Landi's First Haircut!

Before and after pictures.. He looks like such a big kid now!

Awwww....

Landis finished his lunch and ran over to my seat. He gave me a kiss, snuggled in my lap and said, "You always get me sandwiches. You are a good Monni."

What at sweet boy he is!

He can swim!!

We went to the pool today, and Landis splashed around on the steps for a little while, then said to me, "Monni, go far, and I will swim to you all by myself."

I took a step or 2 back, and he motioned for me to go back further. So, I stepped about 4 feet away from the steps and he grinned, ducked his head under the water and swam to me!

I am so, so excited! He has been taking swimming lessons for a month and has been so close to swimming for the last week or 2, but I guess everything just clicked for him today. We spent the next 30 minutes with him swimming back and forth between me, Goat, Caleb, the steps and the wall. It was so much fun! He LOVES the water so much. I can't wait until tomorrow so I can take him to the pool again!!!

Love

Last week, Landis and I went to the swimming pool with our friends Jessica and Beni. We had a great time, and while we were there, Landis did what is quite possibly the sweetest thing any baby has ever done.

There is a big section of the pool with shallow water, so I let Landis run around while I sat in the water nearby. After a while, he ran up to me and threw himself into my arms. "Monni," he said, "I love you close." And he snuggled up in my arms.

He then leapt down, ran half way across the pool and yelled at the top of his lungs, "I love you far away!"

And then it was back to me. "I love you close!"

He is the sweetest boy anyone has ever had and I can't even begin to describe how very much I love him.

As sometimes happens, Landis stumbled into our bed in the wee hours of the morning for some Monni and Daddy snuggles. We woke up a few hours later, and Landis was in the sweetest mood ever. I gave him a hug and a kiss and started to get up. He grabbed my hand and said "Monni, stay here. I love you too much!"

How could I resist? Landis and I snuggled for a few more minutes, then played with his stuffed animal, George, who had come to the big bed with Landis in the middle of the night. After a while, Landis was ready to jump out of bed and start his day. He has been in the best mood all morning long.


A few years ago, just before Landis turned 1, we went to the Florida La Leche League Conference. One of the speakers used the metaphor that everyone has a "cup" that needs to be filled every day with love and affection and attention, and that many times a child will misbehave to get attention - even negavive attention- if that cup is not filled with positive attention by their parents. He said one of the best things a parent could do to make the whole day better was to spend a little while in the morning filling up their child(ren)'s cup by giving them a few minutes of completely undivided attention.

I've definitely noticed that our days run smoother when Landis and I spend some time together fist things in the morning, before I start to get busy and distracted by making breakfast and washing dishes and folding laundry and checking email and writing grocery lists and all of the other busyness of day to day life. I think we may have to make morning snuggle time a regular part of our routine!

Snuggle Love

Adorable Landis quote of the day ahead. As context, I tend to call Landis my however-he-is-acting love. E.g. my trouble love, goofy love, playful love, etc.

"I want to be Monni's snuggle love. You want to be Monni."

How could I ever hope to resist snuggling my sweet little snuggle love?

Landis usually wakes up from his naps happy, refreshed, and ready to play, but this afternoon he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. He kept fussing until I came and picked him up. We sat down on the couch together and he kept fussing until he found the best and most cuddly spot in my lap. Then he smiled, looked up at me and said, "That's perfect, right there." He stopped fussing and snuggled for a few minutes and then was ready to get up and play.

Awww!!

Landis just came prancing into the living room from the back of the house, gave me a hug and told me "I love you Monni! I love my Daddy! I love Caylo! I love Josh! ..." He proceeded to name all of the people he loves - his parents, brother, grandparents, aunt and uncles.

Could be be any sweeter??

Awww

Landis just treated his uncle Josh to the cutest rendition of "Hickory Dickory Dock." It went something like this:

Mouse cwimb cwock.
Mouse cwimb up!
Mouse cwimb down!
Mouse cwimb cwock.

I'm adding a video of Landis singing for his uncles.  This was a few days later, but the same song.  

I am so proud of my brilliant step-son

Hooray for Aaron Scott, science fair champion of the 3rd grade! He is such an amazing kid!

If you've ever happened to encounter a mother in the presence of an adorable baby, you may have witnessed the ridiculous, cooing, nonsensical language that comes naturally to many women and is almost universally loved by babies. It's hard not to coo and wax lyrical about each tiny feature when faced with an adorable little face, and the fact that it is rewarded with sweet toothless smiles only reinforces the behavior.

Unfortunately, while Landis has grown from a tiny infant to a tall and very verbal toddler, I have not yet stopped cooing over each of his adorable features, especially his very blue eyes. As Landis was hard at work building a train track, I kept talking about his big blue eyes, and just how cute they are, and how nice it was that he had gotten blue eyes just like Daddy. I thought that he wasn't really listening, but he got up, ran across the room and tugged on Goat's pants. Goat turned around, and Landis said, "Daddy, thank you for my eyes."

We just about fell over laughing at that one, but I think I'm going to have to stop telling Landi how cute he is quite so often. I don't want to raise a vain little boy - even if he is the cutest toddler in the world!

Awww!

Landis just woke up from his nap in the best mood.  We snuggled in the rocking chair for a minute, and he curled up in my arms.  I gave him kisses and tickled him and told him "Monny loves you!"  After a minute, he looked up at me with a satisfied grin and said "My Monny loves me!"