Landis Quote of the Day

Landis and I were talking about one of his friends. He asked, "Does he have a brother?"

I told him that, yes, that friend does have a brother.

Landis thought about it for a little while and said sadly, "But he doesn't have a Josh."


Landis thinks every little boy should have a fun uncle Josh!

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!!!

Swimming

Landis has been taking swimming lessons for the past month. He loves his teacher, Miss Marie, and has learned to swim short distances. He has a lot of fun interacting with the other kids in his class, splashing, blowing bubbles, floating and playing.


Today was the last lesson of the month and the teacher arranged for underwater pictures of the kids to be taken. Landis' caption for this picture is: "This is Landi, swimming by his self!"

We are looking forward to taking lessons again in July!

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.

When I came home from school yesterday, I noticed that Landis was no longer wearing his pants. I asked him whether he had had an accident, or just wanted to take them off. He told me, "I just wanted to take my pants off because I pee'd in them."

Leave it to Landis to find a third option!

I was tossing Landis in the air earlier this evening. I told him it was fun to toss him. He told me, "I can toss myself by my own self" and jumped as high as he could, yelling "TOSS!!"

Landis-isms of the Day

Landis, Caleb and I had to run some errands today. As I was driving to the grocery store, I asked the boys if there was anything they would like me to add to my list. Caleb requested milk and tomato soup so that we could make "Grandpa's Penne Pasta" (pasta with cheese and tomato soup.) Landis chirped in, "I want tomato soup! I do! I do!"

Caleb, amused by Landis' response, asked, "Landis, do you believe in fairies?"

Landis replied, "I believe in tomato soup!"

Silly boys!!!

We all knew it was coming...

I'm surprised it took this long. Yesterday, was Landis' first (and hopefully only!) emergency room visit.

My little monkey boy tried to climb onto the top of the fridge and fell onto his head on the tile floor. After a panicked phone call to my wonderful Dad, we determined the criteria for taking him in to the ER instead of watching him carefully at home. (As an aside - it is so nice to have a father who is a pediatrician when you have an injury prone little toddler! Thank you Dad!!!) When Landis started vomiting repeatedly, we took him in. As scary as it was - he vomited, his speech was slurred and he was as miserable and iritable as I have ever seen him - everything turned out OK. Several hours and a CT scan later, it was determined that Landis had suffered a mild concussion, but would be just fine. Caleb was NOT happy to be back in a hospital. He has spent a lot of time with my Mom and Grandpa. But, he made it through.

We were instructed to check on Landis every 2 hours during the night to make sure he would wake easily, just in case. I think it really sunk in that he was just fine when, in the middle of the night, between checks, I coughed a little bit and Landis rolled over, opened his eyes and muttered sleepily, "Monni, I want you cover your mouth when you cough. Remember that, please." He then rolled over and fell back asleep. Clearly he was not having any problem waking up!

I heard Landis' side of a phone conversation with his Nonnie describing the ordeal. In Landis' words: "I bonked on the tile. It hurt. I saw some people and Monni and Daddy at the other* hosital-tal. Monni says, 'No more bonks on the tile.'"


*Not the same hospital that we went to to see Great Grandpa Duggan.

Big Update Post

I've been neglecting this poor blog because we have been busy recently!

Goat is still working like crazy, making a valiant effort to do 6 people's jobs. In his spare time (Ha! What spare time?) he has managed to complete several computer and truck related projects, as well as taking over Monday and Wednesday evening Landis wrangling duties because...

I am back in school! My schooling was put on hold by the arrival of a certain 2 year old we all know and love, and I am finally going back. I'm taking classes at Brevard Community College - a speech class for the first half of the summer that meets Monday and Wednesday evening, then a Humanities class that meets Tuesday and Thursday evening for the rest of the summer. In the fall and spring, I plan to take a few last general ed requirements and several prerequisite courses so that I can begin the UCF education program in either the summer or fall semester of next year.

Speaking of school, Aaron Scott is out of school for the summer. He will be in 4th grade next year, and will be 9 years old in August. Time is flying by! He is an extremely fun and active boy. When he is here, we almost always end up spending a lot of time outside, running, jumping, riding bikes, going for walks, swimming etc. He has some exciting travel plans with his mom and stepdad this summer, and we hope to see a lot of him when he is not traveling.

Landis is also getting ridiculously big! He starts swimming lessons Monday morning, and I hope that he will be swimming by the end of the summer. He loves swimming at his Grandma and Papa's house, at the public pool and in the little kiddie pool in our yard. He has been really interested in learning about letters and their sounds recently, and enjoys playing on the Starfall website.

Josh had been visiting for the past week, which has been so much fun! We always enjoy having him around. We baked scones and a pie, went to the beach and pool, Goat took him target shooting, and now the guys are fishing. He has also been a huge help, keeping Landis occupied so I can get some projects done around the house. He even offered to mow the grass this weekend! We went to several garage sales yesterday and the best find was a 9 cube organizer similar to this one for $5! It fits perfectly in the boys' room.

Caleb is coming to visit next week and we are excited about spending some time with him. I am so fortunate to have 4 wonderful little brothers!

We are looking forward to going up to North Carolina to see Johnny and meet his girlfriend Andrea later this summer. It will be nice to have all of the siblings together.

It should be a fun summer!!!

"That Creeps Me Up"

One of Landis' favorite toys is the shelf from one of our cabinets which we removed to store some tall items. He pretends that it is his stove, and cooks me lots of yummy "food." Yesterday, I decided to help his imagination along, so I drew spirals on it to look like burners. For a while, all was well.

Then, a few hours later, Landis ran over to me and said, "Monni, there are giant eyeballs on my stove. That makes me angry."

It took me a few minutes to realize that he meant the drawings of burners. I asked him why it made him angry. He replied, "I don't like those eyeballs, Monni. That creeps me up. "

Now that you mention it, Landis, giant eyeballs on a stove top are rather creepy...