September 22nd, 2011

Spencer Learns His States: A Short Play

Me: Where does Aunt Laurie live?

Spencer: New York

Me: Where does Aunt Erin live?

Spencer: Minnesota

Me: Where do Max and Mason live?

Spencer: Missouri

Me: Where does Spencer live?

Spencer: California

Me: Where does Daddy live?

Spencer: Work

True story.
Also, I should get this on video because the way he says mini-SO-da is adorable.

May 5th, 2011

Mini Milestone: Pretending

I have been waiting for this for quite some time; pretending is one of my favorite things that little kids do. I’m not sure I even noticed when it happened the first few times. He put an apple up to Pooh’s mouth and said “num, num, num.” Then his stuffed kitty got thirsty and shared his water. Adorable.

The other day, Spencer played independently while I did some chores around the house and I looked over and he had his copy of the Very Hungry Caterpillar still open and had his elephant in his hand and was saying, “Ely eat lolly, yum. Ely eat muffin, yum.” He moved the elephant around the page, from food to food, and put the trunk up to the food and made his elephant eat. It seriously was the cutest thing. I snapped a few pictures, but he stopped right when I switched to video mode on the camera.

April 14th, 2011

Mini Milestone: Home Haircut

After a few phone calls, I decided I just couldn’t take the hair in Spencer’s eyes one more second. He’s been hardcore blinking and I think his bangs kept him from going back to sleep when he woke up in the middle of his nap yesterday. So, I attempted my first at-home haircut. With mixed results.

Before

It is a little wonky on the (as you are looking at the picture) right side. His hair is thicker on that side and I don’t have the faintest idea how to thin or layer. It is not, however, a bowl cut. I will allow bowlish. With ear wedges.

I am not sure if I will be attempting this again, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t awful. Even if hubs laughed at it when he got home from work. I am choosing to believe that he laughed because it wasn’t shaggy anymore and he was amused by Spencer’s eyebrows.

December 7th, 2010

Mini Milestone: Park Equipment

I had an entirely different post planned for today, but I just need to talk about our epic trip to the park this morning. Let me set the stage. Last night, it rained, poured in fact. Which, in Southern California, makes everyone lose their minds. I decided to just try the park at the end of the street this morning. It had been sunny for a few hours, but was only about 9:30 in the morning. I briefly thought about grabbing a towel for the swings, but didn’t bother. So, we get outside. The sidewalk is a little damp, the grass is wet, but we head off to the park. I was still thinking the park wouldn’t be too bad, what is a little damp sand?

And then we got to the park. The sand wasn’t damp, it was wet – dark sand at the water’s edge wet. But we were there and he was already running for the swing (hing! hing!) and the slide (chide). I wiped some sand out of the swing and he swung for a bit. And then the chide, chide, chide chant began. So, I scooped him out and he toddled over. He is just learning to climb the equipment so I gave him a little boost and down he went. And I learned a few lessons – slides have puddles on them at the bottom after it rains and wet slides are much faster. Did I mention his penchant for going down slides head first? Luckily, I was able to scoot around the side and slow him down a bit at the bottom, he still got soaked, but didn’t shoot off the end of the slide. Yet.

In the last few days, he’s been making some huge strides with climbing on the playground equipment. I’ve been trying to hover less and there has been a good mix of 2 year olds he could watch climbing up and on the equipment. And he was getting braver. He let go of my hand and ran across the bridge. And then on Monday, he did it. He climbed to the top of the tallest slide on his own. I was a little worried about him not recognizing the edge and tumbling off, so I concentrated a little more the climbing part than the sliding park. Up he went and he crawled to the edge of the slide faster than I could get to the bottom of the slide. And down he went. Head first, of course. The slide was very wet, of course. And Spencer slid down the wet slide, to the wet bottom and went right off of the end into a pile of very wet sand. Did  mention that this was the tall big kid slide?

Spencer is a trooper though. He popped right up and blinked a few times. His face was completely covered in about a half inch of sand. I wiped his eyes, mouth and nose clean with my sweater. Reached my finger in his mouth and pulled out about a quarter cup of sand. Brushed the rest of him off and he looked at me, pointed to the top of the slide and yelled, “chide, more, chide!!” And up he went again. And down he went, but this time on his butt. He moved over to the twisty slide and figured out how to climb to the top of that too. And then he went down head first. Of course.

Making his way to the twisty slide. (I'm standing taking the picture, so he is a good 6 ft off the ground.)