What a Zoo!

So life with a toddler is nothing less than a total zoo, filled with loud (sometimes animal) noises, strange smells, and constant messes. This week has been no different, except we actually got to take Landon to the Folsom Zoo on Saturday, so he got to see his beloved animals up close. In this first picture you can see him checking out a horse. For the longest time when we asked him "what does a horse say?" he would make this hilarious grunting noise that sounded as though he was constipated, but nowadays when we ask him that he lets out a very loud "NEIGH, NEIGH, NEIGH"....so he's definitely picking things up as he goes.

We met our friends Matt and Cathy, and their girls Abby and Ally over there on Saturday afternoon, and Landon proceeded to sprint from one area to the next, pointing at the various animals and making the noises that he knew. He loved seeing the bears, tigers, monkeys, and owls….as this particular zoo is more of a sanctuary than an actual zoo, they didn’t have some of the staples that Landon would have loved to see (such as the elephants, giraffes, etc.), but he did enjoy those that were there. And just for the record, they did not have any cows, which was sad because that is definitely Landon’s favorite animal…it’s probably a good thing, as he would have sat there “mooing” at it for an hour (and we were on a tight timeline).

At one point during the trip, we came across this cutout of three bears, and Landon couldn’t resist sticking his head through and giving his best bear impersonation…pretty terrifying, isn’t he?

After the zoo, we headed over to a local park where the kids (and parents) ran around, slid down slides, and had fun on the swings. At one point we noticed that the kids were starting to look tired and hot, so we headed over to Matt and Cathy’s place for some beer, pizza, and good conversation. Landon always enjoys heading over to their house, as their girls have tons of fun toys that he likes to play with, and they have stairs which supply hours of fun for him (not us). We had a very nice time relaxing and catching up, while Landon set out to play with every toy he could find.

On Sunday morning I got up early, feeling like a kid on Christmas morning….why? Because it was the beginning of football season, that’s why! Landon and I threw on our Dallas Cowboy jerseys and we settled in for a long day of football….well, with a toddler it’s sort of unrealistic to expect to just watch a whole game (let alone several), but Michaela was great about helping pick up the slack and I did get in my fill while playing with Landon and fitting in some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. And since Dallas won, I viewed it as a very successful day indeed.

As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, one of Landon’s favorite toys is a makeup brush that he stole from Michaela. At one point on Sunday he lost his brush, and the remainder of the day and on into the next few days turned into “the Great Brush Hunt”….we literally tore the entire house apart looking for this brush….partly because we couldn’t believe that we couldn’t find it anywhere, and partly because every time Landon walked up to us and said “brush?” with a little sad expression on his face our hearts just melted. Anyhow, we couldn’t find it for the longest time, and I had finally written it off as a casualty of living with two dogs that will eat anything that doesn’t move for too long….but Michaela was able to locate it yesterday much to Landon’s pleasure (apparently it had fallen into some random hole underneath a cushion in my leather chair)…so all’s well that ends well, but that was an adventure for sure (wow our lives have changed).

On the developmental front, Landon turns 18 months old on Friday, so we’re taking him in for his checkup next week…we’re looking forward to seeing what the doctor has to say about his development…we think he’s doing great. We recently set aside his tray for his dining chair, so he now just uses a booster seat and sits at the dining table like a big boy. He’s still excellent at trying new foods, even though he doesn’t always like them. He has also started saying “up” whenever he would like to be picked up, and he has been learning how to make facial expressions (if you ask him to show his smiley face he points to his cheeks and makes a smiley face).

Anyhow, it’s unbelievable to us that we now have a kid that’s a year and a half old. Where has the time gone? I still have all these baby pictures of him up at my desk, and while I will keep up a couple to remind me of how small he once was, I really need to update the majority of them, as he has definitely transitioned from a baby to a little boy now.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your week…stay cool and check back soon!