A mashed potato mess of epic proportions

Landon loves food and Landon loves messes. So naturally, you can assume that Landon loves to make messes with his food.

Last night was a perfect example of this. Landon had mashed potatoes with his dinner. Observe the resulting insanity:

Luckily, it was bath night, because the boy was covered in potatoes.

Wow...

...so it's been a few days since the last post. We've had an exciting week or so. Brian sprained his ankle pretty badly last week, and didn't go back to work until this past Monday. As a result, he and Landon spent some quality time together last week...which probably didn't help Brian's ankle heal! But things have returned to normal for the most part.

Brian's parents will be going to Florida for a week or so in early May, and Landon will be going to "school" while they're away. He visited the classroom yesterday and had such a blast. Because he's walking already, he likely will be put in the young toddler room (they are called the 'Mini Milanos') and will be the youngest in his class. That didn't seem to bother him during his visit yesterday. He tried to talk to the other kids. The conversation with one kid, Charlie, went something like this:

Landon: Da-da.
Charlie: Ma-ma.
Landon: DA! Dat.
Charlie: Ma-ma-ma.
Landon: Nanananana
Charlie: SQUEAL! Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma.
Landon: Dat! Dat!

Landon and Charlie throughly enjoyed each other's company. Charlie is the next youngest, and just turned one, so he and Landon are closest in terms of development. We happened to arrive right as lunch time began, and Landon stole Charlie's mashed potatoes and stuffed the entire handful right in his mouth. Charlie got him back later and stole Landon's cranberry sauce. Landon had the last laugh, though, and swiped Charlie's sippy cup when his back was turned.

I was a little nervous about how Landon would react during his visit. He's never been around other babies, except in passing, let alone being exposed 10 other babies at once. I was afraid he might be a little rough with the other kids, or that he'd be left behind since he's the youngest. I shouldn't have worried, though. He ignored me almost the entire time, from his first step into the classroom until he finally let the main teacher put him down. The other kids were a bit cranky (lunch is followed immediately by nap time, so they were all exhausted), but Landon didn't once join in the fussing or crying. In fact, he looked at the crying kids as if they were crazy. As far as he was concerned, they didn't have anything to be upset about. They had good food, lots of toys and plenty of attention. In Landon's books, those are the ingredients to a great day. I'm actually looking forward to hearing from the teachers how Landon enjoys spending a full day at "school."

Hey, Bub. Whaddya in for?

We learned an important lesson this weekend. Always keep the toilet lid close.

Usually, Landon spends the morning in his toddler rocker, watching me get ready for work. Yesterday, I had to get ready for a bridal shower, so while Brian was getting things together to change my car's oil, I put Landon in his chair and jumped in the shower.

Brian walked in a few minutes later and exclaimed, with utter disgust and dismay, "Oh, Landon! What are you doing?!"

Landon was playing in the toilet.

Correction. To quote Brian, Landon was playing in the toilet "hard core."

Landon had found his Pi rattle (yes, a rattle in the shape of the Greek letter Pi, a gift from Aunt Alissa, the math geek) and was splashing it around and around the toilet, babbling to himself and, in general, having a grand ol' time. Brian walked in just in time to clean up the ensuing mess.

Poor Landon, though. He thought he was in trouble and started bawling as soon as Brian saw him. And poor Aunt Alissa. I hated to break the news to her that the Pi rattle had met an unfortunate demise.

The moral of the story is that it's not enough to flush the toilet. The lid needs to stay down too.

Happy (belated) Easter!

Landon enjoyed his first Easter. He was really well-behaved at church on Sunday and enjoyed Easter dinner with the family. If there is one thing that baby loves, it's food. Brian and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that when it comes to Landon's affections, the cats are his first love, followed by food of any kind. I think we're lucky if we make the top three.

Aside from celebrating Easter, Landon had his first bad experience eating things off the floor on Saturday. Brian had been outside working on the Camaro, and I was getting ready to take Landon outside to visit for a few minutes before getting him ready for a nap. I gave him a couple of Goldfish snack crackers to distract him and barricaded him in the living room so I could get our shoes and jackets ready.

I came back into the living room, saw Landon chewing and assumed he was finishing the last remnants of his Goldfish. He smiled at me and started racing across the living room to greet me. All of a sudden, he stopped in his tracks, his face contorted and he gagged. He stuck his tongue out of his mouth, and out fell a dead bug. But not just any dead bug. A dead stinkbug. I still am not sure where he found it, because it hadn't been very long since I last vacuumed, and it's not quite stinkbug season. Besides, Panzer usually takes care of removing the remains of any dead bugs. At any rate, he did not enjoy his first bug-eating experience, but I'm not convinced he learned from it.

Finally, Landon decided he wanted to try a new look last night, so here's a picture of him rockin' a mohawk. With his light hair and curls, it didn't turn out quite as well as I hoped, but oh well - he's still my little rocker baby!

10 Things I Love About Food

Tomorrow is going to be a rough day on Mommy. She has a really, really, really early meeting and the she has to go to the dentist. So I told her she could take the day off from blogging and I would write a post.

I sat and thought about some of my favorite things. (Like my frisbee. And my cat brothers. And being tickled. Oh, and playing with toys. Then there's being chased. And being roughhoused. Of course the old standby, being cuddled. Oh yeah, and crawling on Mom and Dad. Oh - can't forget about bath time!)

But none of them seemed like a good topic for a blog post. I was starting to get frustrated.

Just as I was about to break out into a huge wail to let the world know how mad I was that I couldn't come up with a good topic, it hit me: I love food. Food is great. I have fun when I eat. So I will dedicate this post to one of my favorite past times: eating.

10 Things I Love About Food (and Eating)

1. Food is yummy.
2. Food is messy.
3. Food tastes really good after you smear it all over your face.
4. food is fun to get all in your hair and on you clothes. (Especially if the clothes are new and/or white. Mom really loves that.)
5. Eating dinner with Mom and Dad means I am almost grown up. (Right??)
6. Food makes in fun to tease my cat brothers. (That's what they get for ignoring me until I am eating.)
7. Food is messy.
8. Eating means exploring. Exploring means learning. Learning means I am not bored.
9. Eating generates good photo ops.
10. Did I mention food is messy?

Look what I can do!

Landon has something he'd like to share with you. And he's very, very proud of himself and hopes you'll be duly impressed: