generally better to let him help turn the pages. One of the first things Spencer does when we put him on the living room floor is crawl over to the shelf where we keep his books and pull them all down. He will spend many minutes (for a 10 month old, 'many minutes' is a long time!) playing with his books.

Fred and I each have our favorites (Spencer pretty much loves all his books). My favorites are 'Way Out in the Desert', 'Snuggle Puppy' and 'Guess How Much I Love You'. Fred's are 'Barnyard Dance', 'Goodnight Moon', and 'Hippos Go Berserk'. See, cutesy titles. 'Hippos Go Berserk' is especially catchy...One hippo all alone, calls 2 hippos on the phone. 3 hippos at the door, bring along another 4...9 hippos come to work, all the hippos go berserk!' This is one of our newer books, but I can already recite the entire book, as well as 3 or 4 other books that I rotate through on a daily basis. And along those same lines, I can also recite all 9 songs from one of Spencer's toys. Yikes.

So, we will always make sure we have a good assortment of books on hand. Right now we're still in the baby board books, which are awesome because no pages to rip and tear. But we also have some 'real' books waiting for him when he's ready. I love that he's so into books...I think he must be a prodigy. My baby is brilliant!

First word?

So Spencer may have said his first word. How can you tell? Is that just a random noise? He "says" a lot of things. I'm going to count this one because he's repeated and he says it with meaning. According to me, his Dad, Spencer's first word was, "Hey!"
That may not seem like a huge milestone, but he has already used it in a myriad of ways. That little exclamation has become whole sentences in the context of his life. Here are some examples:

• "Hey!" = "Don't knock me over."
• "Hey!" = "I bonked my head."
• "Hey!" = "I don't want to go to bed yet."
• "Hey!" = "Give me that!"
• "Hey!" = "Hey, its you!"
• "Hey!" = "Hey!"
• "Hey!" = "Go Falcons!"

Maybe its not one for the record books, but its a pretty useful word. As you can see he gets a lot of use out of it. Maybe he'll grow up to be a great communicator making artistic use of as few words as possible to express the heart of the matter in its simplist of terms.

Or maybe he'll become an NFL kicker like his Dad wants him to be.

Crawling and Teething

Spencer finally started crawling last week! Hooray! He started crawling a bit later than the average baby (most babies start around 7 or 8 months), perhaps, as my dad said, because he knew we were going to pick him up and take him where he needed/wanted to go eventually. What can I say...we're first time parents. Anyway, he is now crawling. It's still a little bit awkward and unsteady. He looks a little bit like a crawling doll I got for Christmas one year; a bit slow and robotic. But it's very cute! And now we need to finish baby-proofing the house. I know that all of you who have already had kids go through this stage are saying 'just wait, you'll wish soon enough that he was immobile again!' Perhaps we will soon be wondering why we encouraged this stage of development. But as my dad also said, it is our job as parents to encourage our children to develop and succeed, even if it's not always in our best interest (I added that part).

Spencer also got his 8th tooth last week. So we're all sleeping through the night again. It is amazing that he already has 8 teeth. He actually started teething quite early, and had his first tooth break through the gums at 4.5 months. Hopefully we'll have a break from the teething for a while now, but I hear the next few are generally pretty bad.

Breastfeeding

In case you haven't heard there was a woman kicked off of a flight in Vermont for breastfeeding her 22-month old daughter. The woman was sitting next to the window in the next to the last row of a Freedom Airlines (Delta) flight. Her husband was sitting on the aisle seat. A flight attendant offered her a blanket to cover up her nursing daughter saying she (the flight attendant) was offended. The mother refused to cover up saying she had the right to breastfeed her baby. The flight attendant had the woman removed from the flight. The woman has filed a complaint with the VT Human Rights Commission. Across the country last week women (and there supportive family and friends) staged 'nurse-ins' at Delta ticket counters.

I am proud to be a breastfeeding mother. I am glad that I have been able to continue to breastfeed Spencer for the past 10 months even though I work full-time. I am proud that Spencer has never been supplemented with formula. I breastfeed in public, and I feel self conscious about it. I never know if the people whispering are commending me or criticising me. I always wonder, and it makes me hesitate. But I continue to breastfeed in public. Luckily I have never had a negative experience...I even got a thumbs up from a fellow diner at a restaurant for breastfeeding Spencer while waiting for my food. It is sad that I feel self conscious every time I do something so natural, so normal, and so healthy and beneficial for both Spencer and myself.

This country needs to get over it and learn that not all things breast-related are sexual or offensive. Get a grip, people.

For more information on this news story:

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061115/NEWS01/61115010

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15720339/?from=ET

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101316.html

First blog post!

Hello family and friends! This is the first blog on Spencer's new blog site. We thought this would be a good way for you all to keep in touch with Spencer. He is growing and changing so quickly...we really should have done this months ago! I'm not much of a blog reader or blog writer though, so this is really sort of a test and we'll see how it goes.

Spencer was born on February 1st, 2006. He was 9 lbs, 13 oz and 23.5 inches long. Now, at nearly 10 months old, he is approximately 22 lbs and 30 inches long/tall. Spencer is not crawling yet, but is rolling, sitting, standing, and walks holding our hands. He is eating solid foods, mashed and pureed stuff but also finger foods such as cheerios and stewed/steamed vegetables and finely chopped poultry and fruit (he loves bananas!). He is still breastfeeding (and takes breastmilk bottles while I'm at work). He sleeps through the night most nights. Spencer has 7 teeth, 4 on top and 3 on bottom...and some recent restless nights indicate that number 8 may be on its way.

Spencer's 'Nana' (paternal grandmother) takes care of him during the day. It's been so great having a family member take care of Spencer. He loves it, we love it, and we hope Nana loves it! Spencer was in daycare from 3-7 months of age. It was fine, but we're much happier with the present situation.

Well, that's about it for now. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Newborn baby Spencer!

Spencer (~2 months old) and Daddy

Hanging out (~6 months old) Spencer's first Halloween!

Spencer (~9.5 months old) and Mommy