New Year Fondue PSA: Fon-"do and dont's"

Happy New Year - I know it's a little late, but honestly the party doesn't ever stop with me. I had a great New Year's. I brought in the New Year in style...fonduing. It was a lot of fun...oranges, strawberries, bananas, marshmellows and Oreo cookies dipped in chocolate. What could go wrong. I had a lot of fun dipping my food in chocolate. My favorite were the oranges; suprisingly I didn't find the marshmellow's as appealing. I learned a lot though, dipping bananas in chocolate - that certainly is a Fun-do. Scraping the metal tongs across the pot - that most definitely is a fon-don't.

Yessir, it was a good new year celebration, but the fun didn't end there. I kept Mom and Dad on their toes. On Monday, the 2nd I told dad to "cut me some slack" - a phrase he often utters to me when I am letting him know he is not quite meeting my expectations of speed and mind reading. On Wednesday, the 4th, I shocked Mom and Dad on the ride home from school by counting from 1 to 10...in German. The next day, I suprised Mom and Dad on the way home by singing Salt-N-Pepa's "Shoop" to the radio.

Success!

The Ominscient Man in Red

I don't know how that fat old guy does it, but boy Santa seems to know me pretty well. We headed out to Santa's meet and greet for the third time as far as I can remember and I think he and I are really starting to develop a great repoir.

Thanks to a slow family in front of us, I got to spend some quality time with the old man. While waiting for the other family to pick up there stuff and go, Santa and I had a nice little chat, then I calmly sat on his lap and posed for the pictures. What amazed me the most was Santa gave me a sticker and coloring book - how did he know I liked stickers? How did he know that just the other day I filled up one of my other coloring books. Truly amazing. Then to top it off, he gave me my first Candy cane. Anothe success! How did he know I liked candy?

I'm excited for Christmas. Mom has me opening an advent calendar and I keep finding red and green M&M's inside. I like it so much and am so insistant to open each day, Dad is a little nervous for when December 26th rolls around and there aren't any doors to open.

A New Dawn

It has begun.

On the evening of December 12, a new era has approached us. For the first time in my life, I was going to spend the night not in my crib, but in my new bed. I was very excited; in fact, I could barely sit still. Shortly after completing my nightly three stories and tucking in, I realized that I, in fact, could easily get out of bed without the aid of Mom or Dad.

Oh, the fun as Mom and Dad struggled to contain my energy and put me back in bed. Try as they must, their efforts were futile and often met with the sounds of a tiny pitter-patter of my feet running down the hall, not unlike that of unseen monster from a horror movie folllowed up with the most evil cackle, no different than the most diabolical of Holllywood supervillains. With every capture, Mom and Dad would lay me back in my bed...but I would just confidently place my hands behind my head as they tucked me in, smiling and laughing. I was confident I could outlast them. Weary and frustrated, Mom and Dad threatened to make me sleep in my crib. Silly parents, this beast could no longer be caged. Just as quickly as they placed me in by crib, I demonstrated that I could now easily scale my way out of this 4 foot cell which used imprison me. No, this was my time.

Unable to to confine me to my bed or return me to my crib, a weary Mom and Dad were left with few options. But, nevertheless, I did eventually fall asleep. It took mom laying on the floor next to me preventing my escape until I, myself, would succumb to the exhaustion of a heavy day of working.

That's okay...I'll get plenty of rest and recharge, for tomorrow is another day.

Wear it, Doogie!

Remember back in the late 80s and early 90s there was tv show about a young prodigy who became a teenage doctor. My questions is...what took him so long? I'm only two and already successful in medicine (and alchemy when needed).

Unfortunately, my future medical profession is virtually obsolete given now even the average common man can now simply use the internet to accurately self-diagnose and cure any ailment.

Tree Gittin'

Years ago, way before the time of Me, Mom and Dad bought a large, beautiful imitation Christmas tree. It was so big it didn't fit in their apartment, and, for nine years, could only put up half of it in their prior house. Now, a new Christmas season dawns upon us with plenty of space in a new house for the tree to fit...so, of course, Mom and Dad decide this will be the year they get a real tree for Christmas. The first time for any of us. Sunday, we embarked on our mission, and I am pleasantly shocked to say, Mom and Dad were quite successful. Well, Mom was quite successful anyway; I am finding that Dad is fairly superfluous to any situation.


Today started out rough...first, Dad let me have doughnuts for breakfast, then Mom made me banana pancakes. I know, I know...how do I survive such brutality? I don't know, perseverance and a strong constitution, I guess. (It gets worse...later in the day I had a popsicle, when I politely requested a second, I was given Jell-O blocks instead.) After breakfast, the three of us journeyed out to scope the Christmas tree scene. We only had to make a couple of stops until we found the perfect tree. A nice man strapped it to the top of our car and we took it home. I was very excited.

In fact, I may have been too excited. Dad and I worked on cleaning a place for the tree. Well, Dad did most of the cleaning. I just ran around screaming at the top of my lungs...

I did eventually settle down, got dressed and went outside to get the tree

Then I helped Dad bring in the tree and set it up in the living room:

When we got home today from work, I was given the most important role of the Christmas season. Every day it is my job to check if the tree needs water. What would Mom and Dad do without me?

I need to be on my best behavior. Krumpustag looms near and Christmas isn't much further after that. I learned last year the Jultompten cannot be trusted; mischief and temptation lay around every corner for your dear hero.

Silly Monkey

I know what your'e thinking...Oh, I bet there are a lot of great pictures of Spencer in his Halloween costume. Yeah, that's what Mom and Dad were hoping for as well...unfortunately, I
decided that I was not going to be so accommodating. Homey don't play that. I choose to put up a mild protest instead. This year, I chose to be a monkey over a dinasaur.







My Halloween planning started out a little sketchy. Earlier in the month, Mom made me a home made costume - a paper bag. I was afraid this was going to be my costume. I'm not gonna lie...I did have some fun modeling it.



You may not know this, but one of the most crucial responsibilities of a Halloween is to pick out the perfect pumpkin. We went to an apple orchard and went through their pumpkin patch. After a long search, I finally found the perfect pumpkin. I was insistant on finding a small pumpkin.







Saturday before Halloween Mom and Dad decided to carve the pumpkin. I decided that this was going to be a clothing optional event. At first, I had mild interst in the overseeing of the cutting and scooping of the pumpkin. .















I hung around but got tired of Mom and Dad's pervasive questioning. "Do you like your pumpkin?", "Do you want to scoop?", "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" Geesh...the line of questioning would never end and I decided I had enough. I stormed out multiple times, announcing I was going to take a nap. I'd lie in the sun for a few minutes then come over to see how things were going, feign slight interest, then stomp off again to bathe in the sunlight.

Despite all of the drama, I actually did have a lot of fun trick or treating. It took a few attempts but I started to get the hang of it. I can't believe people actually were giving my candy. I made a pretty good haul. The thing is, I don't remember eating much candy but Mom and Dad were insistant that all of the candy had been eaten. Overall, Halloween was a succes. I had my first sucker, different candy bars, M&Ms. In fact, for the next few mornings, I insisted on having Whoppers for breakfast. Apparently, we have a no candy for breakfast rule in this house...for now.