Landon's School Holiday Program

Big Bad Bumble Bee

Yesterday we found out that Landon has not inherited my allergic reactions to bug bites. And also his isn't worse than mine either.

We went to my sister's house to cook a brisket and he was walking around outside barefoot. He and a bee got into it, and I actually was close enough that I pulled the bee out of his toe. It was the piggy that got no roast beef. I also happened to be carrying my Benedryl spray, since I had gotten bitten by an ant a little bit earlier, so the Benedryl spray was on it within 5 seconds.

We then spent the next 15 to 20 minutes (or years, depending on who you ask) telling him that we knew he didn't want that bee anymore. And finally, the cure for a bee sting? A tube Popsicle. Thank goodness for Brianna!

The sting is virtually non-existent today. My ant bite is about 4 times the size it was yesterday. Not that anyone cares.

Landon on the Water Slide

Movie Monday

We spent quite a bit of time in the pool this weekend. I taught swimming lessons in HS, so I'm working with him on some of the basics, blowing bubbles in the water, kicking, moving your arms, etc. He's still not willing to dunk his whole head under water - but we'll get there.

Monthly Newsletter #32

Dear Landon,

Today you turn 32 months old. And you are great – when you want to be. Or when you’re not tired. Or hungry. Or being greatly wronged by a society in which you might actually have to share some things with other people.
You are stubborn – taking a full 20 minutes in time-out before relenting to apologizing for the train tracks you drew on Grandma and Grandpa Logan’s couch.


You are a jokester. Your latest is to say that something is not what it is, but something else. Those are not cows, those are horses! HAHAHA! You go on red, and stop on green! HAHAHA! It’s taken us a while to get with your new found sense of humor, but I think we’ve finally gotten it.



There are moments in our day together that I really look forward to, no matter how small. When I drive over a bridge and say “Bridge!” You say “Water, water!” Each morning when I wake you up for the day, I get 15-20 minutes of snuggle times.

I spent a lot of this month putting together a cookbook from recipes I gathered from your Great Grandmother Wood and Great Aunt Nolie. I never met Mrs. Wood, but Nolie is someone whom I am so sad that you never got to meet. I asked the family to write a small paragraph or sentence about them, so that I could compile them and use them in the cookbook and every one of them mentions unconditional love. I know she would have loved you so much – she had been bugging me for years to have a baby before she passed away, but I just wasn’t ready yet. The mere mention of the possibility perked her up even close to the end – but she also knew it was better for us to wait until we were actually ready – and thank goodness, because otherwise we wouldn’t have you, we’d have someone else.

Oh, thing to work on. For the last couple days when I pull out the camera you do this squinty eye smile. I want eyes. Not lines. I’m just sayin’.

Love,
Mama

Boinga Boinga

Monthly Newsletter #30

Dear Landon,

Today you turn 2 ½. 2 and a half. Are you sure you’re not 12 yet? You’ve been here for so long!

You have an endless fascination with families right now. And your imagination is great. A couple days ago you found a baby monkey in the kitchen and the mama and daddy monkeys were in the dining room, so you brought the parents in to be with the baby monkey so they could talk to him. About 5 minutes later you shared a cake you found in the dining room. You are sometimes a baby and sometimes a kitty and sometimes you are a monster getting me. You believe kitties belong outside, so when you found a kitty outside and I told you that we needed to go inside, you set the kitty down. All in your imagination. All awesome.

Somewhere a long the way you discovered magic. There’s a certain ball trick that is in the collection of toys at Grandma and Grandpa Logan’s house that you have always kind of liked. Last time we went down there, you decided that you not only would now require a cape, but also a hat, and a wand. When it came time to leave, you packed everything in your coffee can hat and brought it home with you. You have played with it every day since. You've kind of ditched the ball trick in favor of making things disappear. When you decided that the hat didn’t fit quite right, and I told you I could make you a hat out of paper, you agreed, and when I asked what color you wanted, you said white, and since your cape is white I decided not to bother with asking whether it should be a wizard hat or a top hat – I went with a top hat and you’ll thank me for that one later. I made the main part of the hat and asked if you wanted a brim. You did not. And now I can’t help but think you look a little Pope-like in your cape and hat.

One of your friends got sent home from school with pink-eye the other day and the teacher told me that they thought you had it too. I wish they would have called me earlier in the day and I could have taken you to the Dr. that day, but they waited until I picked you up at 6 – you know, AFTER the doctors all go home for the night. Anyway, I took you in the next morning and we discussed your latest long lasting but not severe cough that I hadn’t bothered with and the decision was not regular contagious pink-eye, but sinus infection backing up and shooting out of your eyes – although still the diagnosis on your bill said conjunctivitis. In hindsight I’m kind of glad it worked out that way, you were miserable and cranky, and if I had just ignored your teacher and sent you to school anyway, you wouldn’t have made it very long. But with just three doses of antibiotics in your system, you were ready to go to school the next day. Well, kind of. I mean, we were back to your regular disdain for leaving the house instead of the monstrous one that shows up when you don’t feel well.

Speaking of which – you are becoming a homebody. When we go anywhere, inevitably about 30 minutes to an hour after we get there, you start whining about wanting to go home. You hardly ever seem to actually have anything in mind once we get there, but you want to go home none the less. Just to be there.

Your love of music is still pervasive. We were watching TV a while back and the Wii Music commercial came on. You have played the Wii music game before; you were pretty good at the trumpet. But you were super excited about the prospect of drums. So I pulled out the drum you got from Grandma and Grandpa Wood and let you have at it. It may or may not have been fairly early on a Sunday morning, and your father may or may not have been sound asleep when I did it. And I may or may not have known that at the time. And I may or may not have some slight passive aggressive tendencies. I just want to sleep in every once in a while, and if I can’t sleep in, NO ONE can sleep in. You’ve been banging on that drum ever since. Your father wants me to admit that it was a bad idea to bring it out. I admit nothing – I’ll put it back up the day he gets up with you at 5:30 or 6 am on a Saturday morning and lets me sleep until 8 or 9. In other words, enjoy playing the drum kid, it’s here to stay.

Love,

Mama

And they danced

A few weeks ago, my cousin was in town and so we all descended apon my grandmother's apartment.

Landon and Zoey decided that dancing in Great-Grandma's kitchen was probably the best thing ever, secondly only to jumping in and out of the kitchen.

Whose toy is that?

When we picked out this toy, we didn't realize just how far the track went, or how far the cars went past the end of the track. Nor did we take into account that we don't really have a door with that kind of distance of carpet beyond it.

And I don't think Clinton realized it would mean having someone sit on his head for an hour straight either.

We settled on putting it in his room, where the cars launch off the end of the ramp and we hung one of his quilts in the window sill to cushion the blow to the walls.

Baseball

Just pick a dang time and stick to it.

You know how I don't like it when the clocks change?

Yeah. I hate it. I don't like change. I will now be throwing myself on the floor tantrum style. What? It works for some people.

No Paparazzi

When Landon has enough of the picture taking:

Weekend Wrap Up

Except, there's not much to talk about.

As promised, pictures of the sproutlets.

Chives:

Dill:

Tomato [technically not a sproutlet, since we bought it already about 8 inches tall]: Also, it finally rained, so we played a little in the rain:

I don't know what he's saying the in the beginning when I ask him what's happening, he had been telling us about the rain, but you know the camera starts and all of the sudden he can't do what he's been doing for the past 5 minutes even one more time.

Anyway, he does say "run in circle" and "oh, what's that?" and "here."

We met up with another couple who we haven't seen in a long time to eat at the Melting Pot on Saturday night. I have been wanting to try it for a while, and it was excellent. Much better than I expected. We opted for the Big Night Out and it was a 4 course meal. It did take a long time, I think our entire time there was close to 3 hours. It didn't seem like 3 hours, but I think if it had just been the two of us, it probably would have. Anyway, great date night. I'd totally go again.

When we parked, Clint and I had a nice view of the best port-a-potty company name ever:

Wannit doooown

Landon flies his first kite, and decides it would be much more fun to crash it down. Unfortunately the wind isn't cooperating in that department.



UPDATE: Ear drama seems to be over. He was like a whole new kid this morning, so 3 doses of antibiotics down, 17 to go. Of course I'm pretty sure the Tylenol had a little bit more to do with the lack of cranky than the antibiotics at this point. Bonus, since he had no fever what-so-ever, he was allowed to return to school today! And maybe the antibiotics will finish off the cough he's had for a couple weeks.

Monkey Business

When asked about the monkey on his arm, this is what Landon had to say about monkeys.

Monthly Newsletter #28

Dear Landon,

We are beginning to see your imagination bloom this month. It is nothing short of truly amazing. You are doing everything from holding two balls together and declaring them a spaceship, to picking imaginary berries and handing them out to people to eat. It’s only a matter of time before you have an imaginary friend. I had three of my own, so I will totally understand.

With the exception of a couple of cold snaps, the weather has been fairly decent, so we’ve made it out to the park a few times this month. The first time, we took the buzz light year glider. You were less than impressed with its flying ability, although true to your imagination, you decided that riding it would be totally awesome.

On our second trip, we flew a kite. When I brought the kite home from the store, your daddy was less than enthusiastic about the idea of flying a kite at all. I had no clue as to why he would have such contempt for kites. He told me that I had to do all kite related shenanigans; he would have nothing to do with it. Kites were stupid and boring.

We got to the park and I put the kite together, and began slowly letting it up into the air. The wind was just about perfect and the kite stayed up beautifully. And your daddy saw how easy it was going and quickly took over. Because that’s what he does, when he doesn’t know how to do something, he stands back and lets you do the first part, but then can’t help himself and takes over. He does it to me when I’m cooking all the time; we’re going to have to keep a close watch on him when you have school projects.

Anyway, back to the kite flying, he started by experimenting with hand movements to see what would happen, and then letting the entire 75 feet of string out to see how high it looked way up there. I won’t mention the fact that he let all the string out, but then had me reel it back in. He said flying a kite was kind of relaxing. You did hold the string for a while, but got bored, because you wanted the kite to come down and go up and come down and go up. I suggested we look for another kite, possibly one of those ones with 2 strings that you can steer. Daddy says he’s not quite ready for that yet, but we did buy him his own kite. So next time, you can both fly them.

As it turns out all the objections were because he didn’t know how to fly a kite. That releasing it slowly into the wind was the way to go, versus running with 20 feet of string and a kite hopping around banging on the ground. He thought by making me the keeping of the kite duties that he had gotten out of running back and forth on the open field for an hour and a half. I’m just glad you didn’t ask the ride the kite.

In other news, when something doesn’t go your way, the offender is “bad, bad.” And you shake your fist at them. I don’t know where you got that particular phrase, because we don’t use it. You have been known to reprimand a bird who dared to come near our stuff on the park bench. It’s funny, and yet, I don’t like you doing it to me, because I dared to make you put on pants.



Things in the not so wonderful developments department include pretend shooting. We had to have a talk about not shooting at people, even pretend shooting. When guns go off on TV, you start talking about bad guys. We have stopped watching inappropriate TV in front of you, and as a result we mostly watch Sprout or Noggin, which kind of sucks for us, but we’ll live.

Also not great, are nightmares, someone asked if you’d had any nightmares yet, I said no and of course, that night you had a nightmare – will people ever stop asking me questions that lead to disasters like this? You’ve only had one since then, but it’s reaffirmed my suspicions about the universe. The same suspicions I had when I was trying to get you to sleep through the night. So, I’m almost 100% positive that if you ever get potty trained, I will then be asked about how it’s going and you will cease to use the potty. I just know it!

Speaking of which, you did poop in the potty for the 2nd time ever. You got a lollipop for your efforts and then the next night when you wanted a lollipop, you sat on the potty and tried as hard as you could to poop, but mostly just farted. And despite your best efforts, you have not pooped in the potty again. I’m still not rushing it. You’ll do it when you’re ready.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad month.

Love,
Mama

We lie to him, because we want him to believe anything is possible

One of the things Landon got for Christmas was a Buzz Lightyear glider. So we decided to take him out to the park on Sunday and test it out.

It's kind of cool, although I'm not sure we have it adjusted exactly right, because it doesn't go very far.

Anyway, Clinton showed Landon how to throw it. And he threw it straight at him, from like 2 feet away. And hit him. But he did say sorry.



He got bored with throwing it after a while. And asked to ride it.



Memories being what they are, I hope when he's an adult, he's not out looking for one of those airplanes that your 2 year old can ride on.

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.

Monthly Newsletter #27

Dear Landon,

This month marks your third and best Christmas so far. You had an extreme interest in Santa Claus. (Tanta Caw) Santa Claus items, Santa figurines, heck you even seemed to enjoy standing in line to see Santa, and the idea of sitting on his lap to tell him what you wanted for Christmas. Yup, you were totally down with the idea of it. Execution, not so much. Because we waited for so long in line, we couldn't just walk away. I'm in the picture this year. Next year, you're on your own or we don't do it at all. I'm just saying. Oh and presents. Now when you see wrapped boxes you know what they are and that there's some loot inside and that loot might just be for you.

On Christmas morning, when you woke up, my plan was to bring you down to our bed as normal, and let you have your wake up time. You finished your first bottle and I was trying to turn on the tree on the way back from making your second bottle so that when you came out it would be all pretty, when I heard you behind me. "Pwezents? Op-eh pwezents?" You are all about "Op-eh pwezents." In fact, it might have been a good thing that I didn't get all the presents wrapped prior to the day before each one got opened, or you would have been terribly upset. You know you can't just have presents lying around unopened.

You really raked in the loot, and as we did last year, we took about half your toys and put them up for later. This allows us to not be over-run by tiny plastic things and for you to have "new" toys every three to four months. Santa was good to you, in that he gave you some really neat stuff, but he misjudged your height a little, so the tricycle he gave you will be good to go in a few months I'm sure. You just need maybe another inch or two. Although, not being able to peddle hasn't stopped you from performing circus trick on it.

Your father and I took Christmas Eve through the end of the year off of work, and we cashed in on your school vacation weeks, so we spent almost a week at home together after the dust settled from Christmas. I'm really glad we took the week after rather than the week before because despite your nap strike and the ensuing fits, we've been able to spend quality time playing with some of your new toys. And, since you're all about helping, we got a few things done around the house. I actually got the Christmas decorations down prior to Valentine's Day. It's a record! We finally put the blinds back up on the new windows, so you can stop waking up on weekends at the butt crack of dawn. And even though it's been great, returning to our regularly scheduled naps and bedtime is going to be possibly even better.

Beyond Christmas, you have a continued curiosity in everything. You are learning new words every day, and are always asking "whaas sat?" Which is great, if you would LISTEN TO THE ANSWER! But instead you just repeatedly ask "whaas sat?" over and over and over again until someone distracts you with something else.

You continue to be very polite, adding "weh-come" (welcome) to your repertoire. You were already saying "teen-coo" (thank you) and for a while you were saying "teen-coo, weh-come." But it seems you may have already separated them and say them at appropriate times. But if someone hands you something and you say "teen-coo," and they do not say " you're welcome," you occasionally begin chanting "teen-coo, wehcome, teen-coo, wehcome, teen-coo, wehcome, teen-coo, wehcome."

Daddy's been working on teaching you a few other very important key phrases, like "rock & roll." We'll be driving along and you bust out the devil horns and start saying "wok a woh." It takes you some time to get the right fingers up, and you generally have to use your other hand to make them move into the right positions, but you work diligently at it until it's right and then begin chanting. We also occasionally can get you to say "I ahhsun." (I'm awesome.) But generally you're more about the rock and roll.



It's been a fun month, and you are awesome.


Love,
Mama

Sugar high

I spend roughly 50% of yesterday baking and/or cleaning the kitchen.

Landon spent roughly 25% of yesterday asking for tastes of batter. "Waas sat?" "Brownie batter?" "I tayse it me?"

Anyway, I set him up with 4 cookies, pre-iced, and some stuff to stick on them to decorate them. Which he did pretty well. He decorated them and decorated them, I had assumed that once he got one done, he would eat it, but he actually didn't. He had to be told he could eat it. And then he pulled each decoration off and ate them, and he had to be told he could also eat the cookie.

Anyway, in the hopes of being able to post him saying Merry Christmas, I asked him a few things about Christmas.