More on Spencer

I was just reading back on some old posts and wanted to update a few more things on Spence, mostly so I will remember. He is SO much better at obeying us these days. When we say "No", he stops what he is doing probably 90% of the time. It used to be that he would just smile and keep on hence his nickname Gilly. We are not sad that Gilly is fading away. He has stopped the screaming thing. He used to scream all the time either to get attention or out of frusteration. Now that he can communicate better, he does not scream at all. He does whine though when he wants milk and refuses to sign for milk. We are still working on that. He is much more engaged with age-appropriate toys. He especially loves to push around cars and play with the train table. Sometimes, he even plays trains without ripping up the tracks, although that is still a favorite "no-no". :) He LOVES to wrestle with Wright. I would say most of the time Spencer is the one who initiates the wrestling. And he is super tough. There have been many occassions where I look over and realize Wright is rolling on top of him and Spencer is just laughing hysterically. Wright doesn't really understand why he should not pin his brother down when Spencer enjoys it so much. He has begun to stand up for himself a lot more. If Wright tries to take his toys, he screams so loudly and looks right at Brendan and me for his defense. On the down side to this, we have started to realize that he might be manipulating us a bit with the crying. Because he is the youngest, it is easy to assume he is hurt or Wright did something wrong when he is crying, and Spencer has picked up on that very quickly. He also starts to cry and looks to me for my reaction when he falls down. I am really working on telling him to brush it off now so he doesn't become a cry baby. :)