Where's Landon?

He may not be as hard to locate as Waldo, but lately Michaela and I have found ourselves constantly asking “Where’s Landon?” or “Where did he go?”… I guess 8 months was the right age for him to begin his exploration of the world, and he is now making up for lost time! He has started with an in-depth examination of every corner of our house.

He is extremely fascinated by the dogs’ water bowls, and is constantly headed in their direction. So far we’ve been lucky that he hasn’t tried to drink the water or knock them all over the floor, but he is intrigued by them and likes to put his hands in the water and splash it around. This whole time we thought Jack made too many puddles with his water bowl. Landon will soon have him beat!

Another area of the house that has caught his attention is the guest bathroom. I’ll let a conversation I recently had with Michaela stress the point…

(As Landon crawls away from the living room and down the hall…)

Me: “He sure is cruising along! He looks determined…I think he’s going towards the bathroom”

Michaela: “You better go get him”

Me: “Why? There really isn’t anything he could get into in the bathroom! It’s pretty well child-proofed.”

Michaela: “I found him in there yesterday…eating the toilet paper!”

(I sprint towards the bathroom)

Anyhow….Landon seems to have an amazing ability to find something to play with, no matter the room. We’ve actually gotten into the habit of shutting all of the doors in the back of our house, so if he wants to crawl down the hall, there really isn’t anywhere for him to go, and he usually comes back to the living room.

There are a couple of other Landon-related items to discuss, so I’ll quickly move along….

Landon ended up with hives this weekend (they actually started on Friday), and they have been causing the Burgess household an extreme amount of displeasure lately. Initially we were under the impression that he was allergic to something that he ate, which caused little red welts to pop up on his face, neck, and all over his body. We frantically back-tracked through everything that he’s eaten, and thought we had it identified as either recently expired box of oatmeal, or a little vegetable oil that we used to cook some hash browns (of which we let Landon try one bite that he didn’t even eat). According to the doctor, a food allergy typically would have passed after 12-24 hours, and here we are, going on Day 4…so the doctor is pretty sure that he has some kind of viral infection that could take longer for his body to recover from.

The good news is, he is not allergic to a food (or so we think). The bad news is, it may take quite a bit longer for him to recover, and Michaela, Landon, and I are all seriously lacking in the sleep department because of how uncomfortable the hives are making him. He has been able to take small amounts of children’s Benadryl and that seems to help, but it really only alleviates some of the discomfort, it doesn’t help him recover from it.

The other piece of news, this one a bit more fun, is that we think Landon is getting closer and closer to walking on his own. He is getting very comfortable on two legs now, and has even started using toys (and other things) to help him walk…Michaela caught him pushing his high chair the other day across the kitchen while he walked. Anyways, this is pretty exciting news and while we’re not in any rush to have him walk, it’s a big developmental milestone and a fun thing to watch him learn.

As for the Thanksgiving weekend, we had a great time (except for when we were up all night with the fussy baby of course)…We spent the actual holiday with my Dad’s side of the family. It was great to see all of the family, as it has been many years since we’ve spent a holiday together. It was also nice to watch my Dallas Cowboys win!

Landon had a ton of fun playing with my cousin Jill’s sons. He and Brendan took turns being pushed around the living room by Brendan’s older brother Ethan. It was pretty fun to watch! Even Brendan had fun trying to push Landon around the room...even though they're the same size! We also got some exciting news while we were there. It turns out that my cousin Kristi is now pregnant and is due the end of May! We thought they seemed to be asking a lot of baby related questions the last time we saw Kristi and Kris (see the blog post from April 20th). Turns out, our suspicions were correct! We also have another addition to the family on his way, as my cousin Bri and her husband Keith will be having a boy in April. That means that my Dad’s parents will shortly have 8 great-grandchildren! There are currently 6 boys, 1 girl, and 1 that we don’t know yet. Talk about a masculine family! :)

On Friday we tried to brave the shopping crowds for a short while, but there were just too many people out for it to be enjoyable. We also got some housework done, I put up the Christmas lights, and we even got our tree put up.

Just in case you are wondering, we have decided to go with a VERY plain tree this year. It is an artificial tree, and we have yet to put up a single decoration on it if you don’t count the lights. I know that it sounds boring, but let me explain. For one, the actual tree and lights are my favorite part, as I really enjoy having a fire in the fireplace and having the room lit up by the tree. I don’t really need to have a bunch of decorations on it. Landon has also become very interested in the tree since we’ve put it up. He is constantly crawling over to it to touch it and pull at it. Any decorations that we would put up would have to be put out of his reach, and we’d have to make sure that none of them had pieces that could fall to the ground (so it really is a bunch of work)….and lastly, we will not even be at home for Christmas this year. We’re going to be in Arizona for the big day, and aren’t overly fussed to decorate the tree for it. Speaking of, can you believe Christmas will be here in just over 3 weeks? Wow! Better get your shopping done!!

We did put up Christmas decorations around the house, just nothing within reach of the baby.

I think that about covers our weekend. We hope you had a great one as well. We’ll post again soon!