Nature vs. Nurture

I have never thought of Spencer as being shy, but rather a little cautious in new situations. He's always tended to take everything in and slowly acclimate to the environment rather than jump right in. Lately I've noticed that he doesn't seem to need that warm up time as much. One day this week, Dave dropped him off at our friend Anissa's house where he played with her littlest boy while she home-schooled her oldest for a few hours. He barely knows these friends (we of course know them very well), but he just walked right in, started playing and had a total blast. Yesterday was our first class of the new semester of Music Together. The teacher and the parents (most of whom were in our class last time) kept looking at me like, "Who IS this kid and what have you done with Spencer?" He was Mr. Showboat - dancing, singing, banging drums, talking to the babies and mommies and just having a grand ole' time. We went to the rodeo carnival last weekend and he was eager to get on rides. And I already described how fun and comfortable he was at our friend's birthday party last weekend.

The reason I'm talking about this is I think it's interesting that this behavior is exactly what has been described as a benefit of Attachment Parenting - a style of parenting that Dave and I subscribe to (though somewhat loosely). The idea is that keeping your baby close in the early years and responding to his needs doesn't create a clingy/needy/spoiled child - it actually fosters independence. So, maybe Spencer was just born this way. But I like to think all that baby-wearing, co-sleeping, extended nursing, responding to him throughout the night, and keeping him close to us actually did something!