Wednesday, December 10, 2014

A Baby Doll For Christmas

A month or so ago, Landon and I went with Tyler to a church meeting. Of course, we didn't actually attend the meeting...we spent our time in the play area. This particular church has an awesome kids area. There is a slide, a play kitchen, and basically any toy you could ever want to play with. Landon loves it! And I was taken by surprise when he spent most of his time playing with a baby doll.

He was carrying it around saying, "shh shh shhhh" in the same tone and pattern Tyler and I used to use to get him to go to sleep. He would then loudly announce, "baby sleep!" And then he would pick up the bottle and say, "its hot!" and then he would place it in the fridge for a few seconds before feeding it to the doll. After feeding the doll, he would take the doll and lay it in the crib and say, "Sleep. Goodnight." It was adorable.





Of course we will need to work on how to properly carry a baby...

On the way home, I told Tyler everything and told him I wanted to buy him a baby doll for Christmas. Thankfully, Tyler didn't respond with a - no way is my son going to get a baby doll for Christmas. He immediately agreed it was a good idea.

So, last night, as part of our annual December 9th date, we did some Christmas shopping for Landon. Along with car ramps and Toy Story things, we set out to find a baby doll. I was thinking just a plain, rubber doll would be easy to find. I was wrong. We stood and stared at a wall of baby dolls for at least twenty minutes trying to decide which one to get. I had no idea it would be so hard to find a baby doll that didn't pee, or cry, or talk in a creepy voice. Finally we found what we were looking for. 


Who came up with the idea of "boy toys" and "girl toys." It is very obvious that certain toys are supposed to be for certain genders. There is a little girl holding the doll on this box! Where is the box with a little boy feeding the doll the bottle? Or where is the box with the little girl playing with the hot wheels cars? Who's says a boy can't want a baby doll or a girl can't want some matchbox cars?

I don't want Landon to only love cars, and tractors, trains, and the things society says a little boy should like. If he enjoys playing with baby dolls, then we will encourage it. I also want Landon to know a "manly" man is not a man with muscles that hunts and build's big things, and drives huge trucks. Those things are all fine, but they don't define a real man. In my opinion, a real man loves and nurtures as well as a woman. 

And who knows, maybe this baby will help prepare him for a future sibling. Starting with not carrying them around by their arms ;-)


Monday, December 8, 2014

Countdown to TWO!

In just four short days, Landon will officially be TWO! To be honest, some days, I feel like we have already entered into the "terrible two" stage of life. And for those of you who think three is worse than two, keep that to yourselves ;-)

Minus his insane tantrums that happen every few days, I am loving this stage of his life. I love hearing whats going on in his creative mind. I love how great of a memory he has and how he can throughly describe events that happened weeks ago. For example, we took him to a Walleye hockey game last month and he HATED the horn that goes off when the teams scores. He hated it so much, he refused to even sit in the arena. If you have ever been to a Toledo Walleye game, you have probably seen the giant fish that floats around in between quarters (are they called quarters? I know nothing about hockey.) It looks like this:


So every now and then Landon will say, "Hockey game. Fish was loud. Scared." A broken sentence, but a sentence non the less and I love being able to hear what he thinking about. Listening to him talk is my newest favorite thing about being his mama.

Last year at this time, My favorite thing was watching him attempt to walk. I remember how excited we where we he took his first steps. And YES! We got it on film!


I'm not sad over the idea of him getting older. I'm finding myself enjoying his next stages of life even more than I enjoyed the last! I loved when he was cuddly and let me hold him as long as I wanted, but now I love that he talks and actually plays and uses his imagination! I loved when he was completely dependent on me, but now I love his growing independence. It lets me know he is developing the way he needs to. Everything just keeps getting better. Of course, there are new challenges. He drives me insane with his sudden picky eating, the tantrums he throws when I can't find the specific toy he wants, and heaven forbid if I would rather read a different book than "Curious George Goes To The Baseball Game" for the tenth time in a row (not exaggerating) are all daily occurrences. But for every time I feel like I'm going crazy, he will say something like, "I miss you!" or a good, "Kank (thank) you, Mama!"

This week is so reminiscent. December 8th was when we went on our last twenty mile bike ride as a married couple with no baby. You can read about that here! If it were not freezing here, I would take Landon on a bike ride, just because I feel like it would be appropriate. December 9th marks when I started having contractions and when Tyler  and I had to skip our romantic date and "settle" for Chipotle at home. You can read about that here! December 10th and 11th were hands down, the most painful days of my entire life (If you have been pregnant, you know what I'm talking about.) And December 12th will be two years since Landon Shae decided it was time to come out of hiding and make his grand, surprise entrance.