I know, no one wants to hear about your dreams

but, someone needs to know that the very worst part about dreaming you did the laundry - is waking up to find out that you in fact did NOT do the laundry, but you feel like you already did it and you wasted a perfectly good dream on it.

Put this on this list of things I never thought I'd say

"No Jack, you are only allowed to touch your OWN penis!"

 

Yeah, okay, maybe that warrants an explanation.  I'm taking care of an extra 2 year old this week (Jack) while his parents are on vacation.  And the way I see it, 2 year olds and 4 years olds can bathe at the same time.  The first night I ended up with 2 naked boys to be dried off side by side - hence the grab, hence the saying.  I have since learned that leaving the big one in the shower while I tend to the little one works much better.  No penis grabbing or wet naked running around the house.

 

The rest of my vocabulary has been reduced to the following:

 

"Leave it!"

 

"Put it back."

 

"Come on boys."

 

"No hitting!"

 

"You have to share."

 

"No screaming."

 

There are, by the way, huge perks in this arrangement, not the least of which is that when I tell Landon that Jack is awake in the morning, Landon wakes up and gets moving and we've actually left the house earlier every day this week than we do when I have one less person to get out the door, not to mention the fact that we're eating breakfast at home, and normally we eat in the car on the way to school or at school.  The math on that equation doesn't quite add up, but never look a gift horse in the mouth.  (A saying I thought was because horses spit or bite or something, but then I remembered it's camels that spit, so you should probably also not be looking gift camels in the mouth either.  And because I can't leave anything alone, I now know that it's because if someone gave you a horse and you looked in their mouth you could figure out their age, thereby assessing the value of the gift, which you're not supposed to do, tis rude.)

 

Luckily for me, Jack is the kind of baby you can put in his crib at 8:30 and walk away from, and not have to deal with him again until morning.  And the kind of baby who fusses for about 15-20 seconds and then gets on with his life when something he doesn't like is happening.  I would keep him if I thought I could get away with it.

Wild cows!!!

On the way home from Girl Scouts we pass a pasture with cattle.  The fence is barbed wire, so you pretty much can see mainly the posts from a distance, but not the wires necessarily.  This past Tuesday they were particularly close to the fence, so I pointed them out.

 

"Oh, look Landon, do you see those cows?"

 

"Yeah, they're just standing out there...I think they prolly must be wild cows."

 

"Wild cows?  I don't think...ARE there wild cows? I'm pretty sure, they're just regular cows, somebody's cows."

 

"No, they're wild cows."

 

"How can you tell that they're wild cows?"

 

"Well, I don't see a gate or anything, so they must be wild."

Two happy dudes!

Monthly Newsletter #54

Dear Landon,

Whoa, slow down buddy, you’re growing up too fast!

You had your very first actual T-ball game. You probably had the largest entourage there, 2 parents, 2 grandparents, 2 aunts, 2 uncles, and 3 cousins (I won’t count the ones who are related to you but were actually there for Noah, but if you counted them, there’d be another 5). The game lasted 2 full innings. Although we didn’t keep score, we all know you guys won! And as a bonus, it was hilariously awesome, and no one cried!

I took you to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo this year for the first time. So you saw your very first rodeo and your very first concert. When we first arrived you decided we must play games, so we played a few games, at none of which you won anything, although it didn’t seem to bother you, and why would it? It wasn’t your money. Then we made our way through the crowd to the stadium, bought yet another light up sword type thing, and started our trek all the way up to the 600 level, you decided you needed peanuts and a sprite. And we found our seats.

I had an inside scoop on getting us into the Grand Entry – but unfortunately, I didn’t know until it was too late. Next year I’ll get him to hook us up for sure. I guess in hindsight it was actually better this way, because I wouldn’t have been able to top it for next year if we had gotten in.

The rodeo began with the calf roping. The cowboy roped the neck of the calf, jumped off his horse, ran over and knocked the calf over and tied the three legs together in a matter of seconds. The calf laid there very still while the cowboy awaited the judges ruling to release him. You had an expression on your face that made me think you were going to be signing up for PETA the second we got home. I told you calmly to keep watching, that the cow was okay, they were going to untie him in a second and he would jump up and run on his way. Which he did, and you relaxed. Thank goodness. I don’t have the heart to tell you what they did to the horses and bulls to make them buck like that, but I did tell you they made them mad on purpose. All in all, you were most impressed by the mutton busting – probably because the contestants were more your size. Maybe you’d be up for it next year – we’ll see – but I kind of think we’re going to do the grand entry instead.

The entertainer was Gary Allan. I had bought a greatest hits CD and it’s all I played in the car for the week prior to the rodeo. When he started his first song, you turned to me wide eyed and said “MOM! I recognize this song!” You danced and made the teenagers sitting around us laugh, but after about 5 or 6 songs you got bored and said we had to go outside and ride some rides. Unfortunately while waiting in the ticket line I got sick for no apparent reason, and we had to make our way back to the car. So much was left undone – we rode no rides, we didn’t shop for boots for you. We still have a ton of cowboy stuff to explore next year!

You also lost your very first tooth this month. I thought it took longer for teeth to fall out, but you pointed out their looseness to me on Sunday afternoon and when I woke you up Monday morning one was gone! I asked about what you thought the tooth fairy might bring, and told you that she always brought me money. You said, she would probably bring you a toy instead. I told you we’d have to see. And lo and behold, the tooth fairy, not only brought you a toy, but brought you the toy you thought she might! You also lost a second tooth about a week later, and were terribly disappointed by the dollar bill she left for that one. I agreed to sell you a fancy coin for the dollar bill. You picked a 10 nuevo peso coin that I had left over from my trip to Mexico – a nice pick being that it’s an interesting looking coin – with a gold outer circle and a silver inner circle (clearly I’m talking color not metal.) It’s worth less than $1, but only by about 15 cents, I made the deal anyway though, and you seem happy about it.

I took you to the Miller Outdoor Theater to see The Aluminum Show, and although each time they were between scenes you asked if it was over and fell asleep about half way through, you still had a blast, and I will absolutely go see that show again and I would even be willing to pay money to see it, it was that awesome. I hope the Luma one I’m taking you to in April is just as good!

We also built a vegetable garden this month. I’m using the term “we” pretty loosely here, since you pretty much spent most of the build time inside looking for your shoes (translation, got side tracked by a toy you saw while on a mission to find your shoes), but you did help with the planting of the seeds. I have a feeling not everything will be growing as planned, but it’s certainly worth a shot. We planted carrots, sweet and red onions, green beans, spinach, cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes. Needless to say, our tiny little garden is going to be a bit crowded, but that’s ok.

I had a parent teacher conference with your teacher. You are very smart and above and beyond the rest of the class, you’re still getting bored which leads to misbehaving. I asked if I should take you straight to Kindergarten next year and the teacher said she didn’t think that was necessary, and that the teachers in the pre-K class know how smart you are and will challenge you enough. I don’t really want you skipping grades anyway, I’m sure it would be fine now, but later on when maturity really matters, I want you to be on even ground with your peers.

An interesting development happened in your speech patterns this month. The word "exactly" seems to be a new favorite. You use it often. Often when it isn't quite the right word. "I will exactly have three cookies." "I exactly like the blue truck." "I am exactly putting it right here." I don't know where you learned the word or what it is you think it means "exactly," but I find it quite humorous.

Um, we didn’t quite accomplish the moving to your own bed this month. So it’s still on your to do list for this month.

Love,

Mommy