Monthly Newsletter #69

Dear Landon,

This month consisted of a lot of water for you.  You spent two weeks in swimming lessons each evening.  Mr. Cody taught you all kinds of things I had been trying to get you to do for years, and one day with him, all of the sudden putting your face in the water is NOT the end of the world…He had you doing strokes and floating…I am so proud of you!

Mike came home for R&R this month and we went to New Braunfels to visit his family.  You had a BLAST.  There were so many kids so close to your age, and you were terribly upset when we told you it was time to go back home.

You also went to Six Flags in San Antonio for the first time.  You LOVED it.  You especially loved the water park part of it.  We’re about to tell you we’re going back.  I expect the biggest hug of my life.

We took you on the Comal River in a tube.  You were not happy about any of the fast parts, and kept asking if that was the last drop after each one.  But in the end you would tell people you had fun.

You got to spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa Logan, while Mike and I went on a cruise.  From what I hear you had a blast.

This month I need you to work on not twirling your hair.  I’m not sure why it bothers me so much, but I definitely am not a fan of it and especially while we’re eating – you’re just making your hair gross.

Love,

Mommy

Monthly Newsletter #68

Dear Landon,

This month went by pretty quickly. Maybe it’s because you spent so much time with your daddy. Which is a good thing. And I promise to always encourage you to spend the time you can with your daddy. So this month, you went to Destin, Florida with your daddy and his family for a week. You left on Mother’s day weekend and came back the following Saturday night. I got a lot of flak from various people about “letting” you go on Mother’s Day weekend. And I want you to know that I’d do it again.

We went out to dinner the night before you left to celebrate Mother’s day. You gave me the awesome flowers you made at school out of coffee filters…in fact, I still have them in the living room. Also, in return your daddy set you loose in the souvenir store and told you that you could get me whatever you wanted, since I let him have you on Mother’s Day. You picked out 4 magnets and 2 T-shirts for me – all very cool.

I’m not going to lie, there was some deprograming to be done in the following weeks, but I wasn’t the only one fighting it – your daddy was too. I believe you are back to normal now, so at least there’s that.

When you and your daddy got back into town you asked if I could come get you that night because you missed me. And I did. The next day I had promised Miss Catherine that I would watch Baby Jack for the day so that she could get her house ready to put on the market. We went and picked him up and took him to Hermann Park. We rode the train, fed the ducks…er…pigeons – I have no clue where all the ducks were, and we went to the zoo. We had a blast that day. And I re-confirmed that I do not want any more children and you reconfirmed that maybe little brothers that you can borrow and give back are better than little brothers who would irritate you 24/7.

The following weekend was crazy busy. It was a 3 day weekend, and I don’t really know what I was thinking when I agreed to everything, but it all worked out. On Friday night you graduated from pre-K. Very cute ceremony, the classes each recited a poem, and then after they gave you the “diplomas” (or as you call them “plomas”) you all went back up and sang a song.

Saturday morning, I took you to the third mud run I’ve done. It was the first one you’d been to (that was supposed to be muddy). You were not impressed by the mud, you are the cleanest little kid I’ve ever met, you have no desire whatsoever to get muddy. I guess it will be a while before I can talk you into doing on of these runs with me. And that’s okay.

Right after I got sprayed off by the fire truck we went home, I showered and we immediately got back in the car to go to one of your friend’s birthday parties. After which we met Catherine and Jack for dinner.

On Sunday we went down to see Grandma and Grandpa Logan…actually I went down there to make a quilt for my friend’s baby shower, you got to play with Zoey while I did it. And on Monday we went to Jack’s birthday party. So despite my only having you one weekend out of the month, I think I was able to cram enough stuff in there, that I made up for it.

This month we begin swimming lessons. So I really need you to pay attention and do what your teacher tells you to do. I know you can do it.

Love,

Mommy

Monthly Newsletter #67

Dear Landon,

This month sped by so fast, I swear I looked up and it was already over.


This year we did considerably fewer Easter egg hunts. Just the one at Aunt Kelly’s and the one at home on Easter morning. I managed to whittle down the plastic egg population in the house from somewhere around 60 to somewhere around 30. And to me – that’s an Easter success! You still aren’t quite up to smashing people on the head with the confetti eggs, you’re afraid you will hurt them…probably won’t be an issue next year.

This season of T-ball got rained out quite a bit, and our coach had some family emergencies that caused us to miss out of a couple practices. It didn’t feel quite as draining as it did last year…you decided midway through the season that you didn’t want to do machine pitch next year. And we finally got it out of you that you were afraid the machine would hit you with the ball. It took some time and a lot of convincing, to get you to understand that you were more likely to be hit by a kid pitching than the machine pitching. At which point you said you would do baseball again next year.

We went to one of your friend’s birthday parties. You had so much fun, there was a train, a petting zoo, pony rides, an inflatable obstacle course, and a face painter. Please don’t think for a second that I would ever be able to afford that kind of fancy party for you (neither of your parents are professional athletes). You were so upset when we left, but we were the last ones there, I let you stay as long as I possibly could!

We’re still working on the smacking, I’m hoping we’re nearing the end of it. But you’ve also started a new trend of smuggling. You’ve been smuggling toys into school in your backpack, you tried to smuggle a bouncy ball into a T-ball game. And you get caught every time. You’re just not very good at it – so knock it off.

Love,

Mommy

Monthly Newsletter #66

Dear Landon,

This month I took you to the rodeo for the second time. This time we took Rhett with us and we went around and looked at all the animals and the tractors. We saw Zac Brown Band and now every time you hear one of their songs, you announce that you know it is Zac Brown because you remember hearing it at the rodeo. This time the rodeo portion was a lot less shocking to you and you didn’t have to be calmed thinking that the animal were being hurt, but really? The animals totally won the rodeo that night. There were a lot of 0 scores on the board. We had a great time anyway.

You also started your second season of T-ball this month. Opening day was awesome, you had quite the crowd there to watch you. And by all accounts, you won! Aaaaaand…it’s been raining every game day since, so there have been no other games and only one other practice, which you missed for being out of town. But hopefully this week you’ll get to play another game…I mean, sure we needed the rain, but it’s getting a little bit ridiculous.

The garden that we planted last month is taking off really well this year. We already have several tomatoes and Serrano peppers growing…and one lonely cucumber. You really love watering it and looking at it. And hopefully now that the soil in there is looser with the sand I put in maybe the carrots will grow better his year and we can actually eat one.

You’ve now lost your two front teeth. I hope these two come in faster than the bottom ones did, but I fear your doctor was correct in that you got your baby teeth early and your permanent ones are on time, so there’s just going to be a lag.

You decided a couple weeks ago that you would now require an allowance. So I decided a couple weeks ago, I’m not buying you stuff all willy nilly anymore…you have an allowance, you can pay for it. In exchange, you have agreed to transporting laundry to and from the bedroom and the laundry room, putting away silverware, and having your room clean on Saturday. The first day we had a brief discussion over what things cost, and why you’re going to have to save a little while to get some things, and also in the real world you have to work for a week or two before your pay check comes, so even though you did a bunch of stuff that day, you weren’t going to see any money until the following Saturday. I’m not evil though, I’m not taking taxes out of it – that’s a real world lesson you’ll learn at your first job. It surprised you to learn that a new DS game is $20-30, and a new Wii system - $200 (I’m not sure why you think I need one in my room and one in the loft, but that was your idea)…I guess it didn’t really occur to me that you didn’t know what things cost, but I think this will help. And now, when you see a commercial and tell me you “NEED” something, I can say, “well, I guess you need to save your money!”

The only thing I want you to work on this month is smacking…I know you can stop, because when you get reminded about it you stop immediately. And keeping your hands out of your mouth – I think that will temporarily stop anyway, now that you don’t have any loose teeth.

Love,

Mommy

Monthly Newsletter #65

Dear Landon,

This was a growth month I guess. So many life lessons. It was a tough month emotionally.

First of all, after your great grandma died, your Grandpa Wood had a bunch of health issues. And he was in and out of the hospital, but mostly in. Explaining to you why we didn’t think “Grandpa was going to die the way Great Grandma did” was a really hard conversation to have with a 5 year old. You were so worried about that, even your teacher asked me what was going on, because she noticed that you had gotten awfully sensitive.

You and I participated in our first run together. It was called the Color Run and it benefited Habitat for Humanity. It was supposed to be a 5K where at each kilometer they threw a powdered color on you and by the end, you’d be all different colors. Well…it rained…a lot the few days before…and the night before it REALLY stormed and the path was super muddy. We got to the top of the first really muddy part and Miss Catherine and Baby Jack bowed out and I left your scooter with them, because it was clearly not going to work. And you and I started down the hill hand in hand. At this point, it was no longer a run, it was a walk, and a mud walk at that. About 50 feet into it, you said “This is impossible!” And I told you it was NOT impossible, that it was going to be difficult, but you could do it, that you were tough, and I would be right by your side to help you the whole time.

We trudged through ankle deep mud, people were losing shoes, some people dug them out, some people just abandoned them, the color throwers were out of color at every station we passed. We made it to a part in the race where we could cut over and cut some of the race out. I asked you what you wanted to do, knowing full well what I wanted to do. After some discussion about what cutting over meant as far as the length of this journey, you decided it was best to cut it a little shorter if we could.

As soon as we cut over we were faced with a knee deep mud trench, there were at least 3 completely destroyed strollers there. This is the point at which I realized that Catherine had made the right decision to stop when she did. You and I went hand in hand through the mud, we trudged up a 500 yard hill of mud, we didn’t stop when you lost a shoe, other than to dig it out. I lost both of my shoes (I dug them out too), but my feet weren’t liking the rocks in the mud, so we stopped towards the side and haphazardly tried to clean the mud off and put our shoes back on. My encouragement during this part of the trek was “It looks like it will get better when we reach the top of the hill, it’s not too far now.” And after a while you said “You keep saying that you think that’s the top of the hill, but keeps NOT being the TOP!!” We got encouragement from passers by “He’s such a TROOPER!!” They’d say. And you were. I’m proud to say that you didn’t fall down once! And I only took a knee once. And we made it. And I am so proud of you! Not just for finishing it, but also because you didn’t whine or cry, you were tough. And I know now, that I also made the right decision to keep going with you. You said you’d do it again with me if we get the chance, but not if it rains before. I agree, although I’m glad I got to teach you a little something about perseverance.

We made a weekend out of the Color Run and spent a couple nights in a hotel in Austin – we drove by the capitol building, and went and bought a few Austin souvenirs. We stopped to each at a Chick Fil A for dinner, where some bully kid was picking on Jack and you stuck up for him…just when I thought I couldn’t be any prouder of you, you continue to amaze me.

When we left the hotel the next morning, we stopped by the glass bottom boat place in San Marcos – where we got a private boat tour, since we were the only ones there!

You attended a couple birthday parties this month and we got to see Great Aunt Mary Lou again, she came down for a couple weeks for Great Grandma’s memorial service. You also started T-ball again, and you’re on the Astros again this year, but with a different coach and none of the same players.

This month’s request is T-ball related. All I’m asking is that you not be the team clown and that means I need you to pay attention during practice and games and always have your eye on the ball.

Love,

Mommy

Paddle Your Own Canoe

Jane Rowland
June 18, 1916 - January 31, 2012

We've been going through the things at my Grandmother's apartment this week, and one of the things she had was a memory book from grade school through high school. Like an autograph book that her friends signed throughout the years and they generally put a little verse of some sort on the page where they wrote as well. They were WAY more poetic than the "stay cool!" kind of things we wrote in our yearbooks. Anyway, there was one from her friends Florence that really spoke to me:

Love many,
Trust few,
But always paddle your own canoe.

My grandmother is one of the strongest role models I have ever met. She didn’t do it on purpose, she didn’t do it for show, she just did it. I know that, because she never boasted about her accomplishments, as a matter of fact, I only found out about a majority of them in the last five years. She got her pilot’s license through a program to teach civilians to fly planes during the war, and although the program was ultimately canceled, she still flew planes. She got her PhD in education.

And I bet she’s been to any country you ever thought you wanted to go to. She traveled the world extensively after my grandfather died, every year her Christmas cards featured a picture from her travels, I specifically loved the one from Egypt where she was sitting on a camel in front of the pyramids. If I go to a third of the countries she’s been to, I would consider myself well-traveled.

She also had a green thumb. She had a HUGE garden and always had a row of green tomatoes on the window sill waiting for them to ripen. And anytime I don’t know what a plant is, my response is, “Well, I could ask Grandma, she’ll probably know.”

Each summer I spent a week with her, and we ate hot dogs and macaroni and cheese the entire week. I also remember that she had a Tupperware container in the fridge with a bunch of different kinds of cheese in it. It was a glorious week of eating exactly what any kid would want to eat! She’d let me ride my tricycle inside the house until grandpa got upset about it. And we went swimming almost every day, piling into the front seat of her sky blue Dodge Dart with the hot pleather seats. She’d swim laps while I swam in the shallow end. Each summer we’d also do something else during the week besides swimming. One time she took me to Hanna-Barbera Land…where she convinced me to ride the sole rollercoaster in the park. And I screamed like someone was stabbing me in the eye, then steadfastly refused to ride another roller coaster for 4-5 years. The next summer she took me to Astro World – which would have been more cost effective if it hadn’t been during my roller coaster boycott, but we rode several non-roller coaster rides and still had fun. I took ceramic painting classes with her, and a pottery class and I remember her taking me to the Children’s museum once too.

I’ll miss her a lot, but I’m glad I have those good memories to look back on.

Monthly Newsletter #64

Dear Landon,

This month has been kind of hectic, but in a good way. We celebrated our last Christmas of 2011. And you actually fed Aunt Kelly’s horses…it’s the first time you’ve been willing to come within 5 feet of them, and with no fence between you AND fed them carrots. I was completely shocked! And you said “Mom, I’m five NOW, I didn’t do it before because I wasn’t five!” Like, duh, of course I can do it now. I guess five is the magic number.

We also got some books from the library, one of which featured some kids building a time machine out of a cardboard box. So, we built you a time machine. It seems to be a work in progress. The first weekend it really was only a transporter, we had no dials telling when in time we were going, but we did have a map to pick a place. The next time we worked on it we added a month dial and a year dial…apparently day during the month and time of day are of no consequence to you in your time travels. We also added a door, and talked about how it might need a few buttons the next time we work on it.

This morning during a conversation about addition and multiplication I discovered that you are beginning to understand multiplication. Obviously at 5 you don’t have the multiplication tables memorized, but you were able to figure out 2x3, 2x4, and 2x5 pretty easily and show that you get the concept of it…please don’t be so smart that you’re bored and become a trouble maker. I already noticed that on the backs of all your worksheets from school, Ms. Nicole writes some addition and subtraction problems for you to do after you finish the worksheet…I asked if all the kids were doing that and you said “No, she just does that for me, because I finish faster than anyone else.” I hope you will always have teachers who are willing to go out of their way to challenge you like Ms. Nicole does.

This month you also experienced the death of a close relative for the first time. My uncle died when you were less than a year old, but I don’t believe you were really aware of that. Your Great Grandma died at the age of 95. She led a very full life, and I would be ecstatic if you got to do even a third of the things she did in her lifetime. She has a PhD in education (this, by the way, is a HUGE accomplishment for a woman of her generation), she had her pilot’s license, she’s traveled to so many different countries, I don’t think anyone even knows what that number is. I have some great memories of spending a week each summer with her, and I hope that you’re creating similar memories with your grandparents when I send you there for a week at a time. You took the news pretty well when I told you, a few tears and a long snuggly hug.

Now I’m to the part where I tell you to work on something, and I’ve got nothing for you to work on. You’ve been really great for the last month, so just keep it up.

Love,

Mommy

Monthly Newsletter #63

Dear Landon,

Between both of us being sick, and Christmas…well, there’s just not a lot to this month.

You had your annual Christmas program at school…Once again, your class did a song I’d never heard of before. But it was cute. And you were front and center.

We both had a cough for most of the month, mine turned into bronchitis and your developed into a double ear infection…which you didn’t complain about at ALL. In fact, the teachers called me and said you were lethargic and running a fever, so I picked you up and took you to the doctor. Everyone asked if your ears hurt and you said no, you just couldn’t hear. And lo and behold, double ear infection. You were VERY upset about not going back to school, but the timing was such that the day you could have gone back was the day that they closed at 2 for the Christmas holidays…so you had almost 2 weeks off of school.

There’s a lot of talk about a particular girl at school. You even call her your girlfriend. She’s the same one you’ve been calling on your play cell phone for a few months…and as it turns out – there have been a couple of kisses between you two. Apparently she tried to kiss you at school and got you both in trouble, and then she succeeded in kissing you at Chick Fil A. You seem a bit young to me for all this kissing and girlfriend talk.

You had a lot of Christmases this year. I’ve only had to attend 2 of them so far, and we’ll have one more in a couple weeks. It seems that you got almost all of what you wanted, except a pogo stick. And I’m going to be quite honest with you…you can barely balance on a 2 wheel scooter, so I only really see the pogo stick idea ending badly. Your favorites are a Nintendo 3DS and an MP3 player. I’m pretty sure limits will be set on those in the near future.

Oh and we went to the dentist and this time you actually sat in the chair all by yourself...like a big boy! Your teeth were deemed perfect!

Anyway, all in all not a bad month, except for the being sick part. So, this month, let’s try to stay healthy.

Love,

Mommy