Landon, 4.5

After my recent posts on the Bear, I thought I'd turn the spotlight on my firstborn for a little bit. Nearly every blogger I read has at some point been accused of loving their younger child more than the older child, largely because of the number of posts featuring the baby over the big kid. But as any parent knows, it's not that you love any child more (well, except occasionally on a superficial level, like when you look at your simple, easy, "if I'm crying it's because I'm hungry, tired, teething, or bored baby" and wish your far more complex 4-year-old could go back to that black-and-white world for a while), it's that it's so much harder to write about an older kid. There's more depth, more contradiction, more personality that's truly theirs. They've become more of themselves and less of an extension of you, and that makes them not only harder to write about, but it also makes me careful about what I share. Because now I'm sharing Landon, the real Landon, not just my impressions, memories, and made-up dialogue of what I think Landon is. So it's a natural process that leads to sharing less, protecting more, that I think will continue as my kids get older. But don't worry, I'll make my own inner dialogue available for as long as you'll read it.

But just because Landon is getting older doesn't mean I don't still occasionally want to freeze him in a moment of internet-time. He has changed a lot from the skinny little baby he once was, but I know he still has a long way to go. At 4.5 (or 4.75 if we want to get technical, which he does), Landon's caring, mellow self still remains at the core. But at 4.5, he's starting to push back, starting to challenge, even going so far as to say, "No." the other day when we asked him to do something. JP and I just sort of blinked at him like, "what? what do you mean, 'No?!'" Claire says no all the time, it's pretty much her favorite word, but it was a first coming from Landon. In other manifestations of belated toddler rebellion, he left his bed for the first time ever and knocked on our room at 2 a.m. Saturday morning. Again we were flummoxed. We had no rules, no method of dealing with a midnight interruption because it had NEVER happened before. He took a toy out of Claire's hands without asking on Sunday. Again, a first. We've reinstituted time-outs and just generally reminded him that all the rules he's been following so nicely for the last 2 years are still fully in effect.

But those moments are still very much the minority for him. He behaves perfectly in public (he'll probably realize he needs to mar that record soon), he shares his toys with Claire and all other friends (one of our recent problems has been that he's always trying to give away his toys to friends, including one awkward moment where he re-gifted a toy back to the same kid who'd given it to him for his birthday; and it wasn't that he didn't like it, I tried to explain to the mother, it's that he really loves it when other people like his stuff too), he dotes on Claire, and he wants to help. But he has a mischievous smile now, a "I know I'm not supposed to do this but I'm thinking about doing it anyway because I want to see what you'll do" smile, that is both maddening and a little bit charming at the same time.

Two Fridays ago he went to our nanny's indoor soccer game (JP and I were stuck in traffic on our way home from Fort Worth). She sent this picture and a text that read, "Landon isn't even trying and he is being smothered by all the ladies while watching the trapeze."

Natalie said that Landon was sitting on this bench, watching the trapeze class (apparently there is a trapeze by the indoor soccer field? I don't know), when a little girl came to sit next to him. Landon scooted away, she scooted closer, Landon scooted further, another girl joined him on the other side. He was trapped, so he settled in and kept his focus on the trapeze while the girls took turns gazing at him. Natalie said she was cracking up, and JP, always a shy one with the ladies (I was his first date), puffed with pride.

Despite a rather lackluster introduction to soccer (Landon was the least competitive kid on the team; he was okay with being there, he just really didn't care who had the ball or where the ball was going, absolutely confounding his insanely competitive father. JP didn't care if Landon was good or not, he just truly didn't understand why Landon didn't want to kick the ball. It was like being told the color blue wasn't what he'd always thought it was- he was baffled), Landon talks excitedly about playing again. He loves riding his bike. He LOVES to run. He likes to show us his super hero tricks before bed:

He has finally decided he likes TV and movies, but he still shows zero interest in my iPhone or computer. (Claire on the other hand can unlock my iPhone and stole our host's iPad at a party we went to on Saturday night and figured out how to switch screens and games in a few minutes. Landon never even looked over to see what she was doing, as he was far to busy playing "power ranger ninjas" with the other boys- technology does nothing for him.) He LOVES people, is never shy, and talks to everyone we see. He peppers everyone we meet with questions and we've had to explain many times what are and are not appropriate questions to ask people we don't know (or to ask anyone ever).

He seems to understand the move. He's excited that someone else will live in our house and he's super excited that we are moving to a house with a pool and can't wait to get bunk beds and share a room with Claire. He loves to listen to books, but has no interest in sounding out words for himself. His favorite thing about school is "playing outside," but when pressed, he can answer any of the questions his teachers ask about the letters, numbers, etc. He's the playtime leader of his peer group, creating elaborate make-believe situations involving knights, princesses, and ninjas. He runs around the playground with a plastic rake stuck down the back of his shirt, pretending it's a sword he can pull out to fight a bad guy, but really looking like a peacock with plastic feathers sticking up behind his head.

He wants a kiss from both of us before bed, he loves to snuggle on the couch between JP and me, covered in throw pillows while watching Tangled, and he has to be in front when we got on a walk. He is sweet and generous and occasionally frustrating as all hell. He is Landon and he is 4.5.