Words of White

This week was my first week at my new job, a full-time writing position for the regional business journal (yayayayayay!) -- but I had training almost an hour away for the first four days of the week, which necessitated changing around our schedules to get the little man to and from daycare. We only contracted to have him there for 8 hours/day, from 8 to 4, and with me leaving the house around 7 and not returning until after 6, I couldn't really pick him up.

Our neighbor Joelyn came to the rescue! Tim switched up his hours at work and Joelyn picked Levi up every day in the afternoon and hung out with him until Tim came home. Yay for great neighbors who are flexible and take care of my kid even though they have a nine-month-old of their own.

With his favorite Diapee Dog in his favorite place, the changing table

I realized from this week that even though Levi brought my morning prep time up to an hour instead of my good old 15, I do miss having that time with him in the mornings. He's a good little boy for most of it - he goes back to sleep after I feed him, giving me time to do up the makeup, hair, clothes and jewelry (still only need 20 minutes, boo ya), and then we hang out while I get him up and going. But this week, other than seeing him for a few minutes while he nursed in the a.m. (during which I mostly doze), I didn't get to see him until the very end of the day! and I miss him! Wednesday morning while he was eating, we were both lying down on my bed and his little feet kept slowly stretching out to touch my leg now and then, it was SO sweet.

Levi is "becoming an outdoorsman," as Tim termed it. Sometimes, he likes to yell for no reason, and if we take him outside - instant silence while he looks eagerly around. The second we walk back inside? screaming resumes. At the grocery store, I've taken to putting him in the moby wrap facing out, because he'll fuss in his seat sometimes if he can't see everything around him. He's starting to wave his hands around towards things (when he's not still and spellbound by the awesomeness that is a row of boxes and bags of food), but he's way too uncoordinated still to be able to actually grab anything. Except my hair. and my necklaces. And my earrings. And my shirt. But other than that.

He's pretty tolerant of my own mommy foibles as well though. I nicked his thumb while trimming his nails (in my defense, he is NEVER still - he startles abruptly when I try to do it while he's asleep); and I may have gotten a bit of spray paint on him last week. He was sitting well away from where I was using it outside, and I had my back to him to make sure no rogue spatters flew in his direction, but when I turned around after the spray can had run out, he definitely had some black specks on his head. whoops!

As you know, I need to always have a project going on. Even on an entirely free weekend, I must invent a project. yes. So last weekend I took a toy box that we had kept from awhile back for when we had a kid, which was painted a dull tan color, and painted it (with my brother's help), poly'd the inside (with water-based poly) and added some fun truck stickers. Now it's ready for his room!

Levi has also begun to love to giggle. Mostly when we laugh, he laughs back, but sometimes he just laughs randomly. Also at himself in the mirror, which is pretty entertaining to watch :) He also laughs in his sleep, and yesterday he laughed so hard in his sleep that he woke himself up, looking quite confused.

And lastly, a conversation between Tim and I early in the week while getting ready to go to a church party for dinner:

Levi: (yelling)

Holly: (shushing gently)

Tim: I'm hungry.

Holly: (begins to stand up) Here. (Hands pacifier to Tim)

Tim: (looks at pacifier strangely) I don't think this will work on me like it does on Levi.