Spencer with a Spoon

Spencer is trying to eat with a spoon. Here he is making a huge MESS of yogurt. Wright is below.

What We've Been Up To

Wright and his bible study class performed all the verses they have learned this year. Really impressive! We have had lots of fun playdates with friends - Wright and Eleanor always have a blast together. Wright and Molly entertained each other while eating dinner playing "Cry and kick", a game they made up. Grady and Spencer loved the train table. They are only a few weeks apart. And of course Wright has really loved playing with his new BFF from school, Jackson. Or as Wright calls him, my good buddy Jack. Side note - when Jackson was leaving today, Wright hugged him and kissed him on the lips! LOL!

Splinters are the WORST

Wright got a huge splinter in his big toe yesterday. It was an extremely traumatic experience to say the least. He was completely hysterical and would not let me touch his toe at all. After much coaxing, I got him to calm down enough for me to try and tweeze it out. When I was working on it, he looked at me and quietly and sincerely said "Mommy, I am just so afraid." It was so sad and sweet and made me think that I do not know what I would do if he was truly suffering with an illness or something. Anyway, as part of the bribery to get him to let me work on the splinter, I told him I would take him to get ice cream when it was all done. So he of course he asked for ice cream almost immediately after the splinter was removed. We went to McDonalds and got him a McFlurry and a sundae for me :) When we got home, he ran in and told Brendan "I got ice cream with candy in it and mommy got a Friday!" LOL!

Wright Saying The Pledge

I had no idea Wright knew how to say the pledge until today in the car he just started saying it out of nowhere. He says he learned it at CBS - pretty cool :)

Wright update

Wright is learning so much recently. He is much more interested in his letters and numbers in the past month or so. I think this started when he learned the letter W at school and realized his name started with W. Then he started spotting Ws all over town and pointing them out. Now he thinks it is really fun to learn his letters and talk about words that begin with that letter. This was especially fun last week when he learned the letter U and discovered underwear starts with U :) I discovered yesterday that Wright can count to 30! Out of nowhere in the car, he was saying to himself 21, 22, 23, 24... I was like, "Buddy, count for me as high as you can." And sure enough, he counted from 1 to "20-10" (aka 30). He only messed up once in the teens. Needless to say, I was quite impressed. I would say overall he is more interested in numbers than letters at this point. On that note, he is also fascinated with time. He has no real understanding of it, but always is inquisitive about. "Mommy, we will do that in 3 minutes?", "We are leaving in 2 hours?", "Last year we went to the park (ie yesterday)". This goes on and on all day long. His other favorite question is "How time is it?" - makes me laugh everytime. His imagination is awesome these days. He is so fun to watch when he plays with his figures and cars and acts out these whole stories with them. The theme is usually around some sort of conflict. Like someone is getting in trouble or someone falls off the car as it is racing off. Such a boy! Last night we went to dinner at Balls for Stewart's bday (my 9 year old cousin). We all sat outside and the boys ran around and played. There were 3 nine year olds, one 7 year old, one 6 year old and Wright - all boys. I was so impressed at how the whole time, Wright completely held his own with all those big kids. He never once came and hung out with Mommy or cried/complained about being left out or anything else. He just marched right over and fit in with kids 3-6 years older than he is! I have said before and will say again that he DEFINITELY has his father's personality and social confidence. A funny thing about when he is with his cousins is that they all have iTouches. So Wright always begs to use my phone so he can hang with his cousins and play Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds like they do.

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. :)

Spencer 15 months

Spencer just had his 15 month checkup. Interestingly enough, he and Wright were the exact same height and head size at 15 months (31.75 in and 18.75 in), but Spencer weighed 2 pounds less than Wright did (22.11 lb). The dr has always said he is going to be tall and skinny, so looks like he is right so far. I have always thought he looks so much smaller than Wright did, just leaner and definitely less broad. They are pretty different in every way. He is still not saying many words which the dr assures me is perfectly fine and normal especially for a boy. He will say things for about a week and decide not to say them anymore after that. And like I have mentioned before, the more we want him to perform, the less likely he is to say the word. Overall he is pretty quiet unless he is babbling dada or asking for mama. Poor thing has also been sick for almost 2 full weeks. He had a stomach virus that has made his bottom raw - like I have never seen with wright, blisters and all. That still has not really gone away and now he has picked up a cold. He has a deep dry cough and a hoarse voice. Sweet boy feels so bad, you can see it in his eyes. He has barely eaten in the last 2 weeks either and the whole BRAT diet thing gets old really quickly. Hopefully he will be better soon...we are praying.

Wright Quote of the Day

Brendan - Wright can you help me make my salad?
Wright - No
Brendan - Why not?
Wright - I'm not high enough.

14 Month Comparison Pic

Pretty different I must say...

Sweet Sweet Spence

My favorite thing that Spencer does these days is see my from across the room, give me a huge smile and walk as fast as he can over to me to hug my legs. Then he wants me to pick him up and give him a good squeeze. He will do this every time I walk into the room or even when I have been in the room and he forgot I was there. He is such a cuddler, just love it!

This popcorn popper is by far his favorite toy. He pushes it all over the house over and over again.

Updates on my Boys

Long post - but just wanted to update on what the boys are like these days.

Wright (almost 3 1/2)
Wright is so much like his dad. He is super social and literally never meets a stranger. He loves to have people over to our house no matter what the situation and he will hang out with just adults if that is who our guests are. The other night he stayed up a little late and watched the Academy Awards with the Croffords and us. He was just so happy being with the friends that we had over. He loves to talk and talk to people about anything and everything and tell them about what he likes, what he did that day, who he saw, etc. If we are walking through Target, he will say, "Hi", "Excuse me" or "How are you?" to everyone we pass. Its just normal to him. He is also great with names and really never forgets anyone he has met before. He will randomly bring up a friend of Brendan's that he met 6 months ago and ask how he is. He is also extremely observant with people. For example he has never met the kids in my class but he has seen me with them at school. Last week he looked at a pic of them on our fridge and asked where Norris was (he was not in the pic). I seriously have NO idea how he even knows Norris' name. Another characteristic I love about Wright is that he is so sensitive to others' feelings and very thoughtful. If I say in passing that a friend is sick, he will ask about them out of the blue the next day and wonder if they are ok. If I have a bandaid, he is super concerned about what happened and if I am ok. He is starting to get more interested in what he is learning in school (letters, numbers, etc), but the social aspect of it is by FAR what he cares the most about. When I ask how his day was, he always talks about what happened with the kids first. So and so got in trouble, so and so pushed so and so on the playground, etc etc. He doesn't seem to have one best friend at school but talks about all the kids equally. Lanie and Eleanor are still his BFFs I think. Although he told Elizabeth last week that Eleanor is his best friend and Lanie is his girlfriend. I guess we will see how that turns out...

Spencer (14 months)
Oh Spence. He is our little spitfire. He definitely likes to get into things more than Wright ever did. But, he is also extremely content and easy going. He will take a nap anytime I put him in his crib no matter what the situation. For example, if we have somewhere to be early in the morning, I can put him in there an hour earlier than usual and he will go to sleep. If he misses his morning nap altogether, he is fine, he will just take a longer afternoon nap. If he is at school all day and doesn't get enough sleep between his 2 naps there, he'll take a 3rd nap when we get home. So so go with the flow. Today I dropped Wright off at Adventure Kids and was hoping to leave Spencer too because I had to go to Northpark and I knew how much easier it would be without them. But, Spencer could not stay at Adventure Kids because they did not have his shot records, so he went with me. Sadly, I don't think I have ever had just him in a situation like this. I guess I was basing my dread of how it would go on how Wright was at the mall at 14 months. Well, Spencer could not have been more perfect. He literally sat quietly in his stroller for 2 hours. Never once did he cry, fuss, want a snack, nothing. I guess he was just content being with mommy and checking out his surroundings. Wright was NEVER like that! He would want out of the stroller and want snack after snack to stay entertained. Another thing that I can't get enough of with Spence is that he is super cuddly. It's funny cause he won't sit on my lap for 2 minutes to read a book, but if I go in his room and rock him and sing with him before bed, he will just lay and snuggle with me as long as I want. Again, something Wright would never do. I treasure those moments for sure. We love this little guy more and more everyday. He is so sweet and makes us smile all the time.

We Have A Walker!

As of last week, Spencer is officially walking. He still prefers to crawl but can take 10-20 steps without sitting down. It is so cute to watch him stand up really carefully, get his balance and slowly walk forward. So proud of our little guy.

Egg Allergy

We have been giving Spencer foods with eggs baked in them and he has been breaking out with bad echzema and still having bouts of upset stomach issues. After letting the allergist know that today, we have been told to start him on an egg-free diet. This is going to be SO hard! He is already an extremely picky eater and now he can't eat things that he loves like cereal bars, certain pastas, waffles, pancakes, muffins, some sausage, etc. Plus I am clueless about all the other things that I am sure are off limits. We have been instructed to do egg-free for 3-4 months, then depending how he is doing we can try to slowly introduce some eggs back in. In the meantime, no peanut butter either since we tried that recently and it could also be affecting him. Guess I need to fill that RX for an epi pen after all, cause this kid is offically a food allergy hazard.

Two Steps Forward

Spence is officially taking some steps! He has yet to exceed two at a time but I think he is starting to get it. Walking is definitely in the near future, and he is so proud of himself!

Look Who's Talking

Spencer has started talking a lot more over the last few weeks. He now says, mama, dada, ni ni, aw dah (all done), ba ba (bye bye), nana (banana) and buh buh (brother). He still says dada by far the most, but at least he is adding new words to his vocabulary. He has also finally starting signing "all done" which looks more like the African dance move in "Can't Buy Me Love." :) He also waves, but only when he feels like it - NEVER on demand.

The nickname "Gilly" is more fitting than ever and it is sticking. When we tell him no, he still laughs and continues to do what he wants. This has earned him many time-outs in his crib which he hates. However, it does not seem to improve his obedience. Some of his favorite things to do are messing with the blinds, pulling off his bib and throwing it on the ground and climbing in the dishwasher. He is just such a mischeivous guy and keeps us on our toes. His other nicknames include Gills, Gill-meister, Spence, Spence Dog and Spence Man.