Family Dance Hour!

I just want to announce to the world that I have a favorite activity...Family Dance Hour. This activity consists of my family dancing for about an hour. I named the activity myself, I'm very creative. Here are a few pictures to give you a glimpse...




I just love doing this with my parents. They spin me around and around and for some reason they always end up kissing me over and over again. Maybe this doesn't quite qualify as a lambada forbidden dance, but it might be close!

This past weekend my parents and I took a trip up north to the center of all the wildfire action, up in Hopland, CA with our friends Chris, Doug, Jay, Laura and Megan. We got so lucky that when we got up there the winds picked up and blew the smoke totally out of our breathing space! So lucky!

I like getting out of the city. Don't get me wrong - San Francisco is a great town! - but being up in the country, the fresh air, the smell of cows and sweaty farmers, it just reminds me of my youth...mainly because my memory goes back about 10 minutes running, so all I remembered when I was up there was, you know, being up there.

So what does a young, eligible infant such as myself do when up in the wilds of Northern California? I did a bit of swimming...








I played a bit of Risk - and successfully defended Irkutsk with one army against the onslaught of 54 Mongolians!










And I drove around a buddhist compound called...I am not making this up..."The City of 10,000 Buddhists." Check their peaceful website out at www.cttbusa.com. Seriously. If you want to find it, take a left at Inspiration Avenue and a right at Mindfulness Way. I'm still not making this up. If you're old enough, you could enroll at Instilling Goodness Elementary School (home of the Fighting Badgers?). I'd never seen anything like this before. Apparently the compound used to be a state mental facility. I'll leave it to you to finish that joke according to your own personal threshold of cultural insensitivity.

All in all it was such a great weekend!






I also wanted to post one of my favorite pictures of me with my grandma Joyce, who came to visit a couple of weeks ago - we look cute together, don't you think?






OK, sorry no political discourse this week - quite honestly the only big news was all this brou-ha-ha about Barack giving up federal funding and, as McCain says, "going back on his word," but this is all so unbelievably ridiculous. If McCain could raise funds like Barack, you think McCain wouldn't be doing the same? McCain's just being a bit of a baby, politically speaking, and take it from a baby to know a baby. Anyway, I've spent too much time on this topic, it warrants about 5 seconds of mind share but that's all.

Have a great fourth of July everyone!

Love,Spencer

Can you believe I'm already 5 months old? I'm having trouble believing it, but mainly because I'm too young to have any sense of a time continuum.

Here's one of my shots that I'm planning to send in to Brooks Brothers. OK, maybe just Carter's, but a boy can dream, can't he?


Let's chat a bit about the fact that John McCain's attack machine is harping on the fact that Obama hasn't been to Iraq in about 900 days. One of McCain's main platforms is his "military leadership experience," so I can see why he's making this an issue.

Now Obama has stated that he's planning a trip to check things out. I think this is only fair. After all, one of Obama's main platforms is health care reform, and John McCain has apparently been to see a doctor 400 times in the last year.

Also, maybe people outside of California heard the news that the Golden State has started issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. Given that I'm only 5 months old and have never read this "bible" thing, I don't know what the big deal with this is. But quite honestly, I kind of want to grab a friend and get married, because I like the idea of being the world's first "gayby." But I do like boob. I'm conflicted. Can a 5-month-old even BE conflicted?

OK, so a few more pictures.


Action shot! My dad and me playing airplane!



Look at how I can keep my chest off the ground!





I had to throw these adorable ones in. I'm so conceited!




Love,
Spencer

Omnivore or cannibal?

It's been well-documented that I dig the taste of giraffe. I've also gotten very much into the taste of duck.






But recently I've decided to branch out into more exotic fare. For example, take my toe (please!). After months of intense baby yoga practice, I've been able to reach my toe to my mouth, and to be honest I like the taste. I probably spend 20% of my lying-down time eating my toes.



One thing this range of flexibility has enabled for me is that I'm very much able to turn over from my back to my stomach! All I do is lift my feet to my head, lose my balance and suddenly I'm on my stomach. Below are some pictures of my turn in action!





Another piece of news from this weekend is that I went swimming for the first time! According to my dad, I was a natural in that I didn't cry and didn't drown. It was so much fun! It was like taking a bath but with no soap and fewer visible poop particles. I don't have any pictures of this momentous event unfortunately, which is a big loss for you since I look hot in a swim diaper. Maybe next time.

OK, enough about me, let's talk about the big news this week: Barack as the Democratic nominee, and Hillary's endorsement of him that was added to that of my political action committee Babies Behind Barack (BBB - make your donations payable to Spencer Weinberg's 529 Plan!). This got me to thinking: who would BBB support as a vice-presidential nominee?

I can tell you BBB won't be supporting Hillary Clinton. I have two reasons for not liking her, in addition to the reasons I've stated in previous blogs. First, I don't like that she tried to cheat by changing the rules in Michigan and Florida after the fact. That just shows she lacks some character. But more importantly, I have this sneaking suspicion that she actually eats babies - and if she doesn't now, then she would if the pollsters were to tell her it would work well with white, working class, middle-school educated, childless old women. Oh, and girls are icky.

So who else is in the mix? A couple of senators from Virginia, a governor of Ohio and Pennsylvania, a senator from Indiana...all these people bore me.

I've done some thinking on this, and my perspective is that whoever it is, he/she can't:

1. Rhyme with Obama. This means the dream ticket of Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama is just not going to happen. Plus I never want to see Richard Gere on c-span.

2. Be older than John McCain. This shouldn't be too hard, since there are only 10 Americans in that category.

3. Be from Illinois. This rules out Abe Lincoln. Also, he's dead. And he doesn't like the theater, or so I hear. But Obama / Lincoln would sound cool.

4. Be black, unless the VP is way blacker than Barack, like, say, Flava-Flav. But while this would probably increase turnout in some key districts in swing states, I can confidently say Barack would lose Pennsylvania. If you've been to central PA, you feel me.

5. Be someone who went to an Ivy League school - Barack went to Columbia and Harvard and for some reason he gets hammered for it. This rules out his wife, although the ticket Obama Obama has a great ring to it, kind of like Boutros-Boutros Ghali. (Cornell is probably OK, though - OUCH).

6. Have a middle name like Genghis or Hitler. Hussein is enough for one campaign, thank you very much.

Now I don't know where that leaves us. Honestly, I kind of wish he'd pick Al Gore...anyone else with me?



Love,
Spencer

Feeling MUCH better

Sorry for the long delay between posts. I wasn't feeling top notch for a few days, but I'm feeling back to normal now. My parents were really concerned, because, according to them, I was listless and un-smiley, which are very much unlike me. But now I'm feeling very Spencer-like - lots of smiling (and so many reasons to do so!), sleeping well again, and generally in a much better mood!

One new development that somewhat concerns me is the new sounds I'm making. I seem to be making lots of squeaks, grunts and other onomatopoeias (how about that vocab for a 4-month old!), and they're happening more often each day. I'm a bit concerned that there is perhaps a small marmoset in my stomach making these sounds. My parents think they're adorable. But what a surprise they'll have when one day a marmoset jumps out of my mouth!

Here's a quick picture of me trying to down one of those rattles so I know when the marmoset is moving.



Ok, a bit of a lame post today, but I'm just back in action!

Love,
Spencer

4 months old but not feeling so well

I just hit another life milestone! No, I'm not talking about my first traffic ticket - I turned 4 months old on Friday! And as a wonderful birthday present, Buddha made me sick.

That's right, I feel awful. I have a 102 temperature and feel like my stuffed Thomas the Train ran right over me. My parents got so worried they even took me to the clinic, where they did the following:
- Weighed me, and then had a double take while adjusting KGs to LBs and realizing I weighed 16lb, 15oz. I'm like a Thanksgiving Turkey, but thankfully without the giblets.
- Looked in my ears and nose, presumably making sure I hadn't stuffed any loose change in there hoping that a soda would come out of my mouth
- Checked all of my fingers and toes to make sure I didn't have what's called a hair tourniquet. This is when your mom's long hair gets twisted around an extremity and cuts of the blood flow. It's also what saved one of the characters in Casualties of War, but in that case he never actually removed the hair from the vietnamese prostitute before using it.
- Inspected my poop. These are the things they don't tell you when med schools come for campus recruiting.

In the end, the just opined that I just needed rest and fluids, and didn't have anything more exotic, like a reaction to one of my vaccinations, or a parasitic jungle disease (but they didn't ask me if I'd been to a jungle lately).

So that's what my parents are giving me - lots of fluids, some fitful sleep, and a showering of attention. And to keep my fever down, they're putting a cool towel on my head like this!





I'm convinced that so much of keeping good health is your diet. I've been on a steady diet of breast milk, which clearly is giving me all the calories I need. But I've started to acquire a taste for meat:






One more thing - let's all give a huge wahoowah for the UVA tennis and lacrosse teams, both of whom made it to the NCAA semifinals this coming week! Go hoos, from your best mini-fan!

Love, Spencer

My first plane ride!

I had a whirlwind trip this past weekend. My parents took me on my first plane flight to a place I've been begging them to take me since birth. You guessed it - Ohio. Ohio? Ohio. Ohio?

Here we are boarding one of the many soon-to-be-bankrupt airlines out of San Francisco, just for proof that we went there for all of you disbelieving, jealous types:


You'll note that the flight board says we were going to Cleveland. That wasn't our ultimate destination - we were headed for a little town known as Hiram, Ohio (population: irrelevant).

The occasion? My mom's younger sister Sam graduated from college! I'm so proud of Sam, but I have to admit she should be a bit embarrassed that after only 2 days on campus, they offered me an honorary degree. The cap didn't fit, but the gown looked marvelous.


We also had a rocking family picture taken - apparently we haven't had a picture of my mom and dad and me since my bris, which is an event I'd prefer to forget anyway. So I'm excited that this picture finally wipes the previous one out. Here it is. I am so damn cute. And so happy!


Being in Ohio was a major culture shock. I can't imagine another place more different from my home in San Francisco. For starters, I didn't see a single Prius during my entire trip. Not one Prius. In SF, you can't spit Peet's Coffee without hitting a Prius. But in Ohio they prefer Ford F-150s ... and then they soup them up to get even worse gas mileage. And where were all the other foreign-made cars? Are the Japanese and Germans boycotting Ohio? Maybe they think that Ohio was responsible for the allies winning WWII.

Another thing - why was everyone so nice? What did they want from me? Did they want me to vote Republican? Join their church? I'm now convinced that every Ohioan is a salesperson...who is, of course, bitter and clings to guns and religion. Sorry Barack, it had to be said.

I'd also like to give a shout out to my mom for mother's day. I love my mom. She's great, but could use a little help with nursery rhymes. Here's her version of a classic that she sang to me on the plane today - and I am NOT making this up:
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder where you are
Up above the sky and clouds
Like a .... [quizzical look from my dad stops her]

Same day - I'm still not making this up - she sings me the ABC song (which I just realized is to the same tune as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) and goes straight from "QRS TUV" to "Now I know my ABCs," leaving out some pretty important letters. God help me when I start school.

But even though she's verse-challenged and quite tone deaf (fodder for another blog later on, no doubt - just wait for the .wav file), she's the best mom I could ever ask for. Happy Mother's Day mom!


Love,
Spencer

a bit of political discourse...and pictures

It keeps going and going and going and going.

This Tuesday is yet another installment of the Democratic primaries. I have to tell you that I'm tired of these primaries. The 2008 Democratic primaries have been going on literally my entire life.

If you're reading this in either Indiana or North Carolina I have a message to deliver to you in between all of the nasty political ads and news segments about nasty political ads you're seeing on TV (no doubt you miss the Bud Light ads and movie previews). As president of the San Francisco chapter of BBB (see my March 18 posting...) I'd like to urge you to vote for Obama. And I know that all you Hoosiers and Tar Heels look to San Francisco for your political guidance, right?

The reason I REALLY hope that Obama wins in both states is because I think then and only then will Hillary stop hoping that the National Enquirer breaks a story that Suri Cruise is actually Obama's love child and just end her campaign. Finally we'll be able to turn our attention to John McCain and the series finale of Scrubs this Thursday night. 5 bucks JD and Eliot still don't get together.

Which brings me to my main topic for today. Did you know that when John McCain graduated from the Naval Academy sometime before the invention of color televison, his class rank was 894 out of 899. 6th from the bottom. Bottom 1%.

Let's put this into context. If I had been in McCain's graduating class, it's not entirely unreasonable that I could have been ranked ahead of him, what with my ability to do almost one pushup and my preternatural understanding of seasonal ocean currents. Note to new readers: I'm 3 1/2 months old.

It scares me to to think that the reward for this kind of extreme underachievement is the presidency [insert Bush joke here]. I want my president to be someone who is smarter than me [insert Bush joke here]; a person who can make reasoned judgments based on an understanding of what other smart people advise them to do [insert...ok enough of that]. Now that doesn't mean that the president has to have been the valedictorian of New Rochelle High School (go Fighting Huguenots!), but I'd say top 80% of class should be expected. Think about who the bottom 1% of your graduating class of ANYTHING was and imagine him/her as president. Good luck sleeping tonight with dreams of Jeff Klein in the oval office (now let's see if Jeff actually reads this...).

Here's another frame of reference. You know the old joke, "What do you call the person who graduates last in his medical class? Doctor." Now imagine you find out your baby's pediatrician graduated 894 out of 899 in his Naval Academy medical class. Auf wiedersehn Dr. Lipschutz.

OK, off of my soapbox for today. There are many other reasons that he scares me, but I'll give him credit that his wife is an uber-rich babealot. I'd like her to change my diaper, if you know what I mean. I actually don't know what I mean. What does that mean?

Here are a few recent pictures of me hanging out in my chair. In the first one I kind of look ready to hold court, no?




And here's a recent one of me and my mom at our friend's place up in wine country. That's a rocking infinity pool overlooking the countryside and vineyards!




Love,
Spencer