Anti-Beans

Landon's school has this deal where for $5 a week, they'll feed your kid breakfast. I'm all over that, because I think that he needs a little variety and the frozen waffle I would hand him every morning is eventually going to make him completely insane.

So the deal is that there is a teacher on duty in the cafeteria until 7, and then they all retreat to their classrooms. At which time they are still serving breakfast, but if you come in after 7 and before 8, you have to sit with your kid to eat the breakfast and then escort them yourself to the classroom.

I was running late this morning, and on mornings I am running late enough to have to sit with him to eat breakfast, I try to feed him something on the way to school instead so he can go straight back to the classroom, which makes drop off 1000 times easier and the second he sees his friends and his teachers, he's all "Mom, who?"

This morning he rebuffed my offer a a waffle. So I offered strawberries, which aren't the on the go kind of fruit you'd think they'd be, because for some unknown reason I introduced them to him with a dipping component (either chocolate or cool whip). Oh, to be able to turn back time...

Anyway, I cut up about 3 strawberries and put them in a small bowl with some cool whip and since I was going to have to wait on him to finish, I set out about doing a little tidying up in the kitchen. He ate, I kid you not, MAYBE 1/2 a strawberry and then exclaimed. "DERE'S BEANS ON MY STAWBEWWY"

So naturally I'm like "Beans, on your strawberry? Really? I kind of doubt that?"

But he ran over to show me the beans he had found on his strawberry.

"Oh, sweetie, those are seeds, you can totally eat those."

"Oh...seeeeeeds?"

"Yes, seeds."

At that point he decided not to eat any more strawberries. Which, fine. I mean, the have a snack at like 9 and then lunch at 10:45 or something, so it's not like a few hours without much food is going to kill him. We washed his hands and I saw the bananas on the counter and thought - well, that's more portable! So I offered a banana, which he accepted and we headed out the door.

He ate about 1/3 of the banana before noticing the beans in it. And he stopped eating it. "Dere's beans in my bana tooooo."

"Yes, Landon, pretty much all fruit is going to have seeds of some sort, they aren't going to hurt you, you can keep eating it."

"Nope. Here, don't wanit."

UGH.

I totally thought today was Wednesday

Which makes today extra awesome.

Finally figuring out pedaling

Because no holiday weekend is complete without an injury

I will save you some panic time, because the injured is not human. And if you know our canine history - I bet you can guess which dog is the one who is hurt.

We took the dogs to GUL and Kimmie's house on Sunday to play with their dogs - and all was well in whoville. The little dogs and the big dogs got along swimmingly. We couldn't have asked for a better time amongst them. And there were chases around the yard and one of those chases ended with a splash.

I wasn't watching and all I heard was a splash. And I looked around and did not see Scarlett anywhere. And then I saw Clinton looking over the edge of the bulkhead. And Scarlett is standing below on slippery slimy rocks. Shaking, scared as hell. After a minute or so it became pretty clear that she was not going to do anything about getting her own butt out of the lake. She had found a place to stand and that was it. She wasn't even willing to try to make her way down to the place where it would have been easier to get her out of the water.

I was the only one wearing shoes - although they were flip flops, they were better than nothing. So I jumped down and picked her 78 lb chubby butt up. I normally balk at picking up things like 40 lb bags of dog food, but was somehow able to stand on slippery rocks and lift her enough that Clinton and Lynn were able to pull her the rest of the way out.

She limped a little, but after a while seemed ok. So we thought she was fine. But by that evening she was slower than normal and the swelling had begun.

So as it turns out, the likely injury to a person or dog who falls 4 feet off a bulkhead on to slimy slippery rocks is a sprained ankle. Which I suspected. The vet also sustained a similar injury to his own ankle in a similar manner (although not this past weekend, and also probably not while chasing another dog around.) But her ankle was still so swollen still this morning, 48 hours post injury, that I thought it would behoove us to have it checked out and also to find out if they did indeed have something better than baby aspirin to give her. And they do, so he prescribed that and he gave us the admittedly tall orders of keeping her calm, for 2 weeks. So she'll be on a leash and house and/or crate bound for 2 weeks.

Pet insurance would have been a great idea for this dog, but a complete waste of money on the other one. And from what I hear, they have some pretty big preexisting condition clauses, and I'm almost positive that if we apply now for her, they'll be like "we're sorry your dog is entirely too injury-prone and stupid, we will not insure her."

That part aside, it was a good weekend, and Landon was happy 95% of the time.

He got to ride a jet ski, which he may or may not tell you is a boat (a red boat and a white boat and a black boat) and depending on which way the wind is blowing and how the stars are aligned with the planets, he may or may not have had fun while on said boat/jet ski. Not that I was allowed to go over 8-9 miles an hour.


Oh, and look, a new life jacket, because heaven forbid we remember the one hanging on our back porch, that we ALL looked at as we walked out of the house on Friday - to go on a trip - to a LAKE!!!

All in all it wasn't a bad weekend or anything, but part of me is glad to finally be sitting back at my desk right now.

Snot watch 2009 Round 846

Landon has yet another sinus infection - or rather maybe a continuation of that last one. The on-call Dr., since his normal Dr. was out today, said sinus infections are notoriously deep seated and sometimes it just takes a longer regimen of antibiotics to get it all. So when he stopped them at 10 days as per original orders and was fine - I thought we were good, but then 2 days later he developed a hacking rumbling cough again, and here we are 6 days after THAT and now we're back on antibiotics for 14 days - with orders to not allow him to share food or drinks with anyone...which will be hella hard seeing as we're at a family function this weekend and that just tends to happen. I need to get in touch with my inner helicopter momness - and that's going to be kind of hard, since I don't have a helicoptery bone in my body. Maybe I'll make him a "Don't feed the Landon" shirt.

The good news is that we discussed the fact that I think these are allergies turned sinus infections and she gave me some non-drowsy options for dealing with that if that is indeed the case. The bad news is that it's a guessing game, since they can't do the allergy testing skin prick test stuff until he's 5.

More good news, since the origination was allergies and his fever - if you can even call it that - never went above 99.9°, I was able to ship him off to school this morning after his first dose of meds and come into work.

Someone call an ambulance, my heart just melted.

Last night on arrival home, a black and white neighbor cat was in our driveway.

"A cat!"

"Yeah."

"A black cat."

"Yeah."

"A black cat and a white cat."

"Um..ok."

"A black cat and a white cat, right der."


Being that it was ONE cat, not two, you can see why I might have been a little confused this morning when he started talking about best friends.

"You best fends, mommy?"

"Yeah?"

"You best fends, mommy?"

"Who's best friends?"

"Mommy best fends, I best fends."

"We're best friends?"

"Yeah. Two best fends."

"You have 2 best friends? Who are your two best friends?"

"No, mommy, me, one, two."

"Ooooh, we're 2 best friends."

"Yeah."

Roller Coaster

I've been on a rollercoaster of emotions this morning and it's just exhausting.

It's work related, so I don't really want to get into it. But yes, I still have a job.

Plan B

I've been writing this post and erasing it for 10 minutes and I have far too much work to do to be doing that.

Find out about the Chicken Game here. And here. I found one of these chickens in my underwear drawer last week, and it totally made my day.

Redneck in the making

The best place to be is sitting out on your back porch.

Cause nothing's more fun than sitting on your back porch shooting at stuff.

Except maybe getting someone else to join you.

Numbers for last weekend

2 - Number of times I was rear-ended last weekend - thankfully with no damage to the vehicle either time.

2 - Number of bars I went to Saturday night.

12 - Number of bachelorette parties at the second bar.

29 - Number of bras I tried on before finding just 3 that didn't poke me in the armpit, create armpit boobs, or create room for someone else's boobs along with mine.

2,876 - lbs of rocks purchased to line flower beds and moved one by one from the truck to the driveway. You'd think that was an exaggeration, but the guy weighed them.

50 - length of flower bed in feet lined with rocks before it even looked like that pile had been touched.

1 - cubic yard of mulch shoveled and placed.

88 - temperature in degrees of the pool - without any heater action.

6 - hours spent in the pool over the weekend

10 - hours Landon slept after spending 4 hours in the pool on Sunday.

Conversations with a 2 year old

You may need to read Landon's parts outloud, since the spellings are phonetic.

***************************

Landon: Hey wuh sat no-eese?

Clinton: A bird?

Me: A siren?

Clinton: A car?

Landon: No, a cock-a-doo chicken! COCK-A-DOO!!!!

*************************

[We bought some pool noodles at HEB on Sunday morning and Landon was playing with one, he wasn't paying attention and kept whacking Clinton with it.]

Me: Hey, keep your noodle to yourself. It's a good rule now, and it will be a good rule later too.
*************************

********************

Things Landon has his own special names for:

Belts, the kind you wear on your waist: seatbelts

Skulls: head bones

Dough nut holes: dough nut balls

Sausage kolache: hot dog

Polka dots: poking dots

********************

[As we drove away from the dough nut place and I pulled out my sausage kolache, Landon saw what I was eating.]

Landon: I want it, dat hot dog. Peese, peese.

[I gave it to him because I thought that might happen. He started eating the kolache.]

Landon: Mmmmm, dat my fave-it, yum yum.

[Pretty much everything he's eating is his "fave-it."]

I can't move.

We spent a lot of time this weekend with rocks. Unloading them from the truck and then moving them to the back yard and lining the flower beds with them...I am beyond sore. And as such I cannot think. So here.

This guy helped smooth the mulch - although he made it through about 2 loads of mulch before he was too tired to help any more.

Because who doesn't want a rambly post every now and then

Landon's been sick this week [allergies turned sinus infection - as always]. Today is his first day back at school. And man was he pissed to be back in the routine after being out of it for like 5 days. Oh and now I have to sanitize my hands before going into my kid's classroom (not like they singled me out or anything, but they have a note to all parents that this is the new thing)...which 3 things 1) I don't touch anything but my kid and his paperwork, so I don't really see the point and 2) all this hyper vigilance is going to create a new superbug a la MRSA - just wait and see and 3) if I did have a the flu and I came to pick him up, my hands are the least of what anyone's worries should be - maybe they ought to supply us with those hazmat jumpsuit thingies - I want mine to have a helmet like an Astronaut.

The healthnuts are everywhere! I got chastised by a co-worker for drinking ice water all the time. Not the water part, but that he seems to think that warm or hot water is healthier for you. And I said, hey - it's not like I'm downing a 12 pack of coke every day - water is still good for you. So I looked it up and for some reason a lot of Asian people believe that hot water is better for you than cold water. I can't find any actual scientific stuff that says he's right - also can't find anything to say he's wrong, but do now realize it's a fairly cultural thing I'm dealing with, so I've decided to let it go. He also bothers me about the bacon I eat every morning, but I guess he doesn't exactly understand how sugar and starches affect my body and I don't really want to get into it with him, so I can't really fault him for that one.

Someone I can fault for something is my husband and his cousin. Remember that family cookbook I've been working on? Dude, it's taken like forever - I started it in January. but now I have a deadline, so come June 13th, I have to be done - I work better with deadlines, so that's a good thing. Also - the only 2 people who haven't done their homework for me? My husband and his cousin! You know, the two people who originally thought I should do this thing.

And you know who else is bothering me right now? Little kids. That sounds mean, but some times OPK (Other People's Kids) just irritate the ever loving crap out of me. Remember, when we went to the park and Landon was all - "EEEK other small people, I will just DIE if they talk to me!!" Well apparently, what goes around comes around, even in the toddler circuit, because he's totally trying hard to talk to kids on the playground now and about half the time the other kid completely ignores him. It's pretty frustrating really - we spent so much time trying to socialize him and get him to be willing to talk to other people and now they're ignoring him. Granted they're older kids, so they're probably just trying to get out of playing with a baby - but they could at least acknowledge his presence, I'm not asking them to baby-sit him.

Oh and they added these two giant rocks to the playground, one has a hole in the middle, which Landon like to sit in and pretend there's a TV to watch in there.

The end.

Wordless Wednesday

Monthly Newsletter #31

Dear Landon,

A couple days ago you turned 31 months old. You are very insistent that it does not by any means take away from your babyhood status.

“Landon, are you a big boy?”

“No, me a baby.”

“Are you sure? You’re not a big boy?”

“NO, me a baby!”

“Well, I think you might be a big boy.”

At this point you get supremely mad. “NO!!! ME A BABAY!!!”

Fine, you’re a baby.

So many new things have sprouted this month. One is the shoulder shrug. Sometimes you use it while narrating an inaudible story. Mumble mumble mumble *shoulder shrug and lifting palms* mumble mumble mumble *shoulder shrug.* You call your sandals “hot day shoes.” You call the alphabet song “ABCDs” and when you see letters on a sign or a shirt, you get excited saying “ABCDs! ABCDs!”

You like to sing, but you don’t always like when mommy sings. Which, ouch! I mean it’s not like I was hoping to be on American Idol or anything, but you don’t have to be so mean about it! You do watch American Idol – and you almost always agree with Simon. So more or less, you’re almost always right. When someone sings that you don’t like you shake your head and then you turn to better things to do, like poking the dog, or reading a book. When someone sings that you think is good, you bop your head to the beat. So maybe I’m blessed to have a small Simon in my house keeping me from humiliating myself…not that I was going to anyway.

On the way to school each morning we see school buses starting their rounds amongst the neighborhoods. You are super excited to see them and if we see enough of them in a row to warrant it, you will totally count them. Uh…that’s probably from my genes – as you will eventually end up counting everything from M&Ms to stairs. Just something to pass the time.

Also, it appears you inherited something else from my genes. It seems you are allergic to your environment. In fact, you may have noticed this newsletter is slightly late, and that’s due in part to the fact that on the morning it should have been posted, I was busy trying to keep you from dying. Oh, that’s a little extreme. But you did wake up at 4 am with 102° fever, and I took you in to the doctor because you’ve have what I would call and allergy cough for a few weeks. He said you had a sinus infection and we’re starting the antibiotics and you will recover. This isn’t the first time it’s happened. See, some kids get ear infections all the time, but you like to hoard your allergy issues until they become infections.

As a special bonus this has fallen at a time when the whole nation is freaked out about a little thing called swine flu. You see, it’s a pandemic, just because people in two or more countries have it. And I think the media decided it was about time they got to use their stock photos of pigs and ran with it, because the number of cases of swine flu, even globally doesn’t even come close to the number of cases of regular flu – and yet that’s not a pandemic, and oh yeah this: it’s completely treatable if caught early on and you just treat it like the regular flu. Anyway, even your doctor looked perturbed about it, but said they (whoever “they” is) said he had to test everyone with a fever for the flu. Your test came back “very” negative, but don’t think I haven’t thought about teaching you to say “oink-choo” upon returning to school. Except, since they made me sanitize my hands before picking you up last week, I decided to not freak them out any more than they already are. Even if it would have been funny.

Oh and on the extra awesome front this month. You pooped in the potty a lot this month. And like 3 days in a row. And then on the 4th day you kept telling me you had to, and I scooped you up and ran towards the bathroom (we’re going to have to work on the amount of notice you give people) and about half way there you’d start laughing and say “I not pooping!” [Oh, I see practical jokes in your future, you are starting so young.] So on the 4th day, I did that 3 times before giving you a lecture about how at some point I wouldn’t believe you and then you wouldn’t get the lollipop. We had one more false alarm, and then the 5th time, you said you were pooping and asked if you were sure too many times, and you were, but I didn’t believe you thus ending your streak.

This past weekend you discovered yoga on the Wii. And then boxing. And I have never had such a tough trainer in all my life. Between the demands for riding the bike to the park and then not actually wanting to play at the park, but get back on the bike and go home, and then do yoga, and then boxing, and then yoga again. I know you’re not sore, you’re not actually doing it, you’re just pretending to do it while I do it. Except the boxing, you’re really very good at the boxing. Anyway, since we only have the one balance board for the Wii, I’ve decided to get you your own, albeit broken, balance board, so you can do the yoga along side me and not have to use your step stool which is a tad too tall for some of these exercises anyway.

No requests this month, although it would be nice if you felt better, I think you’re already well on your way on that front.

Love,
Mama

This should be a monthly newsletter

but it's not.

I'll do what I can to get one out tomorrow.

We don't have the swine flu or anything.