Kids really do say the darndest things

Landon has quite the vocabulary for the little two year old guy that he is. It's so much fun to see what's going to pop out of his mouth next...sometimes. We've had a couple embarrassing moments and some hysterical doozies that I've been meaning to memorialize for a while now.

A couple of nights ago Landon was having a rough moment and hit the dog with his sand shovel and then kicked Daddy on the way to time-out. Our "time-out style" is to immediately put him on time-out without any words or reaction/action and then discuss what happened after time time-out is over, apologize for whatever action warranted time out and exchange hugs and kisses and "I love yous." It works well for the most part and Landon definitely understands what appropriate versus inappropriate behavior is. After the time-out mentioned above the end of the conversation went like this:

Mommy: Landon, what do you need to say to Daddy?
Landon: Thank you my time out, Daddy.

Not quite what I was going for. He's unapologetic but he is polite!


We were shopping at Costco a few weeks ago. This is one of Landon's favorite places to go shopping because of all those samples. Our Costco, probably like all the rest of them, is jam packed on the weekends and it can be tough to maneuver your cart sometimes. We were perusing some random aisle when all of a sudden a lady comes to a stop in the middle of the aisle right in front of us and we were stuck waiting for her to move. Landon turned around and shouted at her, "GO LADY! COME ON!" She turned around, saw who was shouting, gave me the side eye and pushed her cart. I wasn't sure whether or not I should have been mortified or give the little guy a high-five. A few chuckles erupted from neighboring carts.


We were on the BART train coming home from the airport when we greeted Kari, Tony and BinBin home. Even though their plane came in a few hours before rush hour it was rush hour by the time they made it through customs with all their luggage, freshened up after the marathon flight from China and grabbed something to drink. The BART train was pretty full by the time we were on our way home and continued filling up as we passed each stop on our way back to the East Bay. In walks an older man with white hair and a beard. Do you know where I'm going with this? Yes, for about 15 minutes Landon insisted - rather loudly I might add - that the platinum bearded man was Santa Claus himself. He would look back at the man (who was seated in the row behind us), point and exclaim, "Santa!" and "Ho ho ho, me-wwy Chwis-mas!" We tried telling him it wasn't Santa but he wasn't having any part of it and insisted that he was, in fact, Santa. Maybe he knew something the rest of us didn't?

Angels

Landon has talked about the "little man" that he sees when he goes to sleep several times. So many times that I've lost count. When we tuck him into bed at night he says goodnight to Mommy and Daddy, we say goodnight to him, and then he tells us to say goodnight to the little man. We comply, exchange kisses and go to sleep - though it's usually not quite that simple, but that's another post entirely.

Sometimes I'll lay beside Landon in his big boy bed and sing him a lullaby while rubbing his back. I take whatever snuggles I can get these days and relish my time alone with Landon since I know our solo days are numbered with a baby brother on the way - again, another post there entirely. Tonight was one of those nights. We went through all the goodnight hugs and kisses, Daddy had just turned on his noise machine, turned the light off and shut the door, Landon asked me to say goodnight to the "little man," so I did, and then I asked him more about the little man. Every so often, maybe it's when he's really tired, he'll talk more about this mysterious little man. Is he an imaginary friend? A monster in the closet? A shadow on the wall? A ghost? He seems to be consistent, but what is he? Who is he? Tonight our conversation went like this:

Mommy: Who is this little man, Landon?
Landon: Umm, I know mommy.
Mommy: Who?
Landon: A angel.
Mommy: An angel?
Landon: Yeah, a angel. Like in my book, in the pages.
Mommy: Is he scary?
Landon: No, not scary. He nice. He come see me when I go night-night myself.
Mommy: What does he look like?
Landon: Like the pages.
Mommy: What color hair does he have?
Landon: Umm, white. He very fragile. Pretty neat, huh?

I got a little choked up at that point and Landon was dozing off to sleep so our conversation ended there. Angels, ghosts; call them what you want, I believe in them and I have no doubt Landon is seeing one. Call me crazy, call me whatever you want, but I wholeheartedly believe this. Who is it? I have my suspicions. On the top of my list, and the one that admittedly makes my heart the happiest is that Landon's great granddad, his namesake, the one person I miss most in this entire world, has in fact met his great grandson and is watching over him.

Disneyland!

More summertime fun! Daycare was closed for a week so we decided to head down to Southern California to visit the happiest place on earth, Disneyland! We all had a lot of fun at "Mickey's house," as Landon referred to it and reluctantly came home to resume life as normal after a fantastic week.

We started our adventure with dinner at Goofy's Kitchen. Landon wasn't too sure about all the characters that would walk around the restaurant and come up to your table, but he sure loved his "noonles and cheese" and dirt and worms!

Landon demonstrated what it was like to be a bug

Danced along to the World of Color

We rode lots of rides. Landon's favorites were the teacups, the Buzz Lightyear ride and Pirates of the Caribbean. We would ask him which ride he wanted to go on next and he would always ENTHUSIASTICALLY respond with one of those. On Pirates he would lean back right before heading down the first slide, cover his eyes and proclaim, "that too scary." Then, as soon as the boat would land at the bottom and the music would start he was all eyes and ears. As soon as the ride would end and we were back on solid ground he would excitedly jump up and down and ask to "go again!"

Landon tried pulling the sword from the stone

He even warmed up to the characters eventually. We ran into Minnie Mouse in Toontown and Landon ran right up to her. You can tell he wasn't too sure, but he held her hand and might have actually smiled! That was the breaking point for him and all the characters we visited with after Minnie were successful encounters!











Buzz Lightyear, or "Buzz Lightdirt," as Landon calls him, is a pretty elusive guy. We finally were able to track him down right before we left the park on our last morning there before driving back home. He's currently Landon's favorite guy and it was so cute watching Landon meet his "hero." Landon shared his astro blaster with Buzz and they had fun...even if Landon was being shy.

We were all tired out by the end of the trip with magical memories and dreams dancing in our heads.

When I woke Landon up the day we headed back to work and daycare he asked if we were going back to Mickey's house and cried when I told him we were going to Irma's. I know buddy, I'd much rather have been in Disneyland too. Of course, when we got to Irma's he kissed me goodbye, gave Irma a little something we brought back for her and headed into the other room to play with his friends. It was truly a wonderful trip!