Sunday, March 25, 2012

Jazzercize and Jabberwocky



Levi. does leg aerobics.

I've known this for quite some time - we've called him "kicky boy" since he was practically a newborn. But his leg exercises have now taken on a much more regular rhythm.

Particularly when he's nursing , he'll do leg raises just like in an old '80s workout video. He also does yoga poses (downward dog-style), when we try to have him stand and walk, he does a little jig, and at any time when he's sitting with his legs hanging (high chair, holding him on my hip facing out, grocery store cart) his legs are constantly swinging :)

So hopefully when he realizes us holding his hands while he's standing is actually because we'd like him to try this thing called walking and not just to dance, his legs will be tones and sleek and ready for it. Maybe I should get him some legwarmers!

Levi also has become very, very talkative. Not that he's saying any particular words yet, though his sounds strung together sometimes sound like words. He will chatter to himself nonstop most of the time. If he wants something, he'll just talk louder until we figure out what it is (usually more food).

Tim tells him "No sprechen sie baby" but Levi just laughs and laughs like he's got his own conversation going and its funny that we can't understand him. Sometimes we make up phrases he might be saying - this morning he was chowing down on some puffs, sitting between us while we dozed in our bed. And he started yelling and gesturing. It sounded like he might have been saying "bring me my robe and slippies!"

Last weekend we headed to New England to see most of my family, as my brother was nearby for the weekend at Eastern Nazarene College. Levi was much better on this trip than he has been the past roadtrips we've done - he slept or played very well most of the time, which was great. and he was good about sleeping at night and still napping during the day and eating whenever and wherever we were at the time. yay!

In other news, we'll be headed to see Tim's extended family across the Atlantic in about a week, and prayers would be appreciated as we take an almost one-year-old with us!! You'll hear all about it once we're back, with I'm sure many photos.

Monday, March 12, 2012

There's a monster at the end of this blog

Levi's gaining more and more teeth. His smile is almost even now.

I don't know if it's the teeth or what, but Levi has also become an eating machine. He eats just about anything we put in front of him and never quite seems satisfied. Sometimes he falls asleep after he eats, which seems like the only time he stops :) Though he still eats some baby food, he eats most of what we eat now, with the exception of dairy products of course, just to be safe. He prefers to feed himself, though sometimes that translates stuffing a big handful of food into his mouth and dropping most of it!

Speaking of food, we had our first tummy bug as family on Friday. Well, I didn't get it, but I think the last time I was sick like that I was in middle school (other than during pregnancy, which doesn't count). Anyway, Levi was up at about 1:30 a.m. on Friday and it took me almost a half an hour to get him to go back to sleep - which is very rare. a couple of hours later, I figured out why, when the first of several throw-up incidents occurred. Of course, Tim was also out of commission, though not quite as sick at the same time as Levi was. So about every half an hour I got up to change out the sheets/mattress pad under Levi. Around 6:30 I fed him and he was so wiped out he fell fast asleep - which is good, because i was down to my last mattress pad, which was actually for our pac n play and only covered half of his crib mattress! I threw laundry in and tried to catch up on a couple of hours sleep before trying to juggle working from home and the boy. He had a couple of not so great diapers later in the morning (Tim would like me to insert the phrase "ankles to armpits" here, and I would like to point out that a few months ago he balked at me even TALKING about poop on the blog), but after that he's been fine. Fussy, but fine. I had to spend about three hours on Friday outside n a blanket with Levi, even though it was barely 50 degrees, because it was the only way to keep him from fussing while I tried to work. So there we are, him trussed up in warm jammies, a fisherman's sweater, the warmest, baggiest sweatpants I could find for him and a hat, vacillating between climbing on me and staring vacantly at the wind blowing (blowing hard, I might add) the trees around us. I'm laying on my stomach to block him from the laptop, squinting to see the screen.

Playing at the library
Anyway, I did most of my work and kept us both fed, clean and semi-happy. oh, and washed aaaalllll of the nasty laundry, plus aired out the not-so-great smelling upstairs. mission accomplished.

Onto a less grisly topic. Levi had his first ride at the swings on Sunday. Sadly neither myself or my friend remembered our phones or a camera, so we'll have to video tape it next time. He loooooved it. He kept giggling every time he came close to me when I pushed him. It didn't hurt that it was 60 degrees outside and beautifully sunny, yay spring! (p.s. boo daylight savings, I wish you weren't a part of spring to ruin a perfectly good Sunday).

And the last story of this post is about my success as a mother in quickly dressing Levi every morning. except the one time...

A busy boy on a Sunday morning, Biz Journal and emails to read


Every day I have approximately 3 minutes (Tim says, "not have but rather leave myself 3 minutes," which is true, but really who's counting) to get Levi ready. I can whip the diaper off and get a new one on almost before he's woken up, and zip him into his clothes lickety-split. But one morningish on a weekend a few days ago, I was slowly getting Levi ready, and he wanted to stand up on his diaper change table. So I figured, what the hey, might as well get his pants on while he was standing, might be quicker anyway. I got one leg in, then the other leg in, then pulled up until he was in them all the way. He was clinging to me, so I couldn't really see the pants, but his legs were in so it was all good. We cuddled while he stood there for a minute, and then he started fussing and crying a little, out of character for a boy who'd just been fed and woken up. I look down and realize that I put both of his legs in the same pant leg! So I exclaimed "why didn't you SAY something?!" which is all Tim heard walking up the stairs, me conversing with a 10-month-old with his pants on wrong.

Other than that though, he's always had his clothes on facing the right way and buttoned up and whatnot. on a weekday. Tim just reminded me that on Saturday I put his pants on backwards. Maybe my brain just shuts down on the weekends.

(insert SOOO MUUUCHH FUUNN dinosaur noise)