In the last few days Spencer has learned to fold his arms when we say a prayer. I was making him french toast this morning and he was hanging out in his high chair nearby, impatiently waiting for them to get done. He kept folding his arms and I suddenly realized that's what I was doing and he was mimicking me. The kid is just so cute. He's pretty proud of himself whenever he folds them while we say a prayer on a meal. He's not so good at night because he just wants to play, but it's like it suddenly clicked. Up to this point he's just tried to pull away.
He has been climbing up on couches for months, but ours is just a bit higher than others and so he hasn't been able to get up on it. Yesterday he finally figured out how to get up on it. He proceeded to get up and down at least five times just because he was so tickled with his accomplishment.
Whenever Spencer is trying to do something that is frustrating him, he starts to do this squeaky crying thing. I've finally started to realize it's just his way to express frustration, so I've been letting him keep trying instead of helping him out and I'm so impressed with what he gets done. It's far too easy to just make stuff work for him, but he loves it when he figures something out, so I'm trying to step back and let him try, even when he's super frustrated about it.
At least once a day he goes and finds his shoes and demands that I put them on so we can go outside. We have two girls that live in the basement apartment of our house, and whenever he hears them outside playing, all he wants to do is go play with them. He gets so mad if we don't go outside or we bring him in early before he's done playing. Though conceivably he'd never be done playing, so he's kind of out of luck on that count.
Our sprinklers are really bad in our lawn so Bill puts out a sprinkler every night to try to help the worst couple spots. He had done this before I got home from somewhere the other night. We had probably 5 neighborhood girls playing in our yard and not a one of them was going anywhere near the sprinkler. I set Spencer down so I could take something inside and he beelined it for the sprinkler, which I was totally okay with. It was like he suddenly started a party and all the girls flocked to the sprinkler and started playing in it. Trust him to get everyone going. He's totally going to be the life of the party when he gets older. :)
Bill introduced Spencer to this whistle a few weeks ago. If given the option, Spencer will run around blowing on that thing for hours. Good thing he doesn't blow that hard. It could get really annoying. :)
We had a pair of sunglasses that got lost on a walk, so I picked up these snazzy shades the other day for 93 cents at Wal-Mart. They pretty much don't help at all with the sun, but Spencer still loves to play with them. He'll wear them around and loves to hang them around his neck or put them up on his head. Unfortunately, he also likes to put them on our face, which has triggered him to start playing with Bill's glasses again, which is super annoying for Bill. We got him to stop months ago, but he thinks it's so funny now. Ah well. He'll get over it soon enough.
Bill's aunt Debbie sent us up the cutest little Chinese outfit like a year ago. It's been hanging in our closet waiting for the time when Spencer is actually big enough to fit into it. I came home from ward council on Sunday to pick the boys up to go back to church and found Spencer decked out in it. I'm not sure he understood when I totally cracked up upon seeing him, but he is the cutest blonde chinese kid I've ever seen. :)
My sister Natasha has been on bed rest for the last two weeks or so, trying to stave off preeclampsia before she delivers her baby hopefully in the next few days. My mom, grandma, and I have been trading off spending lots of time at her house taking care of her meals and her laundry and keeping her house up and that kind of thing. Okay, let's be honest. I make her meals sometimes and keep her company. Mom and Grandma are the ones that do everything else. :) She and I just talk and play with Spencer. Well Spencer already loved Natasha, but he loves her even more now. I tell him we are going to Tasha's house and he almost always says 'Tata!', his version of her name. Since he only says about five words, that being one fo them, you can see how much he loves her. When we're there she's usually chilling in her recliner. The bookshelf is right next to it and he always goes and finds books for her to read while he sits in her lap. It's pretty endearing.
Speaking of talking, Spencer says mama, dada, duck, Tasha, occasionally milk, and he'll mimic us on lots of other things when he's in the mood. He knows where our noses are and will frequently come over and hold mine. He's even more happy if he can hold mine and Bill's at the same time. It's hilarious. Sometimes he actually says nose, but mostly he just squeezes ours with his chubby little fingers. Actually, he doesn't really have chubby fingers, unfortunately. He's a skinny kid, but his fingers are cute anyway!
Spencer loves balls. Any kind. He figured out a week or two ago that he could throw them and he's pretty much in heaven. Bill and I are pretty sure he is left-handed. He has started eating with a spoon and he only uses his left hand. He throws balls almost always with his left, though if he's holding something in his left hand then he will throw with his right.
