LTSL

It's pretty common these days to teach the little guys some sign language. The purported benefits are many* but one of the more compelling reasons (to me anyway) is the idea that the intellectual facilities for basic communication skills develop in children much sooner than the physical ability of speech. Sign language bridges this gap and allows little ones to begin communicating their wants and needs earlier than speech alone.

American Sign Language (ASL) is the generally accepted standard but just about every kid develops their own unique variations. LT is no exception and I've managed to capture a few of his individual signs.

Hand up high means "help." This has almost no resemblance to the actual sign** but maybe will be helpful in school.

LT's 'more' is pretty close to the real thing but he threw in a little of his own style just to be safe.

His 'screwdriver' is nothing like the ASL version but has to be one of my favorite LT creations.

* http://www.wesign.com/Articles.htm is just one of many articles on the benefits of teaching children sign language

** http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm is a great site that has video of the real version lots of different signs.

dad, you are embarrassing me!

Remember when you were a kid and your parents would dress or act in ways that would just mortify you? I remember asking myself "why?... why?" would they do that?

I believe I'm beginning to understand that it's because parents get to a point where thy just don't care anymore. At least that's the only reasonable explanation for the outfit I selected for a recent snowshoeing adventure...

LT's cousin Nicholas

LT's cousin Nicholas was in town for the holidays. Nicholas is five so of course LT thinks he is very cool. They've been hanging out and doing everything together the last few days (and Nicholas has been very patient with the little guy).

Working together on the toy laptop with the screwdriver (of course).



Playing along with instruments while the grown ups sing Christmas songs.

Having a nice dinner at the kids table.

LT style hugs for his cousin.

Having more than a few cookies together.

Big cousin pushing little cousin on the ride-on truck toy.

And little cousin pushing big cousin.

Opening presents together.


Singing together on a homemade stage.

Rules of the road

The other day Kari said, "I don't think it's technically child abuse to let him run around with the screwdriver but I don't think the authorities would look kindly on it if he stabbed himself while doing it." So in trying to avoid going to the ER and explaining why our son has impaled himself with a screwdriver, we've instituted a new rule, "you can play with them but you have to be sitting down and cannot walk around with any screwdriver." Papa has been particularly helpful in our attempts to enforce this rule though, in general, we've been only marginally successful in our enforcement attempts.

Zoolights

My brother, his wife and my nephew, Nicholas, have been in town for the past week. We thought it was a good time to take the whole family to zoolights. Looking at the weather forecast last Friday, the weather looked cold and miserable for the foreseeable future and so we quickly made the decision to go that evening (30 degrees instead of 5 or 10). We bundled the kids and ourselves up and headed to see the "amals".
LT was a little unsure about the whole situation for awhile, but quickly warmed up once we started doing sneak attacks up to the "amals".This is a dark picture, but as you can see, we had quite the Imig crew in attendance.I, not so brilliantly, thought that LT might enjoy walking around the zoo and so I made the wrong decision to leave the stroller in the car. We had plenty of people who would happily carry LT, but he wanted "mama" and "mama" only. My arms were not feeling too good the next morning after carrying him from corner to corner of the entire zoo.

Screwdriver

LT has become very fond of using a screwdriver. It is the first thing he asks for in the morning (using his made up sign, shown above) and usually one of the last things he does before bed. He has managed to find all the screwdrivers in my parents house and, today, even found a whole box of them at Zack's house. He has an attention span beyond anything I can comprehend while he is working to take something apart or put it back together. His favorite thing to take apart and put back together is his "pop pop" (laptop). Unfortunately I don't have a very good picture of this, but I do have pictures of him fixing his trucks and ramps and the floor.

Now with Lasers! New and Imporved Daddy Day Care

I have one job. Kari is the 'stay at home mom' and, at the time these pictures were taken, she had three jobs (in addition to that whole mom thing). You can do the math...

Similar to last year, part of Kari's work involves a few training sessions in the evenings as well as some Saturdays. That's when I get to have a small taste of being the stay at home parent and those work days were the inspiration for the numerous 'all day daddy daycare' posts last year. A year later and my alone time with LT is pretty different and, for the most part, much easier and more fun. There is one little exception though - he doesn't take bottles anymore but he still wants mama milk to go to sleep - this represents a bit of a problem for dad.



Kari wasn't expecting to get home from her training on Tuesday night until well after LT would normally go to bed. So I was left to face the no milk no sleep paradox. LT and I did many of our usual activities in the afternoon and evening - went to the library, played with toys and tools, read books, pet the baboos (dogs) and tried on dad's hat (above).

When bed time came around I tried not to show any fear and we did our bath routine and jammies as usual. I tried to give LT some juice but it's a poor substitute for mama milk and he saw right though it and only took one sip.

I had gotten a little laser pointer as a vendor giveaway at a conference recently. LT and I had played with it before and he seemed to enjoy it. I was out of options so I figured I'd try a laser show - we turned off all the lights in his room and laid down on the floor while I flashed the laser around on the ceiling. I figured at best I could try and keep his mind off the fact that he was being deprived his mama milk but, much to my surprise, he fell fast asleep watching the show!

I think the only person more surprised than me was Kari who was expecting to come home to a screaming kid and a stressed out husband but rather returned to a tranquil house.

After LT was asleep I took some photos as a reenactment of the laser show.

Lasers... who knew?

puffball

Puffball shows off!

Puffball with mittens!

Puffball helps out!

LTs 18 month stats

We took LT to his 18 month check-up this morning and here are his latest stats:
Weight: 24 Lb 10 oz (30 %)
Height: 33 1/2 inches (80 %)
Head: 19 inches (70 %)

Lost pictures

Landon Tanner Campbell turned 18 months old today. I figured this was as good a time as any to post some pictures I've been meaning to post for several months now.

About a year ago Kari starting contributing to this blog and quickly surpassed me as the more prolific content producer. For me, writing is a tremendously difficult and tedious experience. I spell at a 4th grade level (and that's being generous) and have only a rudimentary grasp of grammar and punctuation. On top of that I harbor some wistful aspirations to be witty and insightful with my writing. All this is to say that it takes me a long time to write even these silly little blog entries. It's not uncommon for Kari to beat me to writing about a particular event or series of pictures. Occasionally I stash away a few pictures so I can wallow in my belabored writing without having the additional worry of her beating me to the punch. Usually this little strategy works for me but sometimes it means some good pictures fall though the cracks.

Anyway, here are a few such pictures to go with the lame explanation of why they are months old...

LT giving a kiss to the stuffed dog at the fire truck exhibit at Children's Museum. Try to think about how cute it is rather than thinking about how many germs must be on the stuffed dog that gets subjected to the snot and drool of hundreds of kids a day.

LT loves dogs and calls them all "baboos" (said slowly and deliberately). We're not exactly sure why but we think it probably some derivation of the various nicknames we have for Hailie and Bowen. It's often his first word when he wakes up, when he sees our dogs or just about any other dog, and he's we've even heard him say it in his sleep.

Looking cool.

Hanging out with Grandma at a block party at uncle Steve and Aunt Mad's house.

Enjoying some of the block party games.


During a different party at Steve and Mad's, LT discovered how fun the ice in the drink bucket can be.

He spent most of the party playing with the ice. Kari took this picture and was very proud that she'd captured 'the wing' - I think we gave the little guy a hair cut not long after this and the wing met its demise.

A Few Pictures from Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday, although I have to admit, my brother and sister in law do a MUCH better job hosting than I ever could. I thought with LTs eating habits lately (constant), that he would enjoy it as well. Madeleine set him a nice place setting, Brian and I brought his special chair and there was tons of yummy food, but LT didn't want to eat a thing. He just played with his new farm and Brian and I ended up sitting on the floor eating our food and playing with him (which was fun as well!)
We were lucky enough to have both sets of grandparents, Steve and Madeleine and even some of Steve and Mad's friends! I wish my older brother, Scott and his family could have been with us, but we will see them at Christmas.
The whole group (at least the part who sat still at the table).
Attempting to get LT to eat something.
Playing farm animals with Baba.
Stashing the farm animals one by one under the chair.

Happy Doll, Happy day!

This week Anna and Steve needed a little extra help with Mia on Tuesday and Thursday and so Shawn and I happily watched the little princess. Tuesday was a beautiful, sunny, 70 degree Colorado day. The boys (Z and LT) were happy to have their little friend over, but we realized quickly after getting her to our house, that she desperately needed a nap. I walked her down the block and within minutes she was fast asleep in the stroller... one kid down. We rolled her in and carefully left her in the stroller. LT and I headed up to his room for his nap and he was fast asleep. Z asked his mama to go night nights too, but tricked her, the little party man! Within minutes, Mia woke up and then soon after, LT did, and we were back to having all three awake. They played nicely together and before we knew it the day was done!
Thursday was a totally different story. Anna dropped Mia off at our house bright and early in blustery, snowy, 15 degree weather with more gear than you could imagine to keep her warm. She was a little sad to have her mama leave, but I was able to distract her by watching her favorite movie, "Signing Time". Mia is quite the little scholar when it comes to sign language, she was signing things all day, but unfortunately I didn't always know what they meant or what she needed, we made do anyway. Not long after the movie, Z and Shawn (arms full of food, jackets, and of course cars) showed up for the days adventures. The library down the street has storytime followed by the toy library being open on Thursday mornings. Due to the cold weather, we thought getting the kids over to the library would be a fun activity for the day. We struggled getting Mia's carseat in, bundled up all three munchkins and headed over there, only to find out the library was CLOSED! Thankfully, Shawn hadn't unloaded her car of kids before I found out it was closed. I ran into a friend and her daughter, Nicole and Sadie, while at the library and invited them over to play as well. While the 4 munchkins played, Shawn cooked up a feast for everyone of tomato soup and grilled cheese, yummy!
After lunch, it was getting to be Mia's naptime, but our plan of walking her seemed out of reach with the frigid temperatues and so Shawn attempted to rock her, which clearly wasn't going to work. Knowing Mia's sleep secret is being outside, Shawn she bundled up Mia in the stroller and got herself dressed in warm clothes and headed out for the naptime walk! Shawn is superwoman, only 5 times around in blowing snow with wind chill temps below zero and Mia was out! LT went down quickly and Z figured his 30 minute car nap in the morning was a sufficient nap for the day. Mia woke up soon after LT went down and so she and Z made cookies (or I did and they ate them!)The afternoon was filled with fun activities like singing "The Wheels on the Bus in a homemade car, drawing pictures and music class. We wanted to bundle everyone up to play in the snow, but the temperatures outside were just too cold and so Shawn brought snow IN for them to cook with! The three played in the bucket of snow for probably 30 or so minutes. Mia was a little unsure of the craziness of snow INSIDE, but after a few minutes, she decided she would join in and played too. Z left not too long after the snow fun and then it was just Mia and LT. Mia had been pretty quiet for most of the day, but came out of her shell for the last hour. She was running around our house with her doll saying, "Happy doll! Happy day!" I asked LT to give Mia a kiss and he turned to me as if he needed to practice on me first. He kissed me and then went to give Mia a kiss and she turned away. LT looked back at me confused and distraught, but went for another one and it worked! They gave each other subtle smiles and went back to their playing as if nothing had ever happened.

Mia and Z went upstairs to get LT when he woke up on Tuesday. This is the only picture we have from the day because these munchkins are so fast now!LT and Mia in big chairs watching "Signing Time".

All three bundled for the failed library adventure.
LT, Sadie and Mia enjoying their tomato soup and grilled cheese, Z was on the go.