potentially one 72-year old heartbeat from the presidency...

She seems nice and all, but Hillary supporters should be mortified. Hillary was a solid candidate to lead a nation...she was just 2nd to Barack. Can you say the same about Sarah Palin?

Hey, let's look at the bright side: we may get the option to receive our next tax rebates in the form of fish sticks. I don't eat fish sticks yet, but I hear they're yummy with ketchup.

Love,
Spencer

Take me out to the ballgame...

Perhaps the most exciting day of my very young life. And that's not hyperbole, because it's a relatively low bar - after all, I'm only 7 months old. I went to my first baseball game!

According to my Dad, this was the greatest anniversary present my Mom could have given to him. Even better than a new Playstation, or a year's supply of Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches.

Now I say I went to a baseball game, but given that it was the Giants against the Padres, who are a combined 30 games out of 1st place in the NL West, it was only marginally baseball (ouch!). I had such a good time! My Aunt Carin, Uncle Jeff and Cousins Sam, Ryan and Sydney were up in San Francisco to visit us, so they came to the game as well. Here I am at the game:
























I had SOOOO much fun with my cousins! They're totally silly.




















Here are a few more pictures from their visit, first my Aunt Carin making me laugh, then with my cousin Ryan!
























OK, so I can't finish off without commenting on the really big news this week. It's official. I've renamed my PAC. It's now Babies Behind Barack & Biden (BBB...&B). I have to say that I don't have a particularly strong opinion of Barack's choice of Joe Biden as a running mate. You can't turn on cable news channels without hearing about Biden's extensive foreign policy experience and his even more extensive ability to talk your ear off. But you know, Biden is just so...Delaware. Fine, Delaware has tax free shopping, but what else is there? What I'm saying here is Biden's foreign policy experience is essentially just tax free shopping. It saves you a bit of money, but you're only going to take advantage of it if you happen to be driving through from Maryland on your way to the Jersey Shore. But you might take a spin up through Pennsylvania just to avoid the tolls, and to visit Amish country.

Hey, I'm only 7 months old, don't blame me for making my metaphor Biden-length!

OK, I'm off of my high rocking horse.

Love,
Spencer

spencer the olympian part II

I just got back from a fabulous few days up in Lake Tahoe with my mom and my Aunt Belinda. It's gorgeous up there! I took the opportunity to prepare myself further for the 2028 Olympics in Tbilisi. You know how the US Olympic Teams always train at altitude? Well so do I.

Let me show you some of my skeelz. You'll notice that I haven't yet decided which sport to focus on, so I'm dabbling.

Here's me in my very first ever training session in the 0.5 meter swing - now I have to warn you I've never done this sport before so my form isn't quite right...yet:



I'm not sure if swinging will be accepted as an Olympic sport by 2028, so I've also practiced some of the more conventional sports, like volleyball. Here I am punking my opponent after a mad slam. Of course, in the second picture, you'll notice I had to stand on my Aunt Belinda's shoulders...



















Here's me trying a sport that's a bit more appropriate for a person my size...gymnastics! I prefer the balance beam:




Just try telling me that picture of me winning the gold pacifier standing under the US flag doesn't make you a little weepy. Just you try!


















OK, one more. Golf! Golf isn't an olympic sport quite yet, but I'm actually going to predict that it will be by 2028...if they decide to build a golf course in Tbilisi, Georgia. My guess is they'll build one in the desert and name the town Augusta, just for flair.



Of course, you'll notice that I view the putter as a multi-functional club - you can putt with it or use it as a chew toy.








Big news coming out this week - Obama's going to choose a running mate, and it's not going to be me. You heard it here first. My prediction: Dwayne Johnson, the wrestler/actor also known as The Rock. Barack and The Rock - dream ticket. After all, The Rock HAS to be an improvement over Dick Cheney.

Just a few more adorable snapshots from my trip...


Just playing around - I love sticking my tongue out!










I am SO ready to crawl!! Did I mention I'm sitting up?











My hat tastes like chocolate.











What's up with the Samurai?












I love it when mom kiss-tickles me!









Another report once we have Veep clarity...

Love,
Spencer

spencer: future olympian

Let me begin by expressing my appreciation to the creator of the prune. Without going into too much detail, let's just say that my introduction to solid food has been challenging to my intestines, and I had a little stretch where there was an imbalance between inflows and, ahem, outflows. I was plugged up like Marcellus Wallace's mouth in the gimp's dungeon in Pulp Fiction.

But glory to the prune! Here's a quick picture of what it looks like when a 6-month-old is administered prune therapy.


Although it had the...shall we say...desired effect..., I couldn't help but feel like John McCain. Yes, prunes are for old people.

Hopefully many of you are following the Beijing olympics. We're only 2 days into it, but it's been fascinating to me so far. To be honest, while I watch parts of the olympics with my dad, I'm really focused on deciding which sport I'm going to compete in during the Dubai olympics of 2028. Here's where I am with this.

First, I need to be realistic about myself. I'm jewish, which cuts out certain sports (weightlifting, pig wrestling, bacon eating). Also, my parents are roughly average sized...based on statistics collected for 17th century americans...which cuts out others (volleyball, high jump, apple picking).

One of the first sports I watched was fencing. I thought this was a cool sport. You get to wear futuristic outfits and stab people without the fuzz coming after you. And I can't imagine it's as competitive as things like sprinting and swimming. Plus, I like the idea of an NBC promotion advertising the gold medal match of Inigo Montoya against"Spencer the Fencer." But fencing doesn't sound like something you can do recreationally, like swimming or tennis...unless you decide to head to central park and go pigeon-impaling with a few friends...so it doesn't get me that excited.

Gymnastics looks way cool, especially that high bar. So does archery, because it's just like fencing (you get to impale things) but there's less chance of you getting impaled back. Individually these sports aren't enough to get me to train for the next 20 years, but maybe together...a new sport where while a gymnast is rotating around the high bar you get to shoot him with bow and arrow?

In the end I'm not sure I'm ever going to make it to the olympics as an athlete or whatever you call the people who do equestrian dressage (just checking if my mom's cousin is reading this...). But that's ok. I feel like a part of the games by drinking Coke, wearing Nike, using a Lenovo computer, and eating at McDonald's and paying for it all with my Visa card. I'm so corporate.

A few more pictures from the weekend when my grandma and grandpa visited...



Love,
Spencer

Turns out nursery rhymes aren't so nursery

My Grandma and Grandpa are visiting this weekend! It's great to have them here, I haven't seen them in a couple of months. They live in Las Vegas. They're not show girls, though. At least my Grandma isn't; not sure what Grandpa does during the day.

The most fascinating part of having them here is that they actually know the words to the nursery rhymes that my parents pretend to sing to me. As an example, here are the words to Three Blind Mice, as sung by my parents:

"Three blind mice. Three blind mice. Three blind mice. Three blind mice. Three blind mice."

It's kind of repetitive, kind of like the Hallelujah Chorus, or any Rick Astley album.

But in walks Grandma with the real knowledge, and she sings the real Three Blind Mice...unabridged:

"Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
See how they run. See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer's wife
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife.
Did you ever see such a sight in your life
As three blind mice?
Three blind mice."

Umm, are you kidding me? This is a children's nursery rhyme? A bunch of handicapped rodents attack a rural housewife, who then defends herself by maiming them even further? It's like Fatal Attraction meets My Left Foot. I never want to take a bath again...but I still want to suck on my toes.

So I did some very brief research into the real words for some of the other nursery rhymes my parents have been obscuring with their paltry verse knowledge:

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down... - Terrorists attack British landmarks?

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill went tumbling after: Thirsty kids crack their skulls open? Harsh.

Peter Peter pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn't eat her, put her in a pumpkin shell, there he kept her very well: are you kidding me? Spousal abuse and bondage...in a vegetable? It's like Law and Order re-runs on the Food Network.

Oh my darling Clementine - dude, she dies. It's about her dying.

All around the Mulberry Bush, the monkey chased the weasel, the monkey stopped to pull up his sock, Pop! goes the weasel: - I thought it was about a weasel chewing gum, but it turns out he sucker punches the monkey!

And don't get me started on rockabye baby - a baby falls from the tree to his doom, and my parents celebrate this in song?

It's official - ubiquitous access to video games and semi-automatic weapons may be contributing to our violent culture, but the real cause is nursery rhymes. The NIH should sponsor a study.

Now smile at these pictures or I'll pop you and break your crown.







Grandma and Grandpa!







Crawling to Grandpa...







Chilling out in my chair...I'm getting big for this thing!











Enough! Gimme that camera!


Love, Spencer