Hullo faithful readers.
Today something quite..charming happened. I was charmed anyhow. :)
While sitting in his room ( I'm trying to get him gradually more and more used to his bedroom so it's a place he likes to go instead of the room that seperates me from mama, daddy, and that eluisive vcr that he is so inchanted with) this afternoon, we ran the gamet of games to play,( most of them with the subtitle.".No no no no that's not for babies..THIS is for babies ) so I started to sing to him- one of my favorite things to do. Now I'm trying to introduce Patty-cake Patty Cake to him..so he can start getting those lil chubby hands clapping.
Well as par usual, I change a few words to every song and in the end pat-a-cake ends up being .."roll spencer and mama a cookie as fast as you can!" After the song being over I usually imitate our nerotic friend Cookie Monster..( he's got such a complex about eating the letter/cookie of the day..real issues...)and today ( here comes the end of the story..yay!) As I imitated Mr. Cookie Monster-Spencer looked right up and over to the wall where I have set up a kind of Warholesque collage of his seseame street friends. he was looking right at C. Monster! AND wait...he did it more than once!
HE IS SO SMART.
maybe he can tutor mama and daddy.
heh.
that's all for now folks.
we're fine and Spencer is a genius.

Well our movin man succesfully stood up last night. He was crawling up Mama
( a favorite past time..) and suddenly he was on two feet. It wasn't for long, but just long enough.
Julia ( from Parents as Teachers ) came by yesterday and much fun was had by all.
We're talking about object permenance, and a few peek-a-boo games always bring smiles. He used to like to grab a sheet and drape it over his head..knowing that Mama and Daddy would then of course not know where the baby was..but now that he has started movin...it's just a tired old hat trick.
He's sleeping through the night in his big crib,with plenty of glow in the dark stars to gaze up at.
Only a few times do we hear a little stirring-maybe a yelp..but he understands that that crib is his very own sleeping domain.
YAY for mommie!
Well hope this brought you a little up to date..I'm having trouble sending attachments through yahoo e-mail ( for pictures )but i have a new account at comcast, so I'll try through there.
Stick to the yahoo one to get in touch with me !

SO much to mention. A busy week though, so I'll keep it short.
Babies like paper.mmmmm paper. so tasty.so..papery.
many a book has gone south.
I remember looking at used books in thrift stores and ther would be teeth marks and large sections out of the paper and thinking, "Ewww...how could a parent even let it get that way...poor baby!"
Well I'll refrain form pointing out the irony in that as I am sure you were all gettng a chuckle from that sentence half way through.
Secondly, Chris, Spencer's father is a cnn junkie. We have been watching a lot of the debates, and that of course includes Deans rather how shall we say "enthusisatic" speech to his aides after losing the Iowa cacus.Well hours after it happened, they showed the ear splitting, meant only for dogs to hear ,ending to that speech on somewhat of a loop, Spencer picked right up on it and preceded to squeal with much the same fevor in time with Dean.
It was too funny, and I guess yet another " you had to be there" situation, but still....Spencer Louis, already immitaing politians. If you could ask my mother she would say without hesitation that my immitation of Jimmy Carter was one talent of mine she greatly enjoyed. so..finally....Spencer does something like mommy!
more later folks.
take care.

Hey there all...
well the lil man we all know and love is doing fine...he is, I have discovered, a bit of an overachiever. Already he is using his new crawling skills to get to the couch to try to stand up! OH boy!He is constant movement our guy, and there is much to blab about....a constant run-on sentence of de de dah dah ( yes very close to dada.) bee bblahh..etc and so on...almost like the police song it is!
I would just love to know what those little words mean, and what he thinks he is saying..sometimes it seems obvious, othertimes it's he seems to be talking to his own little audience.Either way it's beautiful and he could blab on forever as far as I'm concerned!
Not much more today, he's healthy, he's happy, and therfore so are we.
more later maybe!

In an episode of " King of the Hill " ( an animated show reminanisant of the Simpsons ) Cotton Hill's wife, and mother of their newborn son, thrust the wailing baby into Cotton's reluctant arms." It's your turn to take care of the baby Cotton..it's time for some ME time!" rushing out of the room, only to come back a few moments later to grab a laundry hamper.." me time to do the laundry!"
Oh how I sympathize!
Finally a few moments in front of the quietly humming computer, dimmed lights, Spencer asleep.He went down without too much of a fight, thankfully.
I had plans to sit right down at the computer and check e-mails, etc. but opted to clean the bathroom ( straiten the bathroom really, after bathtime )
pick up the multitude of toys, and wash dishes. After Spencer has gone to sleep I'll tell you...plates and silverwear sound at least 1,000x louder than their actual "clink, clink". And the hardwood floors! Geesh! CRREEEEEEAAAAKKK! It's amazing how deft you become when trying to keep a little one positioned in sleepy town.
ahh well...when you decide to be mama, you sign up for everything!
The little monster had a good day though, crawling, crawling,crawling!!Subduing with Baby Einstein is now a thing of the past, and the playpen is more like prison pen! We got to get out for a stroll today as well..the weather here in Portland was nice today..chilly but sunny.It's always fun to get move around a little Spencer is really drinking things in although his shyness has kicked in a bit...you know mama and daddy being his favorites.
oh darn. (heh)
all right, I'm going to go try to have some me time...no housework involved!
I mean after all it is Friday night right?

Hi folks...what a day! I finally did get to witness my lil man trumpin around! He seems to be very choosy about when and where, but from the grin on his face, you can tell he knows he has finally conqured a major hurdle." Now I can get up close to those little holes in the wall that mama and daddy stick those long strings into! Yeah!!" We have covered almost every outlet, not to worry..and ordered about every baby proofing item offered.( that applies of course, no need for an olympic sized pool cover ) Chris and I treated ourselves to a trim today at rudy's, a kind of retro barbershop here on the west coast and Spencer got to sit ( with mama and then daddy ) in a really cool old-style barbershop style chair.Also, lots of very colorful bottles of shampoo and conditioner to ohh and ahh over.And to top it all off, well it might not be the best thing to do in parenting, but I made some chocolate pudding tonight, and let Spencer try a fingertip full.( or two) Talk about a smile! Everyone likes pudding! This was just a special treat though, he had worked off so much energy crawling!
Well that's about all for today..stay tuned though..the boy is learning like wildfire!Wild being the operative word of course!

Late breaking news! This of course happened while I went to the store and Chris was keeping an eye on Spencer, but he said he CRAWLED! YAY!Just a little bit, and I never was treated to a full crawl, but still! YAY! He also had his first honest to goodness, I'm in Mama and Daddies bathtub bath tonight and he LOVED it. We used the tres modern seat his MeMa and Kappa sent for Christmas and it was fun fun fun.Much squealing was heard. is better than the banshee like yell that accompies bedtime though! Poor guy always sure Mama and Daddy are doing something SSOOOOO fun after his lights are turned off.
If catching our breaths and replacing that small part of the brain that feels that it was lobotomized earlier in the morning is fun..well then I guess he's right.I'm just afraid that he is going to start making neighboorhood dogs yelp when the decimal goes higher than we can catch.I can see the headline " "Local infant immitates banshee,canine chaos insues!"
Ahh well...just wanted to let you know that he had crawled a bit, and oh if I hadn't blabbed about it to you yet, he can point out the red balloon in " Goodnight Moon " he also likes it when mama makes a "squeaky squeaky "for the little mouse.
goodnight all,
a proud mama

It's the 13th! Mommy's lucky number! Why? You know...it's Spencer's B-day!
He's 8 months old today going on 2 years.
I thought I would sum up a few general factum so we can have a starting point.
Last Doc's visit he was 22 lbs and 29' inches tall.
Poor weakling baby.Ha.
He's eating solids...( as I may have told a few of you..hee) tried chicken last night, and as you mother's now it smells somewhat like a mixture between pate' and cat food. Interesting indeed. Spencer LOVED it. He can manage a few finger foods, but enjoys playing with them more than eating them. I never knew rice cakes could be so fun.He's even tried guacamole!I found it to be spicy but he just wanted more! Not really a deserning palate, but an open mind indeed.
He's just about to crawl and REALLy be a handful..now he just sits himself up, get's in crawling position, rocks back and forth..falls..and then start the whole process over! He can sometimes manage a backwards crawl and even a combat crawl. It hurts to see him get frustrated but then again, once he learns...oi vey!
He seems to have grasped "cause and effect" from many hits on the head with rattles, and help from a little jack in the box. Thankfully it has a happy clown that pops out, so his inevidabtable fear of clowns, ( common you KNOW they're a little scary to EVERYONE..) will be held off for a bit.
Yes he does watch a little tv and Seasme Street's Elmo ranks only ssecond to the Baby Galieo from the baby einstein dvd set.HE LOVES that kangaroo!
I must admit he also has a taste for Jeporady, if only to hear the sound for the daily double when it appears. Wheel of Fortunes colorful wheel is always fun to watch too! Don't worry I'm not ploppin down in front of the boob tube all the time...he dosen't even allow for that to happen..there are too many things to do with Mommy and Daddy!
Well, I'll close for now....probably more later... :)

Hey there faithful Spencer viewers! Not much to say this morning, Spencer is up and full of beans as usual. His "girlfriend" Julia visits today..so he ( unlike most grownups) is pretty happy it's Monday. Julia comes by around 11:00 a.m. and Spencer is the main focus of all conversation for a whole hour. She also brings by a weekly age approaite activity, and we indulge in some SERIOUS play.
i.e. learning. It's always fun , and Julia always has great ideas for mommy and Spencer. ALthough I must admit...she has told me a few times that I have already introduced said activity for Spencer and that he is handling it nicely. What can I say? I like playing.and.. Oh yeah! Spencer is genuis. But you already knew that. Okay back to the wild boy...an attempt at crawling has gone horribly wrong. (heh) More later.

Hey, hey...I have decided to start this blog to keep friends and family up to date ( hey, i'll try to keep it daily )on Mr Spencer L. so that I don't repeat myself during phone conversations and letters with information because, although you can hardly do anything BUT love the little guy..you only need to hear that he started eating solids once. (heh) hope you enjoy!