Fire Building

Fire building is wasted on this child.

 

Sure, he'll help carry the sticks to the pile.

 

And yeah, he's excited about flames and stuff.

 

And he likes blowing the marshmallows (where blowing = roasting.)

 

But then he refuses to eat the roasted marshmallows and doesn't even like s'mores. 

 

I mean, what's the point of building a fire if it's not to eat s'mores?

 

When the tent hurts

Landon asked me if we could go camping and sleep in a tent.  So I took him to my parents' lake house (where our tent lives) for the weekend.  We got there late on Friday and since I know my capabilities, I told him we'd have to set up the tent in the morning and we could sleep in it on Saturday night.

 

After some initial arguments, he finally agreed that he'd rather not have the tent cave in on us in the night because I'm not great at putting up tents in the dark.  Especially tents I haven't actually put up in several years.

 

We set up the tent the next morning and he played in it all day.  In and out as much as possible.  And even helped set up and then deconstruct the bedding.

 

When it came time to go get in the tent for the night, I put the dogs in first and went back to get him.  I brought him out to the tent and we settled in.  He snuggled up to me and told me to turn the lantern off.

 

And then we had this conversation:

 

"This hurts."

 

"What hurts?"

 

"The tent hurts."

 

"The tent hurts?"

 

"Yeah, I wanna go back inside and sleep inside."

 

"What do you mean the tent hurts?"

 

"It hurts."

 

"Ok."

 

And so our greatly planned and much anticipated sleeping in a tent adventure ended less than 15 seconds after it began.

 

The next morning we finally got him to explain what happened.  He was apparently afraid of the dark, although never thought to mention that we should turn the lantern back on. Also it turns out that had we stayed in the tent, we probably would have been wet in the morning, thanks to 1.5" of rain - HARD rain - over night that left puddles in the tent when I went to take it down the next morning.

 

Our new great plan, (If you tell him your plan and ask him what he thinks, he will sometimes reply with "That sounds like a great plan."), is to set up the tent in our living room next weekend and sleep in the house in the tent.  Then the next weekend we will graduate to the backyard.  And then we can try at the lake again.

One problem solved, 17,000 or so to go

I have figured out - via that test blog post - that I can email a post with an attached picture and update my blog from work AND include a picture, although I can't look at it after that and proofread or anything.  And I still can't read anyone else's blog - which is irritating - but I think I can work something out in the afternoons when I get home before I pick up Landon in order to keep up.

 

Anyway - quick cute Landon story before I forget it - and just know that now that I know I can put pictures on here through an email that I will be more prolific than I have been in the last couple months.

 

*****

 

Each morning Landon watches a recorded TV show of his choice while I get ready for work and he wakes up.  This particular morning he was watching a Super Why about a Genie.  After the show he said he wanted a tattoo, I told him he could have one after he got dressed.  So he got dressed and I laid out the huge collection of temporary tattoos that he has to allow him to pick one.

 

He hemmed and hawed and finally picked one and I put it on his arm.

 

To which he responded lovingly "you made my wish come true!"

 

And my heart melted.

Testing

This is a test.

 

 

Would you look at the time?

Ummm - they took away any and all bloggery at work. I can't even read people's blogs, much less write on my own.

Luckily I suffer from a bit of insomnia occasionally - although I rarely think - "hmmm 3am - sounds like a good time to blog!"

Except tonight (which is technically last night and I pre-dated this one) and also this particular stint is brought to you by guilt - must put up a monthly newsletter lest I be lynched by angry grandmothers around the state.

Monthly Newsletter #42

Dear Landon,

This month has been particularly hectic, at least for me, although, I’m not sure it has made much of a difference to you. You have a new love of doing anything that requires not just my supervision, but also my participation. You have apparently inherited my love of board games. In fact, a few nights ago you combined your love of tools with your love of board games and created your very own tool related board game. Technically, you came up with the plans, because we don’t have a piece of wood big enough for both of us to sit on – which would be required for the real thing.



You have always had an affinity for tools, and your discovery of Handy Manny has done nothing but enhance your obsession. You are more interested now in figuring out what’s wrong with things that are broken and how they are put together and which tools you would use to put them together. I have no doubt that in the years to come that between your two grandfathers you will learn how to use just about every tool in existence – and some that I’m sure haven’t even been invented yet.

For almost a week this month we moved in with GUL and Kimmie on a day by day basis while our house was being re-piped. We were mostly able to follow our normal routine, and you did really well with not being at home, except by the 3rd day you hadn’t been home in a while and I had to take you over to the house to let you smell the PVC glue smell and see the lack of toilet for you to really understand why we couldn’t just go home. Anyway, you did something at GUL and Kimmie’s one night that you’ve never done before and I have a feeling you’ll never do again – so I feel I need to record it for posterity’s sake. We were all watching TV and playing cars and you announced, “I tired, I want to go night night.” I looked up at Kimmie and said “he’s never said that before?!?!” And before you changed your mind, I scooped you up and took you off to bed. I fully expected you to hit the sheets and announce “I not tired anymore.” But you didn’t. You went to sleep. It was eerie.

If there’s one thing I’ve really been lax about in your life, it’s professional pictures. I take a bazillion pictures of you, but you’ve only sat for professional portraits a handful of times. Three of which were arranged by your school, two of which came out insanely awful. And one of those was this month. I mean, seriously, every other kid in your class had 2 or 3 pictures on the website to choose from. And they smiled. You sat on the mushroom looking like a zombie. I can only guess that you were uncooperative and that they decided that one stoned zombie look was the best they would get out of you and they moved on to the next kid.

And last, but not least. Easter. I have yet to learn my lesson about buying eggs. As in, I shouldn’t. I should take the eggs from the first couple hunts (provided by others) and use them for the hunts where I must provide eggs. And actually, we ended up missing one of the five hunts you were supposed to have this year, because you got sick. I lucked out though and I managed to turn 44 eggs into 25 by bringing them with us to a hunt where I was not requested to bring eggs, but thought I should anyway. Anyway, remind me next year not to buy any eggs, and also that you were happier about the little trinkets in the eggs than the candy – so more stickers, erasers, and rings, and less candy. It’ll probably just piss you off next year, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Love,
Mama

George Washington Carver

You know how you graduate from school and you think you'll never have homework again, unless you're some kind of take you work home with you kind of person - which I am not.





And sure I figured that eventually I'd have to help my kid with his homework, but I really didn't think that would hit at year 3.





So for the month of February (yes I am well aware of the fact that we're in April, thank you very much - remember that wagon I fell off of?) we were given a family assignment of taking a black history person and doing a half poster board display about them. So we got Geroge Washington Carver.

I learned a lot about him. Landon believes he's the guy who carved peanuts.

Back-a-set Ball

A week or so ago, Clinton lowered the basketball hoop to about 5 fet tall. Landon and i drove up the driveway that evening and his jaw dropped.


That is soooooo coool.