Moments with the Morings: December 2014

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Landon,

It feels like you have been two forever. Or rather, like you are three and have been for years. You are independent, funny, and very capable for your age! I hardly recognize the little boy I wrote about a year ago. Which is bittersweet.

You are analytic and like to see how things work. I find you fiddling with things with a concentrated look on your face and you repeatedly tinker and watch to see what happens. I'm surprised by the things you have discovered and I love to see your joy when you get a neat reaction. Some moments that stick out in my mind are when the bubble machine ran dry and you discovered that when you squirted water from the squirt gun into the empty reservoir it made bubbles. I also saw you take a small walking dinosaur toy and figure out that you could line up a pull back car and create a chain reaction when the dinosaur bumped into the car. You laughed and adjusted it over and over until you created a greater chain reaction.

You love to disappear and hide under your brothers covers (with your feet sticking out) and wait for us to find you.

Lately you have become very attached to your elephant. You cry unless you have TWO elephants with you and you have insisted on carrying at least one with you wherever you go.

You love dirt. Love it. Sand, sticks, leaves, dirt. You also love to "fix" things. I caught you with a plastic play food knife in the hall closet "fixing" the vacuum. I heard you say the words "Uh oh..its broken! I fix it!".

You are obsessed with lights. Very fixated on them and how they go "on and off". You'll climb to reach the light switch and lamps and sometimes we'll find you in the dark playing with a flashlight. Over Thanksgiving you had a blast running around Mimi and Poppy's house exploring all their lamps, light switches and flashlights. One time I found you in a bedroom next to a lamp clutching the light bulb to your chest. You scowled at me and possessively hugged the light bulb to your chest and said "My Light!".

You like to feed your brother's Dragon and Oger toys because they have mouths that open. I have found fruit snacks, playfood, and action figures sticking out of their mouths. One day I caught you sharing your water with the dragon.

As for your typical stats, at 2.25 you:

Weigh: 31.6 lbs
Wear size 5 diapers and 2T clothes and are going into size 7 shoes.
Food: You are becoming the typical 2 year old that loves chicken nuggets, applesauce, and pizza. Things you used to love you now reject. However, you still LOVE fruit, especially oranges.

You are good at saying your please, thank you, and welcomes. Its adorable hearing you saw "Pweeese? " and "Oh Gank Gu!"

You like to pretend to be a puppy complete with puppy licks.

At the moment, your favorite book is "Snowy Day". You love pointing out the footprints in the snow on each page and saying "Crunch crunch crunch".

You adore your big brother and miss him when he is away. You love to join in with his activities and even when we work on his reading lessons you'll hang over his shoulder and yell out the letters and letter sounds that you know.

You love coloring and ask to color several times every day. We have a small stack of coloring books that were bought for your brother that are still mostly uncolored. We have already had to throw out several because you completely colored every page! You also like to color on the table, windows, floor, etc....

We are starting to see your sense of humor emerge and its pretty funny. I love walking into your room and seeing a scene like the dinosaur eating a car on the fire-station below. One day in the car I heard you say "I'm hungry!" and then a few minutes later I heard you say "Oh, mmhm, mmhm, yummy HAT."

Landon Quotes:

Random sound at the door..."Someone's at the door! Someone's at the door! Kids, kids, where are you?"
Help help! I need strawberries! (from the highchair)
Cat! You hungry? (often followed up by him trying to feed the cat a toy)
Ethan? You ok? What's happened? (response to Ethan crying)
I'm whiny I'm whiny I'm whiny I'm whiny...Mama?! I'm whining.." (and the checkout at the grocery store)
MAMA! (Awestruck) when I surprised him by entering their light-saber battle with my own different colored light-saber which they had never seen before.
I can't! It's broken, its not working!

Everyone told me that the second child grows up faster than the first but I wasn't prepared for the reality! I'm a little sad that you seem to have left babyhood behind early but I'm so tickled by the games and activities that you come up with on your own. You are very good at playing independently and its fun to listen to you play. We love you Landon and look forward to continuing to see you grow!