Our first anatomy lesson

Landon: Mommy hab a penis?

Me: No Mommy doesn’t have a penis.

Landon: [Grabs his crotch] Me hab a penis?

Me: Yes, you have a penis, it’s what makes you a boy.

Landon: Daddy hab a penis?

Clinton: Yes, Daddy has a penis.

Landon: Oh. [Pause] Mommy no hab penis?

Me: No, mommy has a vagina.

Landon: A gyna?

Me: Yes

Landon: NO GYNA!! NO GYNA!!

Another milestone!

Landon has his very first ever ear infection!

I'm not nearly as excited about it as I seem. Please take the exclamation point with a grain of salt.

What I'm excited about is that we made it 2 years and 4 months without one. And this one? His doctor said that it was pretty red, but not terrible. Last night he was pointing in his mouth and crying, and I thought it was teeth coming in. This morning he was able to tell his teacher that his ear hurt, and he was consistent on which ear hurt. I don't even know how you people with non-verbal children figure it out.

Totally explains the crankiness of last night and this morning!

We have drugs.

He'll be fine.

I'm contacting MENSA as we speak

Last weekend, while perusing the aisles of the evil empire, I found plastic place mats for Landon. We bought 700 of them. Okay, maybe just 7 or 8.

They have everything from letters, to numbers, to space, to dinosaurs on them. And he likes to look at them, and they keep him relatively busy while we're working on getting dinner on the table. Which is not a bad deal for $1 each.

Last night I handed him the number place mat and he promptly counted to ten. In order. Which is new, because somehow he used to not count in order and still come up with the right number at the end and it was hard to tell him he was wrong, because he wasn't.

Anyway, he counted. In order. To ten!

And then I busted out the camera. And he refused to do it. At least not all the way. Because he is narcissistic and likes to see himself on the camera, he does about half a monkey trick and then it's "Mommy, see Nannan!"

So here he is, counting baseballs. There are 8, so he counts to 4 twice at some point and then to 6 before his ego gets a hold of him and he MUST SEE HIMSELF.

Pride and Joy

Oh my god, you guys, this has been the best 2 days EVAH!

Tuesday evening we had a holiday program at Landon's school. And, well - you can see for yourself:



They were still talking about him and his hamminess the next morning.

Awesome.

Then last night I had a meet-up with the ladies on my street - they had an ornament exchange. I was kind of apprehensive, but at least they all liked my ornament. That was a relief, because I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be looking for when I got it.

And when I got home?

Clinton had just gotten Landon down and was so excited I had to peel him off the ceiling, when he told me...

are you ready?

This is big news.

Are you sure you're ready?

Ok.

Landon pooped in the big boy potty! First time ever. As far as Iknow he's never even peed in it, but he pooped. In the potty!

So exciting!

Bullets

• I'm too lazy to construct actual paragraphs today.


• Or too tired still.


• Landon fell yesterday and has a gash on his hand.


• Which he shoves in my face and on to my lips every chance he gets.


• For kisses to make it better.


• The gash required a bandaid.


• He took off the Mater bandaid that Linda had put on him.


• But he did not like the fact that our replacements choices were flesh colored and flesh colored.


• His little nose has a bit of a scrape on the end of it too.


• He's fine.


• It had to happen sooner or later.

Bee Ball

What he is saying the most these days is "bee ball, bee ball." Translation: Big Ball, Big Ball.

Yesterday we went to Target and were in the toy department looking for something for Zoey's birthday. When he discovered a bin of balls and required that his daddy dig through and get a very certain ball - which happened to be at the bottom of the bin.

We tried to leave without it, but ended up having to tell him that Daddy would buy it while he and I went out to the car to change his diaper. Clint didn't buy it, buy when we got home the very first thing he did was point at the target bags and say "bee ball, bee ball."

We may very well have passed the time where we can tell him we're going to buy something and "accidentally" not buy it.

Huh.

103.6° - at 2 am this morning.

It's not the flu.

But it is viral.

If it's not gone by Thursday, we go back.

Am commissioning a plastic bubble for him.

Houston, we have an allergy

To what? We're not exactly sure.

Yesterday we tried buttermilk ranch dressing from Jack In the Box. He was bright red everywhere it touched his face for the next 2 hours.

And then he woke up at 2 am with a 102° fever.

He's fine now. The Tylenol brought the fever down, and I guess the time his body had to deal with whatever it was, was enough to have the fever not come back.

He's had ranch dressing before, so I don't know if it's something about that Ranch dressing, or what. I'm a little bit too chicken to try another one at this point.

So I am late to work, I have lots to do, and I don't have a lot of time.

Normal weekend update:

We closed on our lots in East Texas.

And we had a good visit with the grandparents as well.

This is my 200th post, which I wish was a better post than - hey, we're allergic to something.

And I found out what the Chaos sign was about, but I'll save that for later - I'm gonna need a new pictures for it.

Path of Least Resistance Parenting

I have always taken the stance of path of least resistance parenting. I’ve weaned Landon during the day – mostly because I felt I was done pumping, but he still nurses at night and in the mornings. I expect to be having these conversations fairly soon. But I'm not going to wean him, I'm going to allow him to self wean, whenever that is.

I don’t intend to potty train him until he’s ready – he may be 2, he may be 4. I figure there’s no point in pushing him into doing something when it will just make both of us miserable. I don’t force him to eat anything he doesn’t want to, but keep offering it.

I try to abide by the “Safe, Respectful, Kind” rule of thumb. It’s easy. It what he’s doing safe? Is it respectful? Is it kind? If so, then he can do it. If it breaks even one of the three, he doesn’t get to do it. One rule covers everything. Easy Peasy.

I’m a pretty lenient parent. He plays with a lot of things that are not “toys.” Things he finds in the cabinets, which I haven’t baby-proofed. I think of his exploring of cabinets as a form of learning, so I let him do it. Things that are truly unsafe are not in those cabinets anyway. Bowls, trivets, spoons, the top of the air popcorn popper, are among those things. I try to gather up the stuff he pulls from the bathroom cabinets before people come over, but otherwise if it won't hurt him, I'm not concerned. Tampon drumsticks are funny to me, but I'm not sure everyone sees it that way.

This morning he was playing with the phone. He likes to push the button that tells you how loud the phone will ring. I heard him in the bedroom. I was cleaning his bottles, so I could leave him at the baby-sitter’s. And then the phone rang.

Landon had made his first phone call. He called Shane. I assume it was a redial hit. Shane, I hope, was already up for the day. Maybe Landon just let the phone ring and then hung up, maybe Shane answered and no one was talking and he thought he had a bad connection, whatever happened, he hung up and called back. While talking to him, I walked into the bedroom to see Landon, phone to his ear. I guess phone play will have to be limited to only when supervised, because I’m pretty lucky he didn’t call 9-1-1.

I guess we’re starting early; my mom didn’t have the pleasure of discovering my first phone call until I was 4 and invited Lisa over. I thought she knew what I was doing. I very plainly had asked how to spell her last name; I looked her up in the phone book. And I called and invited her over. Her mom called back to ask if it was a legitimate invite. It wasn’t actually, but she still let her come over.

Birthday Boy

We started with swimming and eating fajitas.

Hey mom, I think you set the table on fire.

What are you people singing about?

Icing is good, but I'm not sure about this whole cake thing, more icing please!

So, there's stuff under the tissue paper?

And as it turns out, we could have just bought him a dozen helium balloons and called it a day:

Small Change Month #9 and boringness and excitingness

Beth of Playgroup dropout has not posted about her chairty stuff yet, but here's my summary for the month.

At work we had a dunking for dollars and hotdog and coke for $1 and car show that benefitted the MS150. I spent a whopping $2, and felt like a jerk, cause I had a huge report due that day and in order to finish it I had to run out and get my hotdogs and come back in.

And then Clint told me about how earlier this year he had pledged $25 to the American Diabetes Association, and he needed a check for it. So I was saved.

I'll update when we get a new challenge.

This weekend we spent getting ready for Landon's party next weekend. I was going to make him a cupcake car cake, but when I tried the mold, it was not very successful, not to mention it's only a few REALLY small cupcakes when it's done. So we went to Sam's and ordered a cake. And then we had a big debate about cooking vs. ordering food. And we decided to order food, because otherwise someone ends up working the whole time and doesn't get to enjoy the party. Chances are that next year his party will not be this big a deal. And I'm ok with that.

Oh and I almost forgot. He took about 5 or 6 unassisted steps in a row, 3 or 4 different times over the weekend. He's gaining confidence.

I left my bag at home today - so no pictures, maybe tomorrow.

A New Direction

Landon has been standing up in the middle of the floor on his own for some time. He has been cruising along holding on to various pieces of furniture and toys.

On Saturday afternoon he took his first unassisted step. To me! Completely unprovoked! Mah preshus babee is growing up.

Of course he has no idea what he did. And he's only done it once since then, towards Clint.

Video of him with a walker cart thingy to come later this week.