It's Pouring

Today is another one of those days where we should have stayed in bed. We woke up bright and early to go to Finder's Keepers. It's a huge consignment sale that we go to twice a year. We can usually stock up on a whole season's worth of clothing for Landon for under $100. Unfortunately, this year the money that I had saved for the sale had to go to pay for a doctor appointment. I was able to get Landon a few things just not quite everything that he will be needing for the summer. I did find him a toy vacuum that he can push around as I am vacuuming. He loves to help me vacuum, but in all honesty it can be a bit of a pain at times. Now he can push his own vacuum along side of me. He absolutely loves it. He pushed it all over the sales floor and has not put it down since. I was also able to find his birthday outfit, or at least half of it. I then came across an adorable Curious George outfit and it looked brand new in the store. Of course the terrible lighting there is deceiving. When I brought it home and pulled it out of the bag I noticed a hole right in the front of the shirt. I was so disappointed. You can't return anything. I wish they had better lighting. Every time we come back with at least one outfit that we find a stain on when we put it in natural lighting. A stain I can work with, but a hole I can not. At least the hole is small enough to where it can become an outfit that he wears to the park.

The worst part of the day was my doctors appointment. I had to use the money that I had been saving for Landon's summer wardrobe, his birthday party, and then some. I don't have any health insurance so seeing an actual doctor is out of the question. I had little choice in the matter as of lately. I was able to see a doctor who would be able to use my ct scan from the hospital so that I wouldn't have to pay for an ultrasound. After I pay the ridiculous amount of money to see the doctor he tells me that I will still need to have an ultrasound done because the ct scan does not show everything clearly. I hate that I wasted all of the money that could have gone to other things these next two weeks. I can't get the ultrasound done because that is another couple of hundred dollars and then I will have to pay the doctor again for another appointment just for him to tell me the results of the ultrasound. I don't know why I even bothered with this appointment. It's not like I can afford the needed surgery anyways. I spent money that I did not have to still be left untreated. When it rains it pours. At least Landon has been on his best behavior these past couple of days. I think he knows that I am dealing with a lot of pain and he has been relatively well behaved lately.

Meme!

Lately Landon has been yelling the word "meme" to me when he gets angry at me. I'm really starting to think that he is calling me a meanie! The other day he yelled it over and over again when I made him leave the play area at the mall. He just did it a second ago when I refused to paint his nails with purple nail polish! He can't grasp the concept that boys don't wear nail polish. I know I could have appeased him and just painted his nails. Where's the harm right? Especially if it is non toxic and won't harm him if he chews it off. But we are getting ready to head out for the day and I couldn't take him around with purple nails. Maybe one day I will give in and allow him to paint my nails. It sounds like a fair compromise to me, even if I do wind up covered head to toe in nail polish. Until then I will just have to be a meme!

Landon wanting me to paint his nails is very comical and I couldn't help but to laugh when he got so upset when I refused to do so. At the same time it pulled at my heart strings. It made me long for a little girl whose nails I could paint. Don't get me wrong, I love my little boy, but I can't wait to have a little girl whose hair I can braid and nails I can paint. Although right now I don't know if any more children are in my future. It's a scary thought to think that at 26 and with only one child that I may be done having children. I'm hoping that a little girl is in the cards for me in the future. Until that happens then I will have to put the nail polish down and pull out the cars and trucks. Which is just fine with me. I never thought I would like doing "boy things" with Landon, but I absolutely love it. He sure is all boy. He is rough, tough, and always on the go. He loves to wrestle and play around. He is also the biggest Mommy's boy. I couldn't imagine a day without him. This little boy was exactly what my life had been missing. He is keeping my heart content until a little sister comes along for him.

Peanut Butter Mayhem

Landon is able to tell when I am not feeling my best and he takes full advantage of the situation. Remember this post here? Well, today Landon took it one step farther. Seeing how he is now a toddler and no longer a wobbly one year old he can create much larger messes in record time. I was lying down on the couch with a heating pad trying to make my pain go away. Landon took all of his Pooh figures and cars over to the stairs to play. He lines his favorite little toys up on the bottom step daily so I figured he was doing the same thing again today. I wasn't checking in on him because I was in a lot of pain and needed to rest on the couch. About 10 minutes go by when I realized that I wasn't hearing him "talk" to his toys like he normally does. I went to go check on him and was in for a surprise. Landon somehow pulled a jar of peanut butter out from the pantry, opened it, and then proceeded to stick his arm into the jar to eat it. He then decided to paint the stairs and my sister's dog. I couldn't believe it. It was the first time that he has ever done anything like this. Up until today his messes have consisted of dumping q-tips all over the floor and re-arranging the DVDs. he has never pulled a stunt like this. I am now officially the mother of a toddler! The best part of this is that my discharged papers state to "rest in bed and avoid exertion". Doctors are funny people. The doctor who filled out my discharge form definitely was not a mother to a child. I am Landon's sole care giver day in and day out. There is no bed rest and avoidance of exertion. What there is, is my carrying a very happy boy covered in peanut butter up the stairs to the bathtub and then turning around and having to carry a 40 lb dog up the stairs to the tub. I couldn't even get mad at Landon. I was the one who chose to lay down and rest, allowing Landon to play by himself. In a way I was asking for some sort of trouble. When I saw him covered in peanut butter I couldn't help but to smile because Landon had the biggest grin on his face. I had to get a picture of him before I cleaned him up.

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!