I cannot believe that we are a month away from officially entering the Terrible Two’s! They definitely already hit a few months back, and that must have just been the practice round because each and every day, Landri perfects the random-pointless-tantrum just a little bit more. So I’ll get right into it with a little Toddzilla update! But to be fair, although this list may cause you to think otherwise, it is slightly more ok to leave Toddzilla alone with Rex for a second. It’s still a great risk to Rex’s life and wellbeing, but the risk level seems to have been slightly lowered from death or dismemberment, to just misdemeanor assault (only because Rex is becoming shall we say … solid?). Landri’s latest torture technique is reaching over to him while riding in the car, and scratching his inner leg so hard that she draws blood. This pisses him off big time. Landri also has tried to feed Rex dried cranberries (yes, he was only 4 months old at the time with no teeth; please also recall a similar situation where Scott tried to feed Landri dried cranberries when she was only 4 months old too!). She somehow found a sharply cut cable tie which she stabbed him in the face with several times, narrowly missing his eye and almost blinding him! But don’t worry, then she tried to share her milk with him and poured it in his eye to make up for missing it with the cable tie, I’m sure. Another time, she pushed him across the driveway in a little walker on wheels, dragging his bare feet across the rough concrete despite my frantic shouts to stop, causing all of the skin to be rubbed off his little toes and making them bleed. He’s such a good sport though, and didn’t even cry.  Probably the worst though, was when she legit spiked the TV remote full force off Rex’s forehead. I wait for the day when he outgrows her and takes her down. But right now his only defense is hair pulling, and it’s actually a pretty good defense. During her torturing of Rex, if Landri’s head gets too close to one of little brother’s deadly little baby hands, Rex immediately locks onto her pony tail, pulling with all his might. Landri starts screaming, “MONY TAIL! MONY TAIL!” (she can’t pronounce the “p”) in an effort for me to come pry open his steel-like little fingers. Besides getting in trouble from acting like a toddler around baby brother, Landri also got in trouble at gym one day. Landri scratched a little girl on the forehead (where have we seen this before?), again drawing blood, which is grounds for immediate dismissal. Of course it was only about 3 minutes into my yoga class. Needless to say, I was not a happy Mommy that day. Luckily we haven’t had any issues since then – fingers crossed that me repeating myself a billion times about not touching others unless we’re hugging, is sinking in.

Landri still is kind of a little weirdo when it comes to favorite foods. She still loves raw onions, pickled onions, pickles, olives, raisins, and also eats both tomatoes and onions like they are apples. But probably the latest new food is what she calls “Red Bubbles,” or red hot candies. So strange! She will do ANYTHING for red hots.

As far as her language goes, I forgot to report last time that she finally says her own name, which sounds like “Wan-wee” and loves to publicize things that are hers such as “Wan-wee’s Daddy,” etc. She also says, “Don’t like it,” all the time (I think that’s part of the Terrible Two’s). She announces everything she sees (“big poo poo” etc). She also broadcasts everything she has, i.e. “I got eyes,” “I got owie,” etc). My favorite word that she says is motorcycle because it sounds like “Nee-NIGH-cal.” I feel like I’m learning not only how to translate her toddler pronunciation, but I also am learning almost like a new dialect of English in that I have to get creative to explain things to her sometimes! Also, we all knew this day was coming, and it finally came… Landri said her first swear word, 100% thanks to me. I just couldn’t help but shout, “Oh $h!t” upon seeing this

minutes into a road trip, to which she responded with “Oh $h!t!” Oops! I’m pretty sure I’ll still probably slip up the next time one of these diapers graces my presence again! It was pretty bad.

Random Landri Facts:

• Landri sometimes dribbles milk down her chin in an effort to pretend to be spitting up (and wants burp cloth)
• She loves to give hugs right now, it’s heart melting
• She attended her first professional sporting event (Astros baseball game in Houston)
• She has come full circle from loving the Pontoon song as a baby (see previous post for explanation here: https://livinwiththelehnhoffs.com/2012/09/27/pontooning/) to wanting to knock drinks with everyone and say, “Cheers!” repeatedly
• Landri wants salt on everything and will shout, “I want salt!” until you fake sprinkle salt on her food. I have no idea where this comes from.
• Landri absolutely cannot jump and it’s hilarious. Girl CANNOT catch air!
• Landri is PUMPED about football season starting and has been trying to convince herself that the Knight’s mascot Nitro isn’t terrifying. She randomly spouts out, “Nitro nice,” and “Nitro hug.” You may recall her previous reactions with Nitro last year (see pics in this post: https://livinwiththelehnhoffs.com/2013/09/20/knights-49-austin-westlake-21/)
• Landri tucked me into her bed, covered me with her blanket, put a paci in my mouth, gave me a baby doll, and then told  me “no playing” LOL because that’s what I tell her now that she has a big girl bed (she wants to stay up and play with her toys in her room)
• Landri loves wearing skirts: http://youtu.be/Bn0vGgumW8Y

And before we get to Scott Says, I had to admit that not only did Landri say her first swear word because of me, but I also had a huge Mommy Daycare moment which came as a part of the perils of a toddler mom also having an infant to deal with. So Landri was riding her little scooter bike across the driveway which has a slight downslope. I didn’t think she was going that fast, or maybe it just her mass, but as soon as she T boned the curb on the edge of the driveway, she immediately did a PERFECT flip over it. It was kind of like an “endo” or “stoppie” gone bad. Check out this 8 sec video of an endo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7g2DZswj6k), and then imagine it being Landri, and that she didn’t come back down, and instead she flipped over her handlebars and then rolled down a hill on the other side of the curb upon landing. MIRACULOUSLY she was not hurt at all, but the best part was that as she laid there, mouth open wide, screaming bloody murder, I could see that her mouth was totally FULL of chewed up deer corn!!!! This girl!

Scott Says…

M: Can you believe Landri is turning 2 one month from today?
S: Yes, I can believe that.

M: What is her best skill right now?
S: Probably puzzles and putting sentences together better now.

M: What is your favorite thing about Landri?
S: How she screams for Daddy.
M: Yeah, she’s pretty much your biggest fan!

M: What is Landri’s biggest developmental opportunity?
S: Listening.
M: I would 1,000% agree.

M: What is Landri’s best physical feature?
S: Her pretty blue eyes.
M: Awe, remember when you used to always say her fat little body?  She doesn’t have a fat little body anymore!

M: What’s your favorite word that she says?
S: Go Knights!
M: Awe, it is pretty cute when she says that.

M: What is the hardest part about parenting her right now?
S: She doesn’t listen.
M: Again, I agree.  I think not laughing when she’s in trouble is also hard!  You’re really bad at that!
S: Yep.
M: Okay, that’s all since I’m going to make you do it again tomorrow for Rex’s 5 month update!

Oh and please note that the 2nd and 3rd pictures below (where she’s in the red dress) – the white “bracelet” she’s wearing is actually a pickled onion, which explains why she’s eating it off her arm in the 3rd picture, haha!