Monthly Newsletter #53

Dear Landon,

You are growing up. This month is full of growing up signs. They are everywhere. And great and wonderful, and perfect.

Well, I kept it a secret for almost 4 ½ years, but you were finally invited to a Chuck E Cheese birthday party, where you found out that it's not just a TV show we keep missing. In fact, you were invited to 2 different Chuck E Cheese birthday parties this month. And I will admit that this Chuck E Cheese is sooo much better than I remember. Last time I went to a party there, it was an older location and the games were run down and the pizza was terrible. I have to admit, that this place was clean and up to date and very nice…I might even consider taking you on a non-birthday party trip there. We'll see.

Grandpa Logan came up this month and he took the crib bars off of your bed. You now have your very own big boy bed. Complete with the Yoda sheets that you requested and told me that if you had them you would totally sleep up there by yourself. You lied, by the way. We did have one night where we attempted it, but you took until 11pm to fall asleep, and then an hour later came downstairs with a terrible nosebleed and my brain nearly collapsed the next day from exhaustion, so that didn't work out. You keep telling me you'll sleep up there tomorrow. And when tomorrow comes you say you meant today's tomorrow, not yesterday's tomorrow. I have some new plans of attack brewing – but discovered that I should not tell you what they are, because you will thwart them.

I also bought you some new bookshelves from IKEA this month. Your room is now very organized and hopefully we can keep it that way. We do need to learn to let go of some of the toys you no longer play with. You treat your toys with such care that they are all in excellent shape, which means that I don't get to throw very many away – which means we really just keep collecting more and more of them. In fact you have a huge tub of unopened toys in your closet from your birthday and Christmas.

This month you began T-ball. You are on the Astros! This is unbelievably lucky since you had been saying all along that you wanted to be on the Astros and I kept telling you I had no control over that. You are #4, and opening day is this Saturday. Practices have been going pretty well and your throwing is getting better – but I think Saturday is going to hilarious in ways you won't understand until you have a 4 year old and put them together with 11 other four year olds and try to get them to play a game they don't fully understand. Herding cats is an understatement.

A couple weeks ago we were running an errand and you told me you were trying to think of a word you forgot, "it's a 3 syllable word that starts with 'P', and it's another name for an elephant." Those were the clues I got. You were thinking of pachyderm. Seriously? You're 4. I'm not sure when I learned the word pachyderm, but I'm 100% positive I wasn't 4. You are freaking people out with all this knowledge. And it's not just the pachyderms. People think it's crazy that you know about inertia, force, and friction too. Never mind the constant discussions that lead to Einstein's theory of relativity. I may possibly be raising a much nerdier me than I ever imagined, I just hope I can keep you interested in learning so you don't peak too early.

Your reading skills are getting stronger and stronger. I think you may have exceedingly high standards for yourself though, because while I fully believe you are reading, you fully believe you are not. You say you are not because you don't know "all the words." Sweetheart, I don't think anyone knows "all" the words.

I'm going to admit that this year will be a little harder than last year. I let you get away with a ton of stuff over the last year, that I now realize I need to stop allowing. It was okay for a time, but it's time to get back to reality. With that in mind, my request this month is simple. Please sleep in your big boy bed. That's it, that's all I want from the next month. I will absolutely welcome you into my bed if you're scared, or have a bad dream, or a nosebleed, or whatever, but I can no longer tolerate being kicked in the head at 2:00 am. It's ouchy.

Love,

Mama