The Men's room

I have gotten so busy with summer that I haven't blogged at all! I have some awesome pictures of Bailey from when she and I went down to Orlando for the weekend, and I'll get them uploaded and posted in the near future. There have been tons of things that I had intended to blog about, and I even took pictures to make sure that I could have visuals to go along with the story, but things just fall through the cracks. I have so far been successful with my summer classes and keeping the kids entertained at the same time, and that probably has a lot to do with why my bogging is lacking. I'm just stretched kinda thin.


So let me get to the story. This did involve Landon, but for once, it wasn't his fault. I took Landon and Devon up to Whole Foods with me (Bailey is still in Arizona/California), and I had only grabbed a few things when Landon said he had to use the bathroom. I left my cart and followed after him back to the bathrooms and found that he had already run into the men's room. He prefers the men's room because he loves to use the urinal. I stood there outside the door listening for him and I heard him say he was going to wash his hands, and I asked through the door if he was okay. The lady that was cleaning the bathrooms said to me "You can go on in with him. There's no one in there." I looked inside and saw that it was indeed empty so I went in to help Landon wash his hands and try to hurry him up. I had just said to him "We need to hurry up before someone else comes in here." when I noticed that there was already some man standing at the urinal right next to me going to the bathroom! I guess I didn't hear him come in, but I was mortified that a stranger was standing at the urinal using it right next to me, so I ran right out of the bathroom! Landon and Devon didn't follow me so I stood outside yelling at them (admittedly too crazily) to get out of the bathroom! I was so embarrassed that I just paid for the groceries that I had in my cart and ran out of the store. I got to thinking about it, and I just want to know what the heck that guy was thinking! When he walked in and saw a woman helping her kids wash their hands, why did he go ahead and just start using the urinal right next to that woman? He was wearing a suit, so he wasn't some random bum off the street. I thought "Maybe he just really had to go, and I was in the men's room after all" but he could have used the toilet! The whole situation was just too weird. I'm going to have to start making Landon go to the women's room just so that I can help him and not get walked in on again. Jeez. Using public bathrooms is so stressful!

Ben's Birthday

I finally got the videos uploaded to YouTube so I thought I would go ahead and post them! Ben's actual birthday was a quiet affair, which is the way he wanted it. He didn't even tell his co-workers that it was his birthday. He and I just watched a movie at home together and didn't make too big of a big deal about it. That weekend, though, Ben took his birthday money and got himself an adult sized razor scooter! It's a lot like Landon's but it has bigger wheels and goes faster. He spent hours riding down crazy fast hills with Landon, and Landon was excited to have someone brave enough to hang with him! This is a video of the two of them riding down the golf cart path right behind our house together. It has a pretty good hill and there aren't any cars to worry about so it was their favorite "run" of the day.


Bailey was in Charleston at the beach so don't feel bad that she isn't included in the scootering. The boys had a great time together, and it made me think about how nice it must be to be a kid with such a fun dad! I wonder if the kids even know how much fun he is, or if they just take it for granted? I just wanted to include some other videos that have been taken recently that show what fun and silly things the kids get to do because Ben is such a silly boy!
This is a new swing trick that Ben came up with at the park the other day. Landon was the only one brave (and trusting) enough to actually do it.



This video was taken by Ben himself as he was driving the golf cart with the kids. This is their new "thing" and the kids get mad at me when I won't do it. This is in the parking lot of Bailey's school, and the kids start asking for it every time we drive by. I'm too embarrassed to do it when Ben isn't with me, so they only get to do it when he is around. (You might want to turn down your speakers for this one because it gets a bit loud when the kids are all screaming)



This is the last one, I promise! I took this the other day because I was downstairs while Ben was upstairs bathing kids and I kept hearing the kids howling with laughter. I grabbed the camera and went to investigate, and this is what I saw. Ben didn't even know I was behind him.


The kids are constantly slamming the bathroom door into their heads now, but it was funny initially! Its true that we both have to buckle down and study a lot these days, but its nice to take a break now and then and watch Ben come up with some new form of entertainment! Happy Birthday Ben!

Mother's Day

I'm extremely frustrated because I have been trying to post about Ben's birthday for about a week, but my blog or computer isn't letting me upload videos anymore. The problem is that I have nothing but videos that I wanted to post so that you could see what Ben has been doing, so without them I have no visual aids. It is most frustrating! I even tried to upload them to YouTube and then attach the links, but even YouTube shut me down. It has got to be my computer. Anyway, the very next day after I posted about Landon's birthday and how normal it all was, I had to take Landon for his five year well child visit, and we had a severe relapse into craziness. They needed to check his ears and eyes so that he would have an updated eye, ear, and dental form to start kindergarten. He was really good at the eye part, and covered each eye one at a time and told the nurse the different shapes and pictures he saw, but when we got to the ear part, he turned into Mr. Hyde! They just wanted to put little ear pieces into his ears to test his hearing and he just wasn't having it! We did manage to fight him until that was done, but when the doctor came in and tried to have a look in his ears to see if he still had his tubes, he was just DONE having people mess with his ears! He flat said "All done ears!" and wouldn't let us near him. When I tried to hold his head still for her he got angrier and then when we both tried to hold him down he panicked and lashed out with all his strength! He was kicking the doctor, chairs were literally flying across the room, he was screaming, hitting, kicking and acting like he was fighting for his little life. You could tell from looking at the raw panic on his face that he was gone and couldn't be reasoned with. Needless to say, we don't know if he still has his tubes in his ears or not. I was shaky and beyond embarrassed because that was our very first time going to that doctor, and Landon had a meltdown and kicked her! Once he realized that we weren't going to mess with him anymore, he was completely normal and hopping around and playing with his spider man stickers. As we were leaving, we saw one of Landon's teachers in the waiting room with her own son and Landon went skipping over and said "Hi, Miss Pauline!" I sat down by her with my hands shaking and told her how bad he just was and I started to break down in front of her! He is just so emotionally draining sometimes! The funny part is that he is normally so so mellow and sweet! He will be calm and sweet and laid back, and then something will just make him snap! I just wanted to show a picture of what his teachers sent me for Mother's Day because I think it's funny and a little ironic.

Yes, such an angel!

Landon's Birthday

I am taking a short break from studying for my exams tonight so that I can go ahead and post about Landon's birthday. We didn't have a party or make a big deal about it, but we hung out together and had a pretty good time! He also understood the concept much better this year and I let him help me pick out his Mickey Mouse birthday plates for his class the day before. He kept saying "Landon birthday party at school tomorrow?" and I would say yes, and he would jump around and get excited. He is normally a little hard to get moving in the mornings because he wants to get on the computer instead of getting ready for school, but the morning of his birthday was much easier! He kept talking about his birthday party at school and he was excited to go! I took him over his gluten free cake with a rainbow on top to his classroom because that's what they were studying at school, and all the kids ate it without making any faces or anything. When everyone got home from school, I tried to come up with ideas to make it a more exciting day than usual, so we grabbed our swim suits and rode over to the lake on the golf cart. We chose the lake instead of the pool for obvious reasons. It was a gorgeous day and the lake was calming and fun. The water was a bit cool but they all three played around for a long time and acted like it didn't bother them.
It could be because they were jumping around so much.













After swimming, they requested that we go eat at McDonald's, a suggestion that made me hesitate because it makes my tummy feel unhappy, but I figured that it wasn't an unreasonable birthday request. So they put their clothes back on while giving anyone driving or walking by a strip show, and we headed over on the beautiful cart paths by the lake. On the way, we passed a group of high school kids that had tied a rope to a tree and were swinging into the water, so we had to stop and watch because Landon was beside himself with laughter every time one of them jumped in.
Here's a short video of that.


At McDonald's, the kids played more than they ate, which is typical, but they all played together and were nice which is not typical.





It was starting to get close to bath and bed time so we got back on the golf cart and started the journey back to the house. The kids decided that they were too wound up to just sit on the golf cart and ride home, so they all three got off and started running down the path next to the golf cart. There wasn't anyone around so I let them do it for a few minutes just to make sure they were all tired out when we got home, because they had certainly already worn me out.
Here they are running down the path next to the golf cart:

All in all, it was a fairly regular day. No big party or craziness, but we packed the day full of time together and we had a good time! Poor Ben didn't get home until really late, but Landon stayed up to see him and show him how he can ride his new bike. So little Landon is five now and will be starting kindergarten in the fall! It's so crazy but I really feel like he's been around much longer than that! Sorry there wasn't any big crazy story this time, but I'm certainly not! Our days have been fairly normal since the pool incident, and I really have needed the beak! Well, I have two finals tonight and one tomorrow so back to work! Thanks for checking in!

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!