When Spencer is tired he becomes overly sensitive, melodramatic and emotional.
Tonight he decided he wanted to wear his plush Toy Story slippers to bed instead of socks. I said that was fine and put his socks on the dresser. So he gets into bed and I start reading him a story. A few paragraphs into the story he gets very sad and starts to cry. So I ask him why he's crying.
Me: Spencer, why are you crying?
S: I miss my socks!
Me (laughing a little bit): You mean the socks over on your dresser? But you said you wanted to wear your slippers to bed.
S, more sad: I know but I miss them!
I start laughing harder, then...
S: I miss the bottoms!
Me: You miss the bottoms of your socks!?
S: Yes! I miss the bottoms of my socks! They have that sweet little word on them! (He's sad and crying in earnest as he says this...I mean he really misses the bottoms of his socks with the 'sweet little word'!)
I'm laughing really hard, and he is upset that I'm laughing but can't help but laugh so he's laughing and crying at the same time.
I get up and get the socks. I bring them to him. The word on the bottom is 'Hanes'. He points out the 'sweet' word that he missed so much and swaps his slippers for his socks.
Maybe I shouldn't laugh at these sentimental outbursts. I know he's sensitive, and he was just really tired. But seriously, how can 'I miss the sweet word on the bottom of my socks' not crack me up?
Monday, November 15, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Halloween 2010
Another Halloween, come and gone. It seemed like an entire weekend of festivities, starting with his school party on Friday and ending in an evening of trick-or-treating on Sunday. He had a great time at his school party...they had a pinata, a costume parade, crafts, and broom races (his favorite thing though was poking other kids with his plush pterodactyl head). He was all smiles all day long.
On Saturday morning we bought pumpkins, and after having brunch with a few friends we got to the business of carving. Spencer wouldn't clean out his pumpkin...he said it was too 'slurmy' (his word for slimy/gooey/slushy/etc). Which is weird, because he loves mud, dirt, worms, bugs, etc. Oh well. I think he pulled out 2 seeds and I did the rest. He did however draw the face on his pumpkin this year. He did a pretty good job, too! I let him help with the carving a little (no, he was not using that huge knife...just the small, nearly harmless carving tool).
For trick-or-treating we met up with several neighbors as we have in years past and went through the neighborhood as a group. It's a lot of fun for the kids and the adults. Spencer and a little 4-year old girl from down the street (in an amazing Dorothy outfit...she had sparkly red shoes and Toto in a basket) were the stragglers, but they were ok with that. I enjoyed listening to their 4-year old chit chat as they walked down the streets with candy buckets in one hand and holding hands with the other. 
And a few pictures from our annual trip to one of the area corn maze/fall fun farms. We went with some friends to a really fun place called Corn Dawgs. This particular place had a tunnel slide going through a large hill. At first Spencer was hesitant, but after the first time going down by himself he turned into a sliding maniac and wouldn't stop! He must have gone up and down that slide about 15 or 20 times on his own. He just kept sliding down then running back up the hill to do it again...it was exhausting just watching him.
On Saturday morning we bought pumpkins, and after having brunch with a few friends we got to the business of carving. Spencer wouldn't clean out his pumpkin...he said it was too 'slurmy' (his word for slimy/gooey/slushy/etc). Which is weird, because he loves mud, dirt, worms, bugs, etc. Oh well. I think he pulled out 2 seeds and I did the rest. He did however draw the face on his pumpkin this year. He did a pretty good job, too! I let him help with the carving a little (no, he was not using that huge knife...just the small, nearly harmless carving tool).
For trick-or-treating we met up with several neighbors as we have in years past and went through the neighborhood as a group. It's a lot of fun for the kids and the adults. Spencer and a little 4-year old girl from down the street (in an amazing Dorothy outfit...she had sparkly red shoes and Toto in a basket) were the stragglers, but they were ok with that. I enjoyed listening to their 4-year old chit chat as they walked down the streets with candy buckets in one hand and holding hands with the other. 
And a few pictures from our annual trip to one of the area corn maze/fall fun farms. We went with some friends to a really fun place called Corn Dawgs. This particular place had a tunnel slide going through a large hill. At first Spencer was hesitant, but after the first time going down by himself he turned into a sliding maniac and wouldn't stop! He must have gone up and down that slide about 15 or 20 times on his own. He just kept sliding down then running back up the hill to do it again...it was exhausting just watching him.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
The beach
Earlier this month we spent a week at Topsail Island, NC. We stayed in a beautiful house on the beach with 2 other families. My 13-year old niece was able to come out from Colorado to join us. Spencer did well on the 8-hour drive there (our new portable DVD player definitely helped...at home we still limit TV, but on an 8-hour car trip anything goes). The house had a kids room with 2 sets of bunk beds, and Spencer surprisingly chose a top bunk. I was a little concerned since it was his first experience sleeping on a top bunk, but he loved it and maneuvered up and down the ladder with no problems.He slept moderately well, though toward the end of the trip was tired and cranky and asking to go home. (Historically he hasn't slept well at all on these types of trips.) Of course, now that we're home, he keeps talking about the beach house and how he wants to go back. He's decided it's too long of a drive though so we'll fly next time. I told him the other day that there are new families taking their turn at the beach house and we don't know them, so he said we need to have a 'meeting' with them so we can know them and stay at the beach house with them.
We arrived at the beach Saturday evening and of course the kids (Spencer, my niece and our friends 4-year old son) went right in the water, clothes and all. Sunday was a beautiful day and we spent a lot of time at the beach. Monday I woke up with a sore throat and headache. By Monday evening I had severe chills and felt like my throat and head were on fire. It pretty much sucked. I was sick for several days, and wasn't truly well for the rest of our time at the beach. Spencer checked on me often, asking in a very soft voice 'Do you feel better, mommy?'. It was very sweet. With the help of ibuprofen I managed to rejoin vacation on Thursday. On Friday we visited the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Hospital which was very cool. It's a really great place and they do great work for the sea turtles. If you ever make it to Topsail Island (which I recommend) you should definitely check out the sea turtle hospital.
I heard that Spencer's favorite beach game was 'sneak attack'. I didn't really see this since I missed so much beach time. But apparently Fred and Spencer would stand or sit in the surf and wait for a wave. Once in a while a larger wave would come over them when they weren't expecting it: sneak attack! Spencer still talks about 'sneak attack'. He loved the wildlife...we saw dolphins several times, pelicans, and different species of sand/beach birds (which he loved chasing). One evening we spent half an hour following a crab down the beach. It would disappear in the surf and we'd see it's eyes poking out of the water. And of course we came home with quite an assortment of (mostly broken) seashells that Spencer collected.
I think everyone else had a great vacation and no one seemed to catch my illness (I am very proud of my infection control measures!).
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Blah blah blog
I was contemplating discontinuing my Spencer blog. I'm not a very good blogger, I don't update in a timely manner, and am not sure anyone would miss it. But then I heard from a few folks who do actually read it (in addition to the 2 or 3 people who I know read it because they leave nice comments :-) And I went back through old posts and realized what a gold mine of memories I have in this blog. Things that I had forgotten about. Things that didn't make it into the baby book (I'm even worse at updating Spencer's baby book than I am at updating this blog site!). I may even print off the blog pages and put them into a binder or something, just in case the Internet disappears or eats my blog site.
Blogging is a fascinating thing to me. It amazes me that some people are so good at it that they make a living. Many of my friends blogs are very well written, funny, interesting...I enjoy them immensely. These are my regular, favorite blogs (in no particular order):
So, I have decided to keep this blog alive, probably at the same pace and level as it has been. Stay tuned for some summer beach stories and updates!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Random
Seems like we are always busy doing something random. Our past month consisted of out of town guests (hooray!) which included a trip to the aquarium, Spencer's first rodeo out in Shady Dale, GA, lots of swimming in lakes and pools, bbqs and playdates, and unfortunately the not at all fun visit to the dentist to have 5 cavities filled (which I won't go into details about because it was not fun. Suffice it to say he had to be consciously sedated which was really hard for all of us. But, he's fine and his teeth are all fixed! And best of all he really doesn't remember it, so won't be terrified the next time we take him to the dentist).
Spencer also finished another year of preschool. It seemed like more of a behavioral challenge for him this year. He had a difficult time listening to the teachers and had some problems with temper tantrums. His teachers actually started a behavior chart for him, which seemed to help sometimes. I don't know what was going on...was it him? was it the teachers? was it us?...but I'm kind of glad the school year is over. We'll see how he does in summer camp and with his new teachers next year. I'm also feeling thankful that he didn't get into public elementary pre-k next year which would have been a bigger class and more time at school. Maybe we need another year to prepare him for that after all.
Spencer loved having houseguests. He and 2-year old C were immediately friends...despite the episodes of bickering (the best was when they were both trying to name Spencer's teddy bear; Spencer said his name was Gobble, but C insisted he was 'teddy bear' and it went round like that with escalating shrilly voices for a few minutes. C's mom and I kept trying to convince them they were BOTH right...and besides, who CARES?!). When our friends left Spencer asked if I had remembered to get their address for our 'electronic map' (GPS) so that we could go visit them.
And a sort of related, funny story about company...Spencer asked me about a tag on a shirt and I told him it said 'Fruit of the Loom', the name of the company who made the shirt. A few seconds later he started asking about our friends who had stayed with us, and if his friend made the shirt. I finally realized what he was asking, and after I stopped laughing I explained to him the different meanings of the word 'company', and that no, his friend C did not make his t-shirt.
Spencer enjoyed his first ever rodeo experience. He loves animals and was thrilled to be able to get so close to the steers and calves. I'm not sure he knew what to think of saddle bronc riding (but then, who does?). He loved the ponies at the pony ride, but it took him a while to actually get on one. Which is strange considering he hops right on my mom's full grown horse.
We can't keep him out of the water this year. If we are near water, he wants to be in it. This includes lakes, streams, swimming pools, and backyard sprinklers. But there are definitely worse ways to spend the summer in Atlanta!
Spencer also finished another year of preschool. It seemed like more of a behavioral challenge for him this year. He had a difficult time listening to the teachers and had some problems with temper tantrums. His teachers actually started a behavior chart for him, which seemed to help sometimes. I don't know what was going on...was it him? was it the teachers? was it us?...but I'm kind of glad the school year is over. We'll see how he does in summer camp and with his new teachers next year. I'm also feeling thankful that he didn't get into public elementary pre-k next year which would have been a bigger class and more time at school. Maybe we need another year to prepare him for that after all.
Spencer loved having houseguests. He and 2-year old C were immediately friends...despite the episodes of bickering (the best was when they were both trying to name Spencer's teddy bear; Spencer said his name was Gobble, but C insisted he was 'teddy bear' and it went round like that with escalating shrilly voices for a few minutes. C's mom and I kept trying to convince them they were BOTH right...and besides, who CARES?!). When our friends left Spencer asked if I had remembered to get their address for our 'electronic map' (GPS) so that we could go visit them.
And a sort of related, funny story about company...Spencer asked me about a tag on a shirt and I told him it said 'Fruit of the Loom', the name of the company who made the shirt. A few seconds later he started asking about our friends who had stayed with us, and if his friend made the shirt. I finally realized what he was asking, and after I stopped laughing I explained to him the different meanings of the word 'company', and that no, his friend C did not make his t-shirt.Spencer enjoyed his first ever rodeo experience. He loves animals and was thrilled to be able to get so close to the steers and calves. I'm not sure he knew what to think of saddle bronc riding (but then, who does?). He loved the ponies at the pony ride, but it took him a while to actually get on one. Which is strange considering he hops right on my mom's full grown horse.
We can't keep him out of the water this year. If we are near water, he wants to be in it. This includes lakes, streams, swimming pools, and backyard sprinklers. But there are definitely worse ways to spend the summer in Atlanta!
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Mother's Day Camping Adventure
We headed to Red Top Mountain State Park on Lake Allatoona after work Friday for our second family camping trip. The park is about 50 miles north of Atlanta. We were a bit worried about Friday afternoon traffic, and it wasn't pretty but wasn't as bad as we had anticipated. It took us about 1.5 hours to get to the park. It is a huge park with over 90 campsites but they have it well organized into tent areas, pop-up/camper areas, and RV areas. The sites were large, well-maintained and level. We had a great site in the woods not too far from the lake. The weather was great; it was very warm Friday night, beautiful but cooler on Saturday, downright chilly Saturday night (but fortunately I had brought a warm set of PJs and fleece slippers for Spencer) and cold enough that we didn't want to get out of the tent Sunday morning. But we did, and immediately warmed ourselves with fire, hot coffee and sweet potato pancakes...it was lovely. Spencer had a great time. He likes sleeping in the tent and loved helping us collect wood and tend the fire.
Friday night there was a family with a 3-year old girl camped next to us, and they ran up and down the hill together between our campsites and played until bedtime. Saturday we spent some time fishing and found a very small beach area. I let Spencer wade into the water, which turned into squatting in the water to play (and thus getting his behind soaked) and finally he just went in the water. He was so excited and was having so much fun I could hardly protest. Another 4-year old girl came and they played together for a while. Finally it was time to head back to camp, so I had to borrow Fred's t-shirt to change Spencer into for the short walk back. Back at camp Spencer and I took a nice nap in the hammock.
Saturday evening Spencer found a small troop of young boys 2 campsites over. He joined them in running through the woods with flashlights and drinking cocoa...I think it took the boys' families a while before they realized they had acquired a 4th little boy. Sunday morning the boys resumed their traipsing through the woods, climbing rocks, falling into streams, and other wilderness adventures while we leisurely had breakfast and packed to head home.
After we got home and unpacked I realized how absolutely exhausted we all were. Spencer and I took a wonderful 2-3 hour nap (mine was 2 his was 3). Now we'll see if he goes to sleep tonight! Anyway, it was worth it because he was a whiny mess when we got home.This was the best Mother's Day I've had so far!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Soccer!
This is Dad's first post. I'm just not much of a blogger, but I am pretty excited about today.
You've probably read about our adventures with t-ball. Turns out that soccer is much more Spencer's thing. We joined Tucker Youth Soccer Association (TYSA) and Spencer got a jersey and a new soccer ball.
We were really afraid we'd have a repeat of t-ball, but Spencer jumped right after the ball. He followed all.... errr... most of the coach's instructions. The coach was very good at getting over a dozen kids to do the same thing at once. Not easy with a bunch of 4 yr olds.
Spencer did a great job dribbling, passing and shooting goals. I think he really liked scoring goals because I told him he could run around like an airplane screaming "GOOOOOAAAALLLL!" every time. He also did great getting involved with his team. I think it helped that a kid from his pre-school was there. Spencer never picked the ball up with his hands. Yeah!
Go TINY TYKES!
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Holiday Summary
Spencer's third holiday season has come and gone. This was a fun season, since he understood (and believed in) Santa Claus and the reindeer and the elves. He also sleeps better now when we travel, so our Thanksgiving trip to Austin, TX to visit Aunt A and Uncle R was very enjoyable.
Here's a summary of Spencer's holiday activities:
During out Thanskgiving trip to Austin we rode on the 'duck boat'. The duck boat does a tour of the city then a tour of Lake Austin. Spencer insisted on wearing his life jacket on the bus/boat (even though no one else was...our safety conscious child!). While in the lake the driver was allowing young children to 'drive' the boat. Spencer refused for several minutes, then all of a sudden he got up and went to drive the boat. I was amazed, until he got back to his seat and I saw Fred giving him the M&M's that he had bribed him with. Spencer also had his first root beer float...good times.
At school the teachers decided to do a program with the 3-year old classes for the first time. They called it 'cookies and carols'. It was adorable. He's still occasionally belting out Jingle Bells and Rudolph.
Christmas was spent at home. Spencer missed the annual picture on Santa's lap because he decided when it was our turn that he didn't want to. Of course as soon as I stepped out of line with him he changed his mind...no sir, that was the end of that and we had to drag him away kicking and screaming. So instead, Spencer dictated a letter to Santa, which Fred wrote for him. He also left out cookies and milk and carrots on the hearth, and was extremely delighted to see that they were gone the next morning. Christmas morning was very fun...he really enjoyed his gifts from Santa, and all the great gifts from family. (And yes, Santa brought him a farm set.)
I don't think Spencer even noticed New Years.
I wish there were more kids Spencer's age in the family. There are few cousins his age. For holidays there are really no kids for him to play with; no kids table. I'm sure he doesn't notice, but I do. We'll have to start making more of an effort to get together with the bit of family that has young kids. Maybe next year...
Here's a summary of Spencer's holiday activities:
During out Thanskgiving trip to Austin we rode on the 'duck boat'. The duck boat does a tour of the city then a tour of Lake Austin. Spencer insisted on wearing his life jacket on the bus/boat (even though no one else was...our safety conscious child!). While in the lake the driver was allowing young children to 'drive' the boat. Spencer refused for several minutes, then all of a sudden he got up and went to drive the boat. I was amazed, until he got back to his seat and I saw Fred giving him the M&M's that he had bribed him with. Spencer also had his first root beer float...good times.
At school the teachers decided to do a program with the 3-year old classes for the first time. They called it 'cookies and carols'. It was adorable. He's still occasionally belting out Jingle Bells and Rudolph.
Christmas was spent at home. Spencer missed the annual picture on Santa's lap because he decided when it was our turn that he didn't want to. Of course as soon as I stepped out of line with him he changed his mind...no sir, that was the end of that and we had to drag him away kicking and screaming. So instead, Spencer dictated a letter to Santa, which Fred wrote for him. He also left out cookies and milk and carrots on the hearth, and was extremely delighted to see that they were gone the next morning. Christmas morning was very fun...he really enjoyed his gifts from Santa, and all the great gifts from family. (And yes, Santa brought him a farm set.)
I don't think Spencer even noticed New Years.
I wish there were more kids Spencer's age in the family. There are few cousins his age. For holidays there are really no kids for him to play with; no kids table. I'm sure he doesn't notice, but I do. We'll have to start making more of an effort to get together with the bit of family that has young kids. Maybe next year...
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