Obsession

Landon is a little bit obsessed with beards and mustaches. [Understatement of the century.]

When he has bubbles in his bath, he has a beard and a mustache, when he drinks something thick, he has a mustache and makes his own beard with a hand. And whn he has nothing, he will simply make both the beard AND the mustache with his hands.

“I got a beard and a mustache!” He’ll yell, until you acknowledge, that he does indeed have a beard and a mustache. So when his grandparents showed up with the fake mustaches, I thought he’d for sure wear them around the entire evening…but because I thought that, we got a good 5 minutes before they came off.

At least we got some pictures.

Now I know why Duff charges thousands for his cakes.

This cake is entirely edible (save for the stick that the rock candy was grown on and the candles.)

Thanks to my mother-in-law it turned out awesome, way more awesome than I could have imagined.

Landon's Monthly Newsletter #36

Dear Landon,

Over the weekend you turned 3. This month I believe you began the "I do it myself" phase in earnest. You wash your hands by yourself, you go potty by yourself, you're pretty much independent. It's kind of awesome. And sometime a hindrance, but mostly it's awesome.

You've begun saying things that are quite hilarious. Your view of the world is very refreshing, and you've begun to notice thing outside of your normal 5 foot radius. We're going to have to begin to work on your social filter, because some of the things you say are kind of rude and inappropriate.

You are not the same boy you were a year ago. A year ago when we put you in school, you wouldn't even talk to a stranger, you wouldn't go onto a playground if another child was there, you often froze if someone dared to speak to you. Now when we go to Chick Fil A, you are terribly disappointed if there are no other children there to play with you - you strike up conversations with complete strangers whether they want to or not, and any big boy you see, you feel the need to show them something - anything. At this age you remind me a lot of your cousin Joshua - and I think that's a good thing.

This year we decided to have your birthday party at the park and invite your friends from school. I don't think it really registered with you that your friends were actually going to come to "your" park. We had an awesome time. And it was really nice to get to mingle with some of the parents of your friends. You told your Great Aunt Brenda that you never wanted the moonwalk to go away. I think that's a pretty good sign that we did ok. I also think we're now on the hook for having a moonwalk at your party every year - I just hope the next time we go to the park we aren't expected to have it there.

Anyway I think your friends had a good time too, when I dropped you off at school this morning one of your friends told me he came to your party. I asked if he had fun and he was still excited about it.

Happy third birthday.

Love,
Mama

My hole

Landon call his round float his "hole." Actually he calls this one his "blue hole." And he has a "green hole." And don't even think about presenting him with the blue one without first warning him that it's not going to be the green one.

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He also told me on Thursday when we drove by an adult riding his bike that one day - probably next year, his bike was going to grow up and it would then have only 2 wheels and not two back wheels.

All those cousins.

One of the best parts of the weekend for Landon was that Joshua and Dylan and Marshall and Jackson all played T-ball with him. In fact, it didn't really matter to him if he was included in what ever was going on, he was perfectly content to sit by a tree and watch those big boy cousins.

I guess is depends on your definition of SOOO PROUD!!

I mean, if your definition is quiet indifference, then yeah - Zoey was pretty proud of Landon's fishing pole.

Shocking!

A few years ago I was volunteering at something girl scouty - and I made pretty good aquaintances with a woman working there with me. And when you're loading 1500 thousand boxes of cookies off of pallets into organizd chaos and into people's mini-vans - you start talking. And inevitably it leads to talking about work, which leads to talking about idiots at work. Which is always a fun thing to do.



So she mentioned that she worked in customer service for some amount of time and always believed that phones should have one more button. A button, if pressed, that would send a small shock to the person on the other end. not enough to maim them or anything, maybe just annoy them and make them want to stop and think about what they're saying or doing. A mini-phone taser.



She said she had told this to a friend of hers that went out and bought a package of those plastic faceted jewels, and they each glued one on their phone. She said within 6 months hers was smooth.





I promptly went home and dug out a package of those jewels from my craft closet. I didn't glue mine on, I taped it. Which turned out to be smart, since I've had to move it twice since. And I can count on one hand the number of people who have noticed.





But I also took it to another level. I have one on my computer for annoying emails as well. Now, admittedly I don't use them as often as someone in customer service might - but they do make you feel slightly better about dealing with the idiot on the other end of the line.




Please ignore the nasty dustiness of my computer - it doesn't look like that for real - the camera did something, I swear.

Fishing Hole

This weekend, we're heading to my parent's lake house. I was talking to my sister over the weekend, and she mentioned that Zoey is totally into fishing and they were planning to set her up with the essentials to fish over the weekend.



Well, if Zoey's going to do it, I bet it won't take long for someone else to want to.



So I went on Sunday to Academy and we picked out a Spiderman "fissing hole."



Apparently according to him, "Zoey is gonna be SOOOOOO proud." I hope she at least feigns an interest - is all I can say.



We practiced casting in the pool, and by casting I mean: We put the pole over our shoulder and push the button. Then we release the button and watch the casting practice fish fall to the ground. Then we pick up the little plastic red fish and throw it into the pool. And we watch it go all the way to the bottom. We refuse to lock in our reel by even doing a half turn. But then we decide we're done watching the fish at the bottom of the pool and reel the whole thing in. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. This is going to be a horifyingly hard thing to watch this weekend.

When you're tired you're tired

This isn't the first time they've both fallen asleep on top of me. Our first born dog and our first born person.

Monthly Newsletter #35

Dear Landon,

I'm sorry - did that say 35...as in 1 less than 36? As in I will be a mom of a 3 year old in a month? Huh, interesting.

We've been gearing up this month for your birthday - which is in one month. I'm not sure you were totally aware of the existence of birthdays other than occasionally we went places where someone was having a birthday party and at least twice a bunch of people showed up at your house - what seemed like spontaneously to you - to celebrate you birthdays. This time, we're talking about it more, about how it's coming up, about how we're going to invite your friends from school, etc. Unfortunately we may have started a little too early because every time we get in the car now, you ask if we're going to your birthday.

The temperature finally dipped below 100° again, which also brought your allergies and the ever following sinus infection back on. I wish there was a way I could get rid of those for you, you have all my sympathies, as I am suffering right along side you. in fact your doctor said, to me that since they can't test you for allergies and so far your flare ups have coincided with mine, that when I need to take something, I should also give something to you. Great.

We've been dog-sitting Kane for the last week or so, and while this dog was quite a bit bigger than ours, you have been just fine with him - after a little initial trepidation. Having him in the house - being as big as our two dogs put together has given you some interesting perspectives on size. You are now claiming Scarlett and Fiona are little dogs...which isn't exactly true.

You are beginning to point out letters you see out and about and mostly you even seem to get them right - or at least close (as in similarly shaped letters). You still love being read to, so much in fact that you pretend to read to Scarlett occasionally. I wish I knew what brought that on and I hope it's something I can encourage as you grow - reading has never been my favorite activity.

It's hard to give you a directive for a month when nothing overly bad happened. Keep on being good, still work on standing to pee, try to avoid the sinus infections.

Love,
Mama

I owe you one

I should have a newlsetter here - I actually have it half heartedly written, but I don't have time to proof it or add the pictures, and I'm having an allergic reaction to the horse we have living in our house.

I'll try to get it posted on Monday, I promise.

Animal House

Look what someone left on my front porch!
This is Kane - and he actually wasn't left on my front porch - he was left in my kitchen. He's awesome. Did you know that some dogs actually do what their owner tells them to do when they tell them to do it? I had no idea - our dogs certainly don't.

We're watching Kane for a little over a week while his people go on a road trip.

Dobermans tend to attach to one person, so on the first night he woke up 15 times to look for his person, but he's doing much better now.

Our cats have been pretty absent from the backyard and although the hope that he would chase away the stray that has adopted us - has not actually occurred, the good news is that our two cats are at least still around. Actually Kane was the one who chased Alexander out of our backyard a few years ago and he couldn't find his way back - it took me a week and two rounds of sign postings before he finally turned up just 3 houses away. Alexander had been keeping his distance from the backyard - I hadn't seen him in 3 days, so this morning I opened a can of tuna an walked up and down our street calling out "Alexander, Salamander!" (He doesn't come for "heeeere kitty kitty." That's probably my fault, but you never think about how you'll sound walking up and down your street with an open can of tuna calling your cat when you teach him to come for funny rhymes.)

Anyway - Alexander apparently is hanging out across the street at our neighbors' who are on their annual 6 month trip to the Northwest. Which is fine, that he finally showed up (read: after 10 minutes of me yelling and sing-songing and walking around with a can of fish stinking up my arms because I didn't drain it and instead thought that sloshing it on myself was a better option) tells me that he at least knows how to get back home when Kane leaves next Friday all should be back to normal.

Anyway, back to Kane - nothing makes an 80 lb dog look like a small dog more than a 130lb dog.

Landon wasn't too keen on Kane at the beginning ("I want that big black dog to go home!") But he's adjusting, and if nothing else, it makes him appreciate Scarlett more. This morning while I was cleaning dishes from breakfast, he read Scarlett 2 books. (I'm using the term read very very loosely here). Plus Kane has some quirks that are working to our advantage - he won't go upstairs or into our bathroom, so if Landon feels like he needs to get away from Kane, he has 2 options...he has no such options when it comes to our dogs.

Kane also doesn't horn in on the dishwasher while I'm trying to wash dishes. Or lay down behind me very very quietly so that I turn and trip the next time I move, or whine about a lack of attention, or bark at me for dancing or just flat out ignore me when I say it's time to go inside from the backyard. I'm thinking of sending one of ours back to his house to see if they notice - they sell Doberman costumes, I'm pretty sure.

Well, I'm at least hoping that some of Kane's habits rub off on our two and not the other way around.

And we thought the give away that night was useless...

Fine

Do you know what happens when you stop blogging for a while?

The portion of your brain that tells stories and tells them with half an ounce of funny begins to die. And then you go to pick up where you left off and you can't. Because you're brain dead. And when you finally get time to sit down and blog about something, you can't think of anything. Because you're brain dead.

Also affected is the portion of your brain that thinks about taking pictures, because in lieu of a good story you can always post a funny picture. Except if you don't have any because your camera hasn't left your purse in a week.

So this week I'm going to make a bit more of an effort to take the pictures and think of the funny, and then in turn tell you. But that kind of means that I have this week to come up with the blogable stuff before I can write about it.

I can't post from work, but I could supposedly read from work. I tried reading some blogs at work, and then weird things happen, like I'm reading a post and I try to comment and it's blocked for "p0rn." So that pretty much takes care of not blogging from work. So when I finally get the chance to sit down at home to read the other people's blogs, I see that they are not suffering from my same disease and I am overwhelmed by the shear number of posts I have to read just to catch up. I have even dropped a few from my reader to make it easier (not you, you're awesome, I dropped people who have never been and never will be here) and still - no good.

I'm still working out the kinks, trying to get a new schedule going, one that will allow for at least a little bloggery each day.

In the meantime I will grace you with a few baseball pictures - as we did go to a game last Friday with my family. He loved the game, although the fireworks were loud and he spent most of the fireworks show crying.

We walked within a couple feet of Hunter Pence, and then within a couple feet of his police escort and then by a family who was peeing on themselves about being that close to Hunter Pence. He looks even taller and ganglier in person, if that's even possible, seriously, the man is all arms and legs. I said to Landon, "Hey, did you see that guy? That was Hunter Pence. He's an Astro." And Landon was like "Whatever, you said something about ice cream, when do we get the ice cream?"

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.

Basketcase

I went to HEB on Saturday armed with a list that contained not only my menu for the week, but my grocery list. I lost my list somewhere between the potatoes and the shrimp. And I nearly cried.

Proof that I don't even know who my parents are anymore

This board game contain approximately 789,367 pieces. It's all about numbers and I'm all about numbers, so they were pieces I habitually begged to haul out so we could play. Pieces that my mother said were a pain in the butt to clean up and NO, no one was willing to play said game with me. Also, don't even think of dragging it out and just playing by yourself, I don't want all those pieces in the living room...last weekend she pulled out this game and played it.

Also they let him put stickers all over the kid rocking chair. An offense, I'm pretty sure would have been punishable by stringing up by the toenails when I was a kid. And the explanation? "Ehh, we're grandparents now."

If anyone sees my parents let me know, I'm pretty sure these people are impostors.

Landonisms

Yesterday when I picked Landon up from school, he told me that "Kaffoleen and Zoey beach not have crab, only YOUR beach have crab."

He also asked if crabs go to sleep in their shells.

Yes, I think they probably do.

"Wif itty bitty pillows?"

Sure, why not.


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Landon is no longer willing to put on a diaper. For any reason. Not even bed. "I not wear diapers, I wear unnerwears." Of course he did. I have about 65 pull-ups left from a package of 80.

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All thing medium are known as "big little."

Do you have a little pillow that goes in your crib?

"No, I have a big little pillow. BIG-LITTLE, MOMMMMMMY!"

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Landon refers to the wet bar as his "backyard." We keep the majority of his downstairs toys in there, and I have no idea when he decided it was his backyard.

Disclaimer

So my new job is great, except I can't post from work anymore - and I'm kind of beginning to remember why I don't like cubicles, well, I could probably do the thing where I email a post, but you wouldn't get any pictures and I know some of you are only here for the pictures.

This week is hectic, getting back into the groove of things, having to work late each day this week to make up for missing Friday...I'm going to try to get back to a regular routine of posting next week. I hope.

I'm also behind on my reading of blogs, so if you read here and I haven't commented on your blog in a week or so, I'm sorry - I will, I promise.

Monthly Newsletter #34

Dear Landon,

This month has been one of the best and one of the worst months. We spent 75% of this month together, I was laid off from work and I decided to keep you home even after I knew that I had an eminent job offer. In some respects it was perfect timing.

You are potty trained. And so proud of it, the ladies at the day care were also so excited to see you were potty trained, although they quickly discovered not to ask what's on your underwear, because you will drop your pants right then and there to show them. You quickly grew tired of the positive reinforcement prizes we put in place. You're perfectly happy to just pee in the potty, because you know it means you won't be sitting around all wet. Now if we could just get you to stand to pee, we'd be in business.

When I found out that I had a job, but just had some time off, I started planning lots and lots of fun things to do. Some ended up being more fun than others. As it turns out, we could have gone to Hermann park and just rode the train all day - it would have been more fun than going to the zoo in 100° weather. And also, the play I took you to at Miller Outdoor Theater was kind of a letdown, but riding and getting on and off the train that day was super awesome. The Blue Bell ice cream factory was probably the least exciting for you, but you did like that it ended with ice cream. I think our best adventure was to the Children's Museum and I can't wait to plan a day to go back again.

We also did a few things that were cheap and free. You have a new found love of the library and your 20 books trophy. Next year if we participate, we're doing 20 hours instead of 20 books. Because you and I can go through 15 books in one sitting, and that doesn't even count that fact that we read each one at least twice.

We probably went to the park one too many times, although on one trip when we fed the ducks we discovered one of the large male ducks had fishing line wrapped around one of his feet. It was so tight he was limping and it was swollen. I called animal control and the guy showed up to look at him. I told you that he was the animal guy and was going to fix that duck. We talked about how when something is wrong, you should do what you can to fix it, and if you can't fix it you should call someone who can, and that's what we did by calling animal control. And thank goodness when we went back about a week later I couldn't even tell which of those ducks had been the hurt one.

We also discovered a few more, better shows on TV instead of only watching Sprout. I have a higher tolerance for Caillou when it's not the same 3 episodes over and over again and we discovered Sid the Science Kid (whose grandmother needs to stop laughing or get a new laugh or something - but otherwise is a neat show) and Super Why (although the concepts and letters and spelling stuff is a bit beyond you, you love this show too.)

I'm not going to lie, you are a handful and my patience was wearing thin, and I was really pretty relieved to hand you back over to the Day Care. But I was also relieved that you wanted to go back. When went to tell them the Thursday before you started back that you were coming on Monday and you pitched a huge fit about not wanting to leave - it was a good sign, but even better was that on Monday morning, you gave me no problems about going back to school. I'm glad we had this month together. You may not remember all the stuff we did later on down the line, but I think it was worth it anyway.

This month is going to be different, not better, not worse, but different. Please have patience with me while I adjust to my new job, oh, and consider standing up to pee - it's all the rage amongst the people who have your similar parts.

Love,
Mama