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):

http://motherloadshow.blogspot.com/

http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/

http://www.machilli.blogspot.com/

http://www.sforsting.blogspot.com/

http://ilpiattoblu.blogspot.com/

http://herbadmother.com/ (see also http://blog.beliefnet.com/theirbadmother/)

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

http://katie-adventures.blogspot.com/

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!

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!

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!

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!

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...

Happy fall to all!

We've had a busy fall season. We started with a trip to Washington Farms in Watkinsville, GA www.washingtonfarms.net. This is the same place we went last year. They have a pumpkin patch, hay ride, corn maze, and other fun kid activities. We went with a few friends and had a great time. This is definitely becoming a great tradition.We had many Halloween related activities this year. The weekend before Halloween we went to the zoo for their annual Boo at the Zoo event. They set up trick-or-treat stations around the zoo, so the kids gather candy as they are running around looking at the animals. Spencer was a cowboy...at least that's how he started out (this was the first year that he actually picked his costume. I think the idea came from Curious George). Little by little his costume starting sliding around and just got in the way, so by the time we made it around the zoo I was carrying the costume. Lesson learned...for trick-or-treating there were many safety pins involved in keeping the costume in place.














On Halloween day we went to a friend's annual Halloween party, them met up with some neighborhood families to go trick-or-treating. The weather was iffy (lots of rain throughout the day) but we caught a good window between rain. Unfortunately we had very few trick-or-treaters with the cold, rainy weather.

Last Friday Fred and I played hookie from work and took Spencer to the N GA mountains to ride the Blue Ridge Scenic railroard www.brscenic.com. It was a gorgeous fall day in the mountains and we had a great time (except when we hit Atlanta traffic on the way home...definitely not fun). The train ride lasts about 2 hours round trip, with a 2 hour stop in a scenic little mountain town on the GA/TN border. We didn't get to ride in the engine, but Spencer did get to help the conductor punch our tickets.

This weekend we had gorgeous weather, so we spent some time raking leaves in the backyard. And of course, as a result we had to get the obligatory 'kid in pile of leaves' picture.

Southern boy

Spencer has developed a southern accent. 'Bath' has become 'bay-ath', there is 'they-er', that is now 'thay-at'...and so on. We're not exactly sure where it came from. Obviously not from us, not from Nanny or PopPop (who are New Yorkers), and he doesn't spend enough time with my family to have picked it up from them. I thought maybe it was his teachers, but neither of them have accents. So it must be a friend from school...maybe he's trying to impress someone.

There is a little girl at school that he seems to like a lot. They were in the same class last year. This year they are in the same 'grade' but different classes. Apparently though when the kids are lined up waiting to go outside Spencer wants to line up with this little girl rather than stay with his class like he's supposed to. This has gotten him into a bit of trouble several times and we've had to talk to him about how he needs to resist her wiley ways and listen to his teachers. Who knew this behavior started so early?

We went to Fernbank Museum for the first time yesterday, so Spencer got to see his first real dinosaur skeletons. It was great fun. We bought him a new triceratops from the gift store, which he named 'Dargamel' (Fred actually suggested 'Gargamel' but Spencer misheard him). Unfortunately Dargamel and all of Spencer's other dinosaurs were all chewed up when we got home today (stupid dog...ok, ok, stupid people for leaving toys where the dog could get them). He was so upset (our sensitive little boy) that Fred wanted to go right to the store to get him some more dinosaurs. We definitely have to go dinosaur shopping soon.Spencer doesn't regularly nap during the week (I can usually get him to nap on weekends if I try). But when he's tired, he's tired! These pictures just crack me up!