I'm feeling devoid of creativity, but August is long gone, and my memories of it are fading fast. I've got to get it "on paper" before it all evaporates into nothingness.
This month inaugurated quite an obsession with the sofa cushions. Spencer loves to push them off, get behind them, jump onto them, and construct bridges from them. When or if there are people sitting on the sofa, he wants to make them move off of it so that he can play with the cushions. We're working on our sofa manners.
In order to keep up the mystique that has come to be Spencer Vinsant Kelley, his little body seems to always manifest some random skin malady. Even as I'm typing this from my "Notes on August" today in the middle of September, I'm smiling because he's had 2 or 3 new, random skin abnormalities within the week.
While bringing in the climb and slide castle from the back yard was a great idea to beat the heat, it quickly bored Spencer who embarked on a new and much more exciting quest to dismantle it, piece by piece. He also enjoyed standing on top of it and rocking it off the ground, back and forth until he could get it to tip over. After it would fall, he would get up (from having fallen with it) and scream at me to stand it back up so that he could do it all over again.
He also realized he could do something similar with the pack and play that we had lugged out for road trips and lake weekends. He's proved to me that it will NOT be a safe place to put a baby while I try to go to the bathroom or start the laundry. I never questioned that he'd make life interesting. My only question now is, "Just how interesting will it get?"
We had a great vacation at the lake, and Spencer acquired several new, life-changing skills. The ability to wear a life jacket for more than ten minutes without completely going mad, the ability to ride out on the tube with Mommy, and the ability to hurl himself out of the pack and play. This skill was further developed the first night home when he climbed out of his crib. Yes, at 20 months. I really shouldn't complain, though; he waited 'til he was a few months older than his mommy was when she climbed out of her crib.
All climbing aside, I think his favorite part of vacation was drenching me on the back deck with the water hose. One morning, he was playing in the hose as usual, and he sprayed me a little. I must have been feeling particularly "fun" that morning, and I very dramatically said, "Oh no! I'm all wet! Oh no, stop! Stop!" And he thought that was HILARIOUS. He just giggled and giggled, and of course, repeated the behavior until I was soaking wet. Not a dry spot to be found. The water didn't bother me too much, but I eventually wore myself out with my own dramatics. Yeah, no smart comments, please. =)
One night, we tried to go out to eat, which is always a bad idea. We actually got a comment from an elderly lady NOT swept away by the beauty of Spencer's curls. I believe her exact words were, "Well, you're loud.
As I re-read the vacation section, I realized that I need to make a delineation. His favorite activity was probably drenching me with the hose; by far his favorite part of vacation is having all his "people" around him constantly. And, usually at his service. He loves his aunts, uncles, Gigi, and Papa; and I blame them all entirely for his whole nap-refusal, climbing out of the pack and play exploits.
I co-hosted a baby shower for one of my friends, and there were balloons, which Spencer loved. The next morning, when he woke up, he realized that the balloons (which were safely in the living room, far away from where he could be unattended with them) were deflated. He grabbed them, and tried repeatedly to push them back up into the air where they belonged. It was funny and sad all at the same time.
Spencer and I took a little road trip to Russellville to see some college / blog friends. (Meaning, I knew them from college, thus knew they weren't crazies, but we've gotten to be closer friends by reading each others' blogs, etc.--I know, isn't life weird in 2010?) Anyway, we had an uneventful drive there and back and lots of kidlet craziness while we were there. Here's a link to Em's cute picture. It's a pretty good representation of the day--in all ways positive, of course. We took the kids to the visitor center, which had huge, floor to ceiling aquariums. Spencer loved seeing the fish, and I loved hearing him try to say "fish" because it's basically a guttural aspiration sort of noise that attempts to mimic the "sh" sound in "fish." Everyone's little ones were so adorable and so diametrically different. You know it's true that no two people are alike, but then you observe little kids and it's such a dramatic illustration of that truth. Again, in a good way.
The night we got home from Russellville, Spencer had a special delivery waiting for him. I STILL have not formally made a thank-you call (SHAME!), so I don't know the details of this special delivery's origin or history, but suffice it to say that Spencer was thrilled. So much so that the airplane only comes out of hiding on certain days, because Spencer insists that we ride on it with him. Don't get me wrong, it's a fabulous toy, but the seat is made for little seat-sitters, if you get my drift.
In all the stories of Spencer's adventurous spirit, I don't want to paint him the wrong way. This morning (September, but who's counting?), when he woke up, he was crying a little, which is abnormal, so I walked down to his room. He pulled me into his bed and put his arm around my neck, pushed my cheek against his and hugged me--for about seven minutes. When speaking about Spencer, I often quote a character on the Veggie Tales "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" DVD: "[He's] sweet as sugar!"
They weren't kidding when they said little boys love their mommies. And I'll take it!
