No more trips to the pool, and it isn't even Summer yet!

*WARNING* The following blog contains graphic information, so do not read if you are squeamish about gross things other people's kids do!
Our latest and greatest misadventure happened a few days ago, but I am just now at the point where I can retell it without feeling a huge pit of humiliation in my stomach. It may be because the sting is still fresh in my mind, but I feel like this may be the biggest form of public humiliation that Landon has bestowed upon me. And just to keep you reading, no, it does not involve poop. It's been pretty warm lately and the pools in Peachtree City have opened up for the season, so as I stood outside sweating as I watched the kids on their scooters, I got what I thought at the time to be a fun idea. We should just go to the pool! (Oh man, I want to reach back to my former self and yell at her to think it through!) I thought I HAD thought it through. Landon did have trouble with pooping in his swimming diapers and causing trouble in the pool last year, but now he is completely potty trained, so what could possibly happen? I was excited that Landon was finally getting to the point where we could actually go do things like that, and when I mentioned the idea, all three kids were really excited and ran for their suits! When we got there, they all ran and jumped in and swam around like three little fish, and I was pleased with myself for coming up with the idea. They swam happily for a long time, and Landon even got out of the pool and went to the bathroom when he had to!
"Wow!" I thought, "Landon is getting so much better and my life is just going to get easier now." I prematurely thought. Then, when he got back in the water, he inhaled a huge amount of water and started to choke on it. I watched in horror as he started to gag, and I knew what was coming. I grabbed him by the arm and hauled him out of the pool, but not before he vomited right next to a family that was swimming together. I pulled him on out, and he finished his spew on the concrete next to the pool. Everyone had witnessed it and there was no pretending it was someone else's kid (which I did consider trying at first), so I had to point it out to the lifeguard, who carried a yellow cone over to the vomit and made everyone get out of the pool. I grabbed Landon and Devon and tried to run to the bathroom to rinse Landon off, and I asked Bailey to run get our towels and my purse so we could flee the scene. She came back with just the towels so I said "Bailey, I NEED my purse! Go get it!!" So she goes and puts the towels back and comes back with just my purse!!!! She doesn't think well in a crisis I guess. I ended up having to leave her with the boys and go back to wade through the angry, disgusted crowd of people that had been forced to get out of the pool. There were kids pointing at the vomit and screaming at the top of their lungs "EEWWWWW! SOMEONE PUKED!!!" and there were two older ladies that were just livid and they were angrily telling eachother "That is just rediculous for a child that big to do something like that! Now we have to get out and we just got here!" When I had collected our things and worked my way back over to Landon, he was crying because he wanted to get back in the pool! I quickly rinsed him and drug him, loudly protesting, back to the golf cart so we could get out of there! The hallway was crowded with all the people we had just forced out of the pool and they all glared, stared, pointed, and made comments and we made our walk of shame out of the building. I immediately vowed never to return, at least not with Landon. I'm starting to wish for some slow blog days!

The "No Pants" Kids

As we discussed in the first post, Landon was, until very recently, opposed to pants and often ran around without them no matter where we were. Kristi and Jodi put up with it with good humor, but it was still something I tried to constantly correct. He has come to embrace them as of late, and now it seems that he has passed the torch to his little brother. Today as we were getting ready to go out on the golfcart I got all the kids ready one at a time, and then ran up to get myself dressed. They were out on their scooters and bikes playing as I came out and I told everyone to get into the golf cart, but Devon was no longer dressed to be seen in public. This is what he looked like as he was outside riding his tricycle in front of the house. I don't even know why I buy them pants at all!
These boots were gotten for Landon to wear when it snowed a few months ago, and Devon has decided that they are his. It's extremely hard to get him to wear any other kind of shoe, but I make him when we are going somewhere where we are going to be walking a lot. Ben always laughs and says "Hey Napoleon! Give me some of your tots!"

Landon Knievel

Here is a picture and video of Landon flying down the hill by our house on his new scooter. He has only been learning to ride it for a few weeks but he's already decided he needs more of a thrill than just riding in front of the house. Bailey tried to keep up with him but she just can't bring herself to go that fast down the hill with one foot up! This seems much faster in person!

Our new blog

Hello everyone! I have enjoyed reading all your blogs so much that I decided to start my own. I thought about it a lot last summer when Landon was getting into trouble and doing embarassing things on a daily basis. I told Ben that if I blogged every time Landon did something crazy that I'd be posting on a daily basis. I am definately always eager to find something online to distract me from my homework every now and then, so I'm sure I'll be able to post on a fairly regular basis. So, keep your eyes open for the next installment of The McArthur Tales because Landon is always doing something nuts that either publicly humiliates me or scares me to death, and if he takes a day off, Bailey and Devon pick up his slack.
Lets start off with an old story that many of you may already know. We were at my parent's house last summer and Landon was still wearing diapers (he is now completely off them, which I thought would NEVER happen!) and he for some reason would take off his pants and shoes any time we got where we were going. My parents had just gotten their dog, Alvin, and he was young and impulsive just like Landon, so they were good friends. I realized that I hadn't seen him in quite a while so I searched the whole house for him and discovered that he was nowhere to be found! I told Ben that he definately wasn't in the house so we hurridly ran outside and split up looking for him. Our friend Jodi that lives next door told me she had seen Landon in the yard with Alvin a good ten minutes earlier, so then we knew he had the dog with him. She got in her car, I got in the golfcart, and Ben got in the Pilot and we all split up. Ben even stopped some kids walking by the lake and asked them "Have you seen a four year old boy with no pants on with a dog?!!" I have to say that was a pretty accurate description. After we circled the neighborhood a number of times, we decided that we were going to have to call the police. I really REALLY didn't want to! How do you call them and tell them that you allowed your autistic child to wander off with no pants on? But wait! Off in the distance we spotted Alvin and we sped over to him hoping he had his wandering companion with him. There was Landon, playing in the back yard of some stranger's house where we coudn't see him, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and a diaper. It was a very stressful half an hour.
Summer vacation will be upon us soon, and even though I am taking summer classes, I'll be having some crazy adventures for sure. Stay tuned for the next installment of The McArthur Tales!
Deanna