Here's a taste of what life around the Swain home is like for our littlest family member.
6:30 am-Landon's awake. A sippy cup of milk and a favorite cartoon buys me 30 minutes of semi-sleep during which Landon repeatedly tries to sit on my face. He thinks that anyone in a lying down position is fair game for a tackle or two (or twelve).
7:15 am-I turn Landon loose in Allie's room. She is very motivated to jump out of bed to protect her possessions from Landon. It works like a charm. In less than 5 minutes Allie has banished Landon from her room and she is in the shower.
7:50 am-Landon has had breakfast, brushed his teeth, had a diaper change, and is well on his way to making messes for me to spend the rest of the day cleaning up. This morning he managed to find a stray crayon to color on the refrigerator with. Thank goodness for Magic Erasers.
8:47 am-Landon stands at the window playing with the kids who are outside waiting for the bus.
8:52 am-Landon is crying because the bus just pulled away.
9:00 am-The crying stops when The Little Einstein music starts playing. Hooray for TV!
9:30 am-The show is over and Landon joins me in the kitchen. When I refuse his request for a "treat" he takes matters into his own hands. I return from a phone call to discover he has managed to move a chair into the kitchen and pull out a bag of pretzels. I let it slide because I have dishes to load into the dishwasher and I hope that it will distract him from closing it on me.
9:37 am-It didn't work. He closed the dishwasher repeatedly while I loaded it up.
9:45 am-It's time to play! Landon does his thing lining all of his animals up along the fireplace, playing with Lego's, and dragging toys around in a basket.
11 am-Time to run a few errands. I load Landon up in the car and off we go. He sure enjoyed the music store for about 5 minutes. It was all downhill from there. After a respectable tantrum in Bert Murdock, I abandon my plans to swing by the pharmacy and into Walgreens. Those errands are just going to have wait until I have backup assistance.
11:35 am-Inspired by the trip to the music store, Landon hammers away on the keyboard. He loves to play music. Really loudly.
12:00 pm-It's lunch time. Landon eats one of his favorite meals, ramen noodles. After lunch it's time to read. We gather a big pile of books and Landon snuggles up for story time.
12:45 pm-Naptime! After a brief protest Landon slumbers quietly for the next 3 hours or so.
3:30 pm-Landon is awake. When he hears me coming to get him up he dives under his blankets and hides from me. He is so funny. He giggles the whole time he is "hidden".
3:55 pm-We load up in the car once again to retrieve Allie from her 4H class. When he sees Allie coming towards the car he yells "sissie" over and over.
4:15 pm-Allie has forgotten her homework at school so she is not allowed to play with friends today. This is good news for Landon who loves to play with his big sister. They play happily until dinner time.
5:30 pm-Landon helps me make dinner. He sits in the drawer below the oven while I maneuver around him to get dinner prepared. It's not annoying at all to have him literally under foot (wink, wink).
6 pm-Dinner. Landon sits in his high chair for a whopping 5 minutes before he climbs out of there and into my lap.
7 pm-After dinner it's time for Family Home Evening. Allie is assigned the lesson tonight and Landon sits in Eric's lap for about 60 seconds of it.
7:15 pm-Following the lesson Eric is in charge of the activity. He chooses to watch
Cars. Landon watches a little bit of it and then runs throughout the house for the rest of the movie.
8:45 pm-I ask Landon if he would like to go to bed. He says "yes" and then runs away and hides.
9 pm-I finally corner him and walk him into his room, give him a kiss, and tell him goodnight.
PS...After chronicling Landon's "typical day", I must report on his (thankfully) atypical night. Landon cried off and on from midnight until 2:30 am when he decided he was done sleeping for the night. He kept me entertained while Eric and Allie slumbered peacefully (so not fair!). At about 6:30 he finally started to doze off. Of course, by that time it was time to get Allie up. I am one tired Mom today!
