This title is harder to think of than any I have had in the past.

So as it turns out, today is my last day of work for the year. Tomorrow we trek down to LJ and then to Brazoria briefly, then back to LJ. Thursday we'll be home...and wait a minute, am I telling you when we'll be gone from our house? Uh...we'll be home all week. Don't even think of breaking into my house. I have very ferocious guard dogs, and they will eat you alive.

Anyway, my original point was that this is my last day of work for 2008. And while I do have a computer and internet access at home, I also have a toddler, and a to do list that's 4, maybe 5 miles long. So, while it's possible I might post, it's not likely.

And also, taking an almost 2 week break from this might result in something funny to write about instead of "Hey, look at my cute kid." And "Here he is again. Being cute." And "Oh, did you notice my cute kid?"

I know you're busy too, so just think of it as my gift to you. The gift of time. You've got an almost 2 week reprieve from looking at my words and pictures.

Oh, and I wanted to tell you guys that my rule about no more shopping after December 1st needs an addendum. It totally works as far as shopping is concerned...but it doesn't alleviate the stress if 2 days before Christmas you're pulling all the presents out of the closet and putting post-it notes on them. So for next year the rule will be. All presents shall be purchases by December 1 and wrapped by the first weekend in December.

May the pirates have mercy on you this Christmas, and I will return, hopefully in one piece, January 5th, 2009.

Sugar high

I spend roughly 50% of yesterday baking and/or cleaning the kitchen.

Landon spent roughly 25% of yesterday asking for tastes of batter. "Waas sat?" "Brownie batter?" "I tayse it me?"

Anyway, I set him up with 4 cookies, pre-iced, and some stuff to stick on them to decorate them. Which he did pretty well. He decorated them and decorated them, I had assumed that once he got one done, he would eat it, but he actually didn't. He had to be told he could eat it. And then he pulled each decoration off and ate them, and he had to be told he could also eat the cookie.

Anyway, in the hopes of being able to post him saying Merry Christmas, I asked him a few things about Christmas.

A Virtual Christmas Card

Merry Christmas from the Wood Family.

Pride and Joy

Oh my god, you guys, this has been the best 2 days EVAH!

Tuesday evening we had a holiday program at Landon's school. And, well - you can see for yourself:



They were still talking about him and his hamminess the next morning.

Awesome.

Then last night I had a meet-up with the ladies on my street - they had an ornament exchange. I was kind of apprehensive, but at least they all liked my ornament. That was a relief, because I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be looking for when I got it.

And when I got home?

Clinton had just gotten Landon down and was so excited I had to peel him off the ceiling, when he told me...

are you ready?

This is big news.

Are you sure you're ready?

Ok.

Landon pooped in the big boy potty! First time ever. As far as Iknow he's never even peed in it, but he pooped. In the potty!

So exciting!

My parents live behind us.

Sure, they're a younger version. But they're a version of my parents.


So, you remember the party invite and the apprehension about going to said party, right?


It wasn't so bad. Apparently, this is a group of people who do community theater. And as for the couple who live there, the husband builds sets, and has acted in a few shows.


And they had beer, not just wine.


And oh holy moly was I transported back about 20 years.


Oh, and then I noticed all the boats on the Christmas tree. He sails.

All in all the party wasn't so bad, and we did learn a lot about our neighbors, besides all the similarities between them and my parents - they do have some differences, he has a 30 year old son, they have 2 children in college, and they're planning on adopting from the state in the next couple months (age range 4-11.)

The music was kind of in the background, and not too weird - she pretty much sang Christmas style hymn like songs. The hard part of going to a party like that is only knowing the host and hostess, and not even really knowing them. Just like, kind of knowing them. Anyway, it was hard, but good. And I'm glad we went.

And bonus - we found out that they have Uverse from AT&T and well, we want Uverse from AT&T and they keep telling us we can't have it. But our neighbor's line comes from the same box and the same little outlet thingie - which is in our backyard. So we totally got on the ball and called AT&T and FINALLY, they're going to send someone out to see if we can have it. It took a year to get them to agree to do that. I guess I finally got the right guy on the phone - not only is he going to have the check done for us, he reviewed our account to see if we could get any more discounts and we got double our internet speed and $10 knocked off our bill. That guy ranks right up there with Belinda.

2 Down, 20 or so to go

When you ask your toddler to help you decorate the Christmas tree. Sometimes you get this:
But when you run out of non-ornaments which are clearly too gigantic to fit on the tree, and he moves on to helping with the glass balls, you will end up needing this:


And then you will have to move all your breakable ornaments to height of about 4 feet.


And then if you wait a week and buy him his own tree, with his own unbreakable ornaments, you will be rewarded by a) him actually understanding how to decorate his tree and helping, and b) finding out that just because they do not shatter, doesn't mean that they are unbreakable, just pull the string real hard, it will totally break, Mom.

Something I should have posted last week.

We had my company's children's Christmas party on the 6th. It was a big hit, and I only wish I had more pictures of it.

If you ask Landon, about the party, he will talk in length about the "pock-own." Apparently an inadvertant highlight of the day.

Nevermind the train! You can ride! While eating a cookie!

And the snow!

And because we are mean inattentive parents who just stood on the sideline and watched, while our son figured out on his own how to play with snow, he made friends with an older Asian woman who loosened the snow for him. (And her own grandchild.) In all honestly he wasn't that keen on the snow to begin with. But man on man, did he love the pock-own.

Obligatory Snow Post

It snowed here yeaterday. Actually, driving home in a light snow that's not sticking to anything is kind of awesome. The street lights illuminate all the little bitty snowflakes as they swirl down. And since it's not sticking, people are not really in danger of sliding around on black ice or anything. I was really wishing I'd had my camera last night.

When I picked Landon up from school it was coming down pretty decently, but he had no interest in it whatsoever. "PSHAW mom, I saw snow last weekend, in that heap at that party, it was brown and dirty - clearly you have no idea what snow is."

Every evening as we drive home, he points out all the inflatable stuff in other people's yards. "Tanta claw." "Aindur." "Noman." "Ingwen." Except the house on the end of our block which has a snowman and a penguin. For that one, he says "noman an chicken." And don't even try to tell him it's a penguin. "Ingwen? Ing...Ing...CHICKEN!!!"

Take your pick of many of the blogs in the area and you'll see pictures of accumulation. Except on this one. And that's for two reason really. One - I still don't have a working camera at the moment. And two - we apparently are in some kind of swirling heat vortex in our area and we didn't get any accumulation. I mean, sure a little stuck to the roof and some to the cars, but none on the grass or anything fun.

Plus, Landon was uber grouchy yesterday for no apparent reason. He was in no mood to be outside, and how dare we leave him at the table to finish his advent candy while daddy and I tried desperately to wrap 4 of our tropical plants on the patio.

I had intended to take the SD card out of my camera and put the pictures on my thumbdrive, so I'd at least have a picture of him standing on the snow at the company children's Christmas party, but since someone we know decided not to go to bed until 10, which is WAY past my bed time, that didn't happen.

And then I thought, well, I'll just do it when I get up in the morning, and then that same someone woke up at 5:15. And spent the next hour doing everything he could to delay putting on his pants. Insisting that I take off his pajamas, but "no, thanks" on the pants front. Not to mention the fact that the overnight pull-ups have Woody on them and how dare I put him in the day time pull ups which have lightning McQueen on them. This kid is getting harder and harder to dress, what with his opinions and stuff.

Maybe we shouldn't have taught him this

The weather in Houston has reached mid thirties. So everyone is wearing their parkas. And hats. And layers. And I'm almost positive that if anyone saw a snowflake, they'd be out buying snow shoes. And they're covering it on the news like it's a hurricane. It's weird. Not to mention how they're talking about how it's going to be freezing the rest of the week and never once will it dip below 32°, not to mention the fact that the numbers say it will be getting warmer each day. I'm just very confused.

Anyway, I still don't have my camera cord or charger, so here are a couple videos of Landon jumping off the edge of the playground. Like a curb.



And now when we leave anywhere that has a curb, he likes to stop and jump off of it. Because, isn't that what curbs are for?

Fine

We secured babysitting. So, we'll be going. I listened to some of the musician's stuff on youtube. It's not my style, that's for sure, but I think I can handle it - it's very churchy sounding, if she's singing the Christmas stuff. Which means that either Clint has to really connect with someone at the party, or we won't last very long. I mean, in all honesty, the last time I was at a house concert it was kind of whiny. He was totally into his own music and wouldn't take requests and yelled at his audience in some kind of language that no one understood. Then he got mad because we didn't understand. And then I had to wrestle him into compliance when he pooed in his pants. So, any way you look at it, this one has got to be better than that.

I think it's an apologetic invite

Remember how our fence was not so much up as it was down a couple months ago?

Remember how we went around to all the neighbors and struck deals with them about fixing it, where they'd pay half for their section?

Well, one neighbor, the one we thought for sure would pay immediately. Didn't. And didn't. And didn't. And two weeks ago I went over to their house to bother them an managed to interupt what was either a baby shower or a bridal shower. And they said they'd get with me in the following week and pay. And then they didn't.

SO I had all but given up on that money, and was about to decide that they could just deal with my barking dog, when yesterday, the husband showed up on our doorstep. Check in hand.

They rounded up. Which was nice, considering we spent some extra money - more than we intended.

And they invited us to a party they're having next Sunday afternoon, early evening (4pm-8pm). It seems like a ... hoity toity kind of party. The kind where they have wine and everyone is a doctor (did I mention he's a hospital administrator and she's a nurse?). They have a musician coming to have a concert in their house.

It's not really our scene, but I don't want to be those crazy neighbors who won't show up when invited to stuff or that hold grudges for not giving us our money in a timely manner. Part of the issue is that Sunday afternoons are what we generally spend getting ready for the week. And while it would be inconvienent to take 4 hours out of our time for that, it wouldn't kill us and we could concievably work around it.

What would you do? Assuming you can find a babysitter, because it is clearly not a party intended for children.

(Oh and if you think this post is a little light on the picture front, that would be because on Saturday I left the charger and cord and carrying case to my camera at the Girl Scout event where they raised a TON of money to buy dog food for the SPCA, luckily I had stuffed the camera in my back pocket, so I at least had my camera for my work's Children's Christmas party, although it did die mid party. I do know who has it and I will get it back some time this week and be able to post some great pictures.)

Interactive

Landon believes the TV to be interactive. I'm not sure if he believes it can hear him, but I think he believes that it can see him. I would think it would be the other way around, I am always talking to the TV, or rather to the stupid people on the TV. You would think he'd know that they can hear you, but not see you.

This morning we were running late, and because I'm lazy, the best way to keep him occupied long enough to dress him and me and load the car is to turn on the TV. I generally have the news on, but if I really want him to be still, I turn on Sprout - the pre-school channel. On Sprout they run the most annoying show. No, not Calliou. Pingu. (If it says Barney is on, I generally look to PBS, Nickelodeon or Disney to see if there's anything less offensive on - I should really add Pingu and Calliou to that list, but this child LOVES Calliou.)

Pingu is a penguin. A penguin who...chirps. The entire show contains no words. Just chirps. It makes me long for Calliou and his overly indulgent parents and whiney objections about how nothing is fair. I mean just the other day his friends showed up at his house and one had a ribbon she had won in some contest and he got all upset about not having a ribbon...but he didn't even compete in said contest. No one bothered to tell him that to win, you have to participate and also, you know, win.

So in order to make the little girl feel like her accomplishment meant nothing, Grandma sets up all these games for him to win a ribbon and Calliou just sucks at all of them. They had to play 5 games before Calliou actually won. When the little girl won, she got a ribbon, when the other little boy won, he got a ribbon, but when he won a second game, he didn't get a second ribbon, which he deserved, because he already had a ribbon. Heck even Rosie, Calliou's baby sister, beat him at a race or something because he got distracted. But no bother, just keep playing games until Calliou wins...something...anything. Why aren't kids allowed to feel what it's like to lose anymore?

Wait, I got side tracked.

Landon saw Pingu come on, and said "ing-gwen," he promptly jumped off the bed ran to the bar to get his penguin from his McDonald's happy meal toy collection of doom. What? You don't keep your toddler's toys in the wet bar? Why not? It's the perfect little cubby.

He came back and held the penguin up to the TV. To show Pingu that he had a penguin too, I guess. He seemed a little bit put off by the fact that the TV penguins didn't even acknowledge the penguin in his hand. He stood on his tippy toes and reached as high as he could towards the TV, as if he thought maybe they just couldn't see him. It was no use, the penguins were already in their little clique and his outsider penguin was just going to have to settle for the company of the hippo and the zebra. Not that he felt sorry enough for him to take him to school with him or anything. Just let him freeze in Mom's car while she's at work.

I don't know where I was going with this, except I really needed to get that whole Calliou thing off my chest.

Monthly Newsletter #26

Dear Landon,

Today you turn 26 months old. 26. GAH! I can’t believe it’s been that long. It seems like only yesterday I was…complaining about how you never slept and cried 23 hours a day.

We have absolutely entered a new phase this month. The “whaaas sat?” phase. It is awesome. Not just because I can tell that you’re checking out your surroundings, but because when you ask what something is and we tell you, you totally try to repeat it. Also, when we tell you what something is, nine times out of ten you actually commit it to memory. Hence the new fascinations with water towers – which I pointed out to you in an effort to keep your attention away from the fact that you were sleepy since we were only 3 minutes from our destination – and lord knows if you fall asleep in the car even if only for a minute, we’re not going to get another nap out of you. Your other obsessions include “skoo butheth” (school buses), “beeg rucks” (big trucks), and “geetahs” (guitars.)

We’re reading a lot of books with one word on each page and a picture, and while it may appear that you can read I know that’s not the case, but you totally know what the thing on the page is. Like “okkopooth” (octopus.) And “nake” (snake.) It’s a step in the direction of reading though and that is totally awesome.

Another bonus to your remembering of things is that you totally remember who people are when you see them now. Even the ones you only see once every few months. And you say their names. You caused several people to cry tears of joy because of that over Thanksgiving. I was hoping “Nuckle Hestor” (Uncle Hector) would stick, but apparently you’ve moved on to “Uncle Heccor.” The rest of them you’re close enough to the right pronunciation that we don’t get to have a fun new nickname.

You are recognizing a few letters and a few numbers when you see them. Especially if you can sit on my lap and point at my shirt and ask me what each letter is while poking me with your pointy pointy fingers. I have to credit your school with this feat. You are a little sponge, soaking up everything you can.

You did also hit a few day care style milestones this month. There was biting. When the day care called I was 99% certain that you had done the biting, but in fact you had been bit. They can’t tell me who it is, and the only reason I know it was a girl was because two weeks later I got another call. Somebody scratched your face. I asked if we were dealing with some kind of bully situation, if it was the same kid, and they said no, the biter was a girl and the scratcher was a boy. Things like this are going to happen from time to time, I fully expect to get calls from day care when you get hurt, by accident or as a victim and occasionally as a perpetrator from time to time – it’s part of growing up and as much as I would love to be able to protect you from those things, if nothing ever happens to you, then you’ll never learn how to deal with hurt. Rest assured, if I start getting calls too often, I will step in and do what I need to do. On the upside, yay for getting close enough to another kid to be bitten and scratched! That’s actually progress.

Your love for music continues to rule your life. You hear music and must dance. You have rock star pajamas and a rock star towel, and you love both of them. You see guitars on signs, in books, in real life and you play your air guitar and dance to the air guitar music. Occasionally we look over to see you dancing to music that no one else hears – perhaps remembering a good song you heard earlier in the day. You want to share your love of music so much, that you tried over Thanksgiving to teach Grandma and Grandpa Wood’s stuffed bear how to play the piano. The harmonica you got last year for Christmas is still a favorite toy.



I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but this month has been pretty good. Your new found communication skills have helped us when we couldn’t figure out what the meltdown was about. We have finally figured out a good schedule, and you’ve attended school for full weeks at a time instead of partial weeks with illnesses thrown in. It’s been awesome. I have often told your daddy that I want to adopt our next child because I’d like to start with a 2 year old – he doesn’t agree – but this is why, because I love 2 year olds. I love this stage, tantrums and all.

Love,
Mama

Girl Pants

I may have mentioned that on Sunday we went to buy pants for me. I've had this gift card for like a year and I've been patiently waiting for my weight to magically poof to lower numbers and it's not happening, so I broke down and decided to buy new pants.

This is big. That I decided it. That I announced it. That I actually followed through on it. And I may have given Clinton a heart attack in the process.

We arrived at Katy Mills Mall with about an hour to buy both Landon shoes and me pants. Landon's shoes didn't take that long and we were off to S&Bs for the pants.

There are going out of business signs posted everywhere and we only had 30 minutes, so Clinton and I decided to split up. He took Landon to the kiddo department to look for pants for him and I went to the Sarah Jessica Parker section because I like her Bitten pants.

And granted this is the end of the day on the crazy shopping weekend from hell. But holy hell there were pants everywhere in the Sarah Jessica Parker section and by everywhere I mean all over the floor in a heaping pile of mess. Like a size 6-16 tornado came through took all those pants and left the 0s, 20s, and 22s to die slow painful deaths strewn about the room. I did manage to find 2 pair in my size, although not exactly what I wanted, they'll do for now. I went to try them on.

As I exited the changing room I noticed stacks of neatly folded pants that had been rejected by other people, so I perused them for my size with no luck. I met up with Clinton, he had found a few pair of pants for Landon, so I stripped him down and wrestled them on him. By this time they're making announcements about the impending closure of the store and everyone should go stand in line to check out now. We finally settled on 2 pair for me (the only two in the store in my size) and 1 pair for him (the only pair in the store in his size). I managed to get his original pants back on him and one shoe when he took off toward the back of the store.

Now I'm not sure what the store employee I'll call Jughead thought I was doing, I mean, clearly you can't tell what a woman is up to when she's chasing a 2 year old with a shoe telling him to stop, obviously she's still shopping. He freaking yelled at me. "Ma'am!" (And don't even get me started on how I do not like to be called ma'am.) "Ma'am!" I gave him a dirty look. "We're closing!" He said it just like that, bold stupidity, italics of assholery, exclamation point and all. "I know." And I shot him my best death ray eyes of leave me the hell alone, can't you tell when a woman is not in the mood to be patronized.

Anyway, I spent the next 30 minutes in line at the cash register where only one employee - the least trained one they have - was checking people out. Which was annoying at first, but proved to be to my advantage later.

The woman in front of me had some kind of ringing up issue, it took 4 visits from various other employees and one visit twice from one guy until it was solved (why he didn't solve it the first time was beyond me.) That transaction alone took 20 minutes.

So I paid for my pants, telling the girl specifically that there were toddler pants wrapped up in the middle of my wad, and she still didn't ring them up. And I might have considered going back to pay for them, if Jughead had been nicer to me, or if I didn't have to go to another Steve & Barry's to try to spend the remainder of my gift card.

Yesterday during lunch I went to the other Steve and Barry's in town and got a couple pair of incentive pants. (One size smaller than my current pants.) and I searched the entire store for pants for Landon. And found 2. Except one pair is girl pants. And maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it to Clinton and I could have gotten away with it, it's not like they have pink thread or butterflies painted on them or anything, in fact the only thing I could tell that makes them girl pants specifically was the purple tag that S&B had put on them – and that comes off before you even wash them, so I don’t know what the deal is. He did agree to wash them and see if they look girly on Landon and if they don't he'll let it slide. So if you see my son in girl pants, just don't say anything. Ok?

Fifteen posts

1. Thanksgiving was great.

2. Landon just went cousin to cousin wearing them out. First Taylor.

3. Then Ashley.

4. Landon learned about water towers and now there is screaming yelling excitement when he sees one until we confirm. "Yes, that's a water tower."

5. Clinton got hit on twice in one trip to Wal-Mart without me.

6. We ate Thanksgiving on Thursday with Michelle from the Biggest Loser and since I had no clue who she was until she and Clint's cousin (who (whom?) she's dating) left, I had no idea that I should have gotten some kind of photographic evidence.

7. Operation finish Christmas shopping by Dec 1 is almost complete. I have 2 more to buy and I feel like I can get them done today.

8. Scarlett hurt her foot on Saturday morning, it seems better now, but it freaked me out beyond anything and did you know that vets in small towns are all "you can call our on call doctor, but only if you're established and only if it's life threatening." Jerks. And also, how do you know if it's life threatening or not? Our vet gave me dosage info for aspirin and benedryl in case it was some kind of bite - although we can't find a penetration or bite mark of any kind. This morning she seemed pretty much back to normal.

9. There was Heron watching.

10. Joshua and Brianna built a lean to kind of looking tent with string and a tarp and sticks. Well. Joshua started it, and abandoned it when it wasn't doing exactly what he wanted and Brianna changed the design and finished it, so no real teamwork on purpose, but kind of accidental teamwork.

11. There was hammocking.

12. There was outdoor movie watching. Or depending on who you are, outdoor movie barking or outdoor movie climbing around on a chair until you get too loud and your dad makes you go inside.

13. Between Scarlett's hurt foot, and the cold driving everyone inside at what would be Landon's bedtime to be where Landon, and let's be serious - because I go to sleep when he does, and I would be trying to sleep, we decided to make a break for it and wake up at home Sunday morning.

14. We went to get Landon new shoes and future shoes. And me some pants, when we found out that Steve and Barry's is filing for bankruptcy so I need to hurry up and spend my gift card.

15. And we stopped in to WalMart and nearly bought some candy for our advent calendar when the fire alarm went off. We headed out because we didn't want to be those people who were all "Well, were going to leave, but decided it was probably nothing and then we ended up with these 3rd degree burns."