Monthly Newsletter #33

Dear Landon,

This month has been an eye opener for me in so many ways. You are truly growing up to be a full size person. Complete with thoughts about the way the world operates and how things should be organized.

I got laid off this month, so the very first project I decided to tackle was potty training. Probably not the best choice, but it was my choice none the less. It’s taken about a week, but you do like your underwear better than your diapers. I’m actually having to fight you about putting a diaper on for naps – which is fine, except, that whole thing where you take naps on my bed and I don’t really want you peeing in it.

Your thoughts on underwear in general are interesting to say the least. You have a couple pair of boxer briefs, and every time you put them on you tell me. “Not babing soup, Mommy, unner-wears, not babing soup.” And nearly every time you put on certain underwear, you have to be reminded that the big picture does indeed go on the back – it makes you sad despite the fact that even if it was on the front, it’s not like you’d be able to see it after you put your pants on anyway. Logic is not your forte.

Being home with you this week has been an adventure to say the least. It started out pretty bumpy, I was extremely nervous about being home alone with you, I was afraid that since you were doing so well in day care that taking you out, only to have to put you back in would only cause problems. I decided that since I didn’t know how long I’d be out of work, I’d plan for a couple months worth of stuff to do. I tried replicating the day care’s system of one letter, one number, one color, and one shape each week. And also one big activity each day. Well as it turns out, you don’t so much care what starts with the letter L (except Landon, of course) and the color red bores you and can’t we just move on from this, you silly woman? So I dropped the more structured learning approach in favor of pointing out a few things here and there that you can tell me about.

One of my favorite things you do right now is to just stop what you’re doing and say “It’s time to dance.” And then you dance, a white boy side step, bouncing dance. Or you just start singing. Mostly you sing your “ABCDs.” And you call them that too. Even in the song “Now I know my ABCDs, next time won’t you sing with me?” Also, that last part isn’t an actual invitation to sing, because when I tried to join in, I got a resounding “Not you, Mommy, me.”

One of the things we’ve done this week is go to the public library. A bunch. As in, more than we’ve been since you were born, I’m pretty sure. We went on Tuesday to get the lay of the land. We checked out a few books, played with a few toys and headed out. At the check out line, you noticed a bunch of kids standing around a yellow funnel that you put your money in and watch it spin, on of those make a donation to the library kind of thingies. You were content to watch the other kids put their money in and watch it spin. On Wednesday we had story time and before we even went in you were already asking for money to put in the funnel thing. We checked out a few more books, and you were terribly upset by the fact that there were only 6 computers for children and 17,000 kids and I wasn’t willing to wait patiently while each one was allotted 60 minutes to play on the computer. By Thursday, you had given up on the books, it was all about those computers and the yellow funnel. Knowing that, I timed our outing differently and you did get to play on the computer.

This has been an awfully stressful week for me, and here’s hoping that it gets a lot less stressful in the coming weeks. You have been testing your limits with me, and I’m already on my last nerve, it’s probably not the best combination out there. SO I guess this month I’m just asking for you to have patience with me, and I will try to have patience with you.

Love
Mama