Spencer said...

11/6/15:

Spencer has his first crush (and heartbreak). We have a neighbor girl named Charlotte that rides the bus with Spencer and is in his kindergarten class. I’ve suspected he had a crush on her for a while but he finally confirmed it today. A few weeks ago he started making disappointed comments like, Charlotte didn’t want to play with him, Charlotte doesn’t laugh sometimes when he says funny things, or that he said she was as beautiful as a princess but she didn’t think he was as handsome as prince (she said he was as handsome as a superhero-which apparently is not very handsome). Then he started making a lot of notes and pictures for her so “she would like him”. Today after lunch he started drawing a picture for Charlotte and he started telling me in a really sad voice, “I told Charlotte I would babysit her parakeet if she ever went out of town but she said she didn’t want me to, that Tayton  ( Tayton is a boy in their class and whenever he says Tayton’s name he says it with a lot of disdain) was going to babysit her parakeet. And then I told her when we were teenagers I was going to take her out on a date. But she said she didn’t want to go on a date with me because she was going to go on a date with Tayton. Mom why does she like Tayton more than me?”

Then later in the day I told Spencer that Steve and I were going to go on a date and grandma was going to babysit him.

 Spencer said, “I thought only teenagers went on dates.”

Me, “Nope. Grownups go on dates too.”

Spencer, “I don’t care what Charlotte says, I’m going to take her on a date when we’re teenagers….if she doesn’t go with Tayton.”

Me, “Why do you want to go on a date with Charlotte so bad?”

Spencer, “Because I love her. I’m probably going to marry either Charlotte or Afton” (Afton is Charlotte’s 7 yr old sister).

Me, “Do you love Afton too?”

Spencer, *Sigh “Yes.”

Oh boy.

11/18/15: We were watching the movie Monsters University and out of nowhere Spencer says, “Mom, do you think Mike Wazowski is like Kai’s mom? Because she is shorter than you and Mike Wazowski is shorter than everyone too.”

I told the family this one and Amber found the perfect Christmas PJ's for Krista. She was a really good sport about it. 

1/1/16: Just overheard a conversation between Spencer and another boy in our neighborhood. Spencer doesn’t love playing with this boy. He tried to be friends with him but the boy can be pretty mean to Spencer and Rod and plays really rough. He kept hurting Spencer (Physically and emotionally) and most of the time Spencer and/or Rod would end up in tears by the end of their time together. I had to have a lot of conversations with Spencer about standing up for yourself, standing up for your brother and standing up for what is right, while still being kind. I’ve had to step in several times but I’ve tried to let Spencer figure things out and handle things on his own in his social interactions with his peers. (Which is so hard to do!) He came up to me about a month ago and said he decided he didn’t want to be friends with this boy anymore because he’s mean to him and acts like a bully and he doesn’t like how he feels when he plays with him. I told him he doesn’t have to friends with him, but he still needs to be nice to him and be a good example to him about how to play kindly if they do ever play together. He’s handled the situation with this boy by playing with other friends instead and politely (we had to work on this at first) telling the boy, thank you, but he doesn’t want to play right now, when he comes over and asks.

So this is the conversation I overhead today: The boy came to the door to see if Spencer wanted to play (he had actually been over earlier and Spencer did invite him in to play but within 15 minutes Spencer was in tears and the boy left because he didn’t want to play anymore). Spencer told him he couldn’t play with him because he was just on his way out to see if Charlotte and Afton wanted to play. The boy said the girls probably didn’t want to play because they were building a snow castle. Then the boy said he had a secret to tell Spencer. Then he very loudly whispered, “Me and [some other boys in the neighborhood] are going to knock down their castle!”

Spencer looked really worried. He has built 2 snowmen in this neighborhood and they have both been knocked down (probably by these same boys). I almost said something to the boy, but was so glad I didn’t because then Spencer said,

“You shouldn’t knock down their castle. That will really make them sad.”

Boy, “But they aren’t doing it right! I told them they had to do it different because they won’t be able to put a roof on it, but they didn’t listen so I’m going to knock it down.”

Spencer, “How would you feel if you built a castle and they knocked it down? Would you like that?”

Boy, “I wouldn’t built a castle because I don’t like castles.”

Spencer, “Well, what if they broke one of your toys that really really loved? Wouldn’t you be sad?”

And then the boy went into this whole thing about how they could never do that because he has a special laser scanner alarm on his house so only he can get it (which Spencer didn’t believe.) So finally Spencer said, “Well I don’t think you should knock it down, I think that would be really mean.” Then he opened the door for the boy and as politely as a 6 year old can said, “Ok well bye, Thanks for coming over.”

1/22/16

Spencer was holding Jeffrey. He had my nursing (u-shaped) pillow on his lap and then the baby nestled in it. So he could hold him without any assistance. After a while Spencer started making comments about how warm the baby was. “It’s like a blanket because he’s right on my lap. It’s like a baby blanket… but a REAL baby blanket.”

4/12/16

We were having dinner and started talking about what our dream day would be, if we could do anything we wanted all day. Spencer and Rod told us theirs and then Spencer started guessing what the rest of our dream days would be. He was pretty close with Steve (that he would sleep in and watch movies) and then when he got to me he said, “Probably just do laundry all day.”

9/10/16

Spencer got a new Lego set and wanted his neighbor friend Michael to help him put it together. He went and asked Michael if he could come over but Michael had to finish his chores first. Spencer waited for about a half hour but started getting impatient. He felt guilty doing it without Michael so he decided to build one small part and then wait to finish the rest when his friend got there. He was having a hard time getting one piece to fit correctly and after trying several times said, “Maybe Heavenly Father is not helping me with this because he wants me to wait for Michael…Oh wait I got it. Never mind Heavenly Father is ok with me building it without him.”

Then Rod, who was at the table watching Spencer build, pipes in, “Maybe Heavenly Father wasn’t helping you because he had to finish his chores at his magical house in Heaven first.”

9/12/16

It was time to do homework and Spencer said he didn’t want to because it was so boring. I told Spencer to get used to it because he would have to do homework the rest of his life. I explained that even when he’s done with school if he has kids he’ll have to help them with their homework.

Spencer said, “No, cause I’ll just convince my wife to do it and I can sit and play video games like Dad does.”