Please Vote!

I just entered Landon into a contest for Old Navy. We need everyone to rate him so that we can get more points. Please rate Landon as a 10 every day until the end of the contest. We would really appreciate every one's support!
http://www.iwannabesuper.com/?challenge_id=1&entry_id=2084#campaign

Life According to Landon

Today has definitely not gone as planned. I have quickly learned that life no longer goes how I am wanting it to. Life is now going accordingly to Landon. I can no longer set out with mission plans for the day because no matter what it all comes down to what Landon wants to do. I woke up this morning on a mission to potty train Landon once and for all. I put him in a pair of big boy underwear thinking that once he was wet that he would let me know because he would be too uncomfortable to stay in a pair of wet underwear. Boy was I wrong. Landon was so caught up in playing by placing his Tigger and a stuffed dog on the potty seat that he could care less to tell me that he actually went to the bathroom. I never imagined potty training would be this hard and challenging. I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. Especially since Landon was able to tell me that he was about to go to the bathroom before he actually went at the age of 15 months. Just like he stopped talking around that time, he also stopped telling me that he had to go to the bathroom. Now he will go and when I ask if he's gone potty he will shake his head no. Even when I can smell otherwise. Landon may not be potty trained in a day's time, but he does look awfully cute running around in his new underwear. I bought him the Gerber training pants. They provide just enough padding to absorb some liquid, but not enough padding to keep him comfortable when he goes to the bathroom. Pull-ups have done nothing for him. He thinks they are just like a diaper since they absorb the liquid and he can't feel that he is wet. Hopefully by using the training pants more often he will be potty trained before his 2nd birthday. Here's to wishful thinking!

The other bummer of the day was the fact that Landon has not eaten a single thing all day. Yesterday Landon and I made a trip to Native Sun to pick up some dairy free butter and cheese. I also found dairy free french toast sticks for him as well. I made him the french toast sticks first thing this morning thinking that he would devour them because they smelled so good. I was wrong once again. He wouldn't even touch them. I then made his very first grilled "cheese" and had the camera ready to take pictures of his first bite, but he wouldn't touch it. Although I can't blame him there. I tried a piece of the so called cheese and it was disgusting. Once it hit my tongue I couldn't down a glass of water fast enough to get rid of the after taste. Landon wasn't in the room when I tried it so I thought he would at least give it a try, but no such luck. That was $20 wasted. Vegan butter and cheese is definitely not budget friendly. I wouldn't mind the sticker shock if Landon ate the food, but seeing him feed it to Tinkerbell made me think that I should have just flushed $20 down the toilet. I'm hoping to find a way to put the cheese and butter to good use. I am thinking about making him macaroni and cheese because so far he has never turned down a pasta dish.

Allergy follow-up

Landon had a follow up appointment with his allergist today. He was suppose to have skin testing done again to see whether or not he is still allergic to milk. We know without a doubt that he still is so they skipped the skin testing. A few months ago Landon reached on top of the table and pulled down a glass of milk and it splattered all over him. He immediately broke out into a rash all over his body. He also touched an ice cream container and then rubbed his eye and his eye swelled up so we know that he still has a severe milk allergy. They won't re-test him again for another year. By testing him for the milk allergy, it will require him to be exposed to milk. They are not wanting to expose him to milk for the testing so they skipped the test all together since we know that he is in fact still allergic. We were given strict orders to avoid milk completely. They are hoping that by not having any milk whatsoever in Landon's diet that his body will eventually forget what milk is and he will grow out his allergy. The goal is for Landon to outgrow his allergy by the age of 5. If it happens sooner then great, but we are at least hoping that he will outgrow before starting school. If he eats anything at all with milk in it, including things that don't give him an allergic reaction, then we are just prolonging the process of his milk allergy and causing it to potentially be around for forever. That means no more Chick-fil-a nuggets or pancakes from IHOPS and Denny's even though they have never caused a noticeable reaction in Landon. We learned that just because we can't see a reaction does not mean that it is not causing a problem. I have tried stressing that to others and have failed miserably at doing so so I was glad that the allergist re-affirmed it today. It's always nice knowing that my "overprotective" nature is for a reason. I'm not being overprotective. There are just some things that Mom's know instinctively. It comes with the territory of giving birth. At least we were re-assured that there is hope of him eventually outgrowing his milk allergy.

I also brought up my concern of Landon having an allergy to vanilla. He bit into a bottle of vanilla extract and had a horrible reaction all over his face. He also had the worst case of diarrhea that I had ever seen when he ate some vanilla wafers. I'm talking about him going through over 50 diapers in one weekend just from eating a couple handfuls of vanilla wafers. He has also had a terrible rash in his diaper area for a while now so I cut out his vanilla soy milk and the rash is slowly clearing up. The allergist told me that a vanilla allergy is extremely rare. So rare that they have never had a single case in over 20 years. They did not rule out the potential of a vanilla allergy, but since an actual allergy is so rare they think that Landon just may have an intolerance to vanilla. We are to avoid vanilla as well. That may be harder than avoiding milk. Landon loves his vanilla soy milk. Plain and chocolate soy milk don't taste as good as the vanilla soy milk. It may be hard getting him to drink soy milk now. We shall see how it goes.

After his appointment Kevin and I went driving to see if we could find a local park. I packed a picnic lunch so that we could enjoy some outside time. Plus a picnic lunch is so much better then eating in a restaurant. At least we think so. We were driving to a park that Kevin had saved on his GPS when we drove pass "Landon Park." Naturally we had to stop there. It was really windy and cold since it was right next to the river, but we had a nice afternoon. Landon and I enjoyed tuna fish much to Kevin's chagrin and he had a PB&J. I love days at the park, especially when we are at Landon Park! Being as cheesy as I am we had to take pictures of Landon in front of the Landon Park sign.

Duck Feedings

The other *day Landon fed the ducks at the pond for the first time. Every time we go outside he makes a beeline for the gazebo that overlooks the pond to look at the turtles, ducks, and fish. He waves to each one individually and throws them rocks to "feed" them. I remembered to take some scraps of bread out with us this last time and Landon was able to feed the ducks properly. At first he was a little scared because the ducks came within inches of us once they saw that we had food. He hid behind me for a minute, but as soon as he saw me feed them, then he was ready to try it himself. He threw the bread out to the ducks and even called them in the same way that he calls for Tinkerbell. He tells Tinkie to come to him by slapping his knee repeatedly while making a clicking noise with his throat. He kept slapping his knee so enthusiastically to get all of the ducks to him. Once we ran out of bread he then went back to his old ways of feeding them rocks.

Landon running to the pond

Landon was "on the case" in search of more ducks. The Super Sleuths (Tigger, Pooh, and Darby) are always on the case in search of clues. When they say that they are on the case they stick one arm out while bringing the other arm across their chest. Landon does this motion whenever he pretends to be one the case for something!

*day really should read week since I haven't been able to upload pictures onto here in a little while. This post has been sitting as a draft for a couple of weeks now. Better late than never!

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I did not contemplate forgoing a Not Me! post just because I was too tired to write it. Nope, not me! I always get plenty of sleep and would never be completely exhausted before 11 am!

I did not throw in the towel once again with potty training. I did not have my leg peed on three times in one day for me to call it quits for now with potty training. Nope, not me!

I did not feed Landon baked ziti two nights in a row this week just because that was all he would eat. I also did not hide spinach and squash in his baked ziti just to make myself feel better about him eating back to back. Nope, not me!