The end of babydom

You know how in the morning when you first wake up, sometimes you stumble into doorways, trip over things that have always stood in the same spot, forget about 50 percent of what you were supposed to remember to do in the morning and by some miracle, make it to work/daycare/school/playdate/etc. mostly on time? And then by around 10 a.m., close to four hours after you wake up, you suddenly start feeling alert after you've finished 20 ounces of coffee, read about 30 emails and remembered all the things you forgot this morning? No? is no one else like that (I'm looking at you, Mrs. Gavel)?

So guess who else is like that in the morning - minus the to-do list and the coffee. Yep, your favorite non-Jewish Levi. Every morning at about 7:30 I wake him up to get ready for the day, and about 75 percent of the time he's still dead asleep. He hears me open the door and turn on the light, and rolls over to get up. It takes him at least two tries to stand up. When he does, he tends to ram into the side of his crib and fall over again. I'm not even kidding - in a crib with rails every inch and a half he can grab onto to stand up, he mostly falls over in the mornings. And yes, he inherits that from me. Some other people in this household get up the first time their alarm goes off and run off to the gym - gross.

With a card from GiGi

Levi has changed SO MUCH in only the past few weeks, really. In early April, we took him on a flight to England and he was small, cuddly, could stand but was nowhere near walking, etc. In summation - in the last stages of babydom. Now? oy. Oy in good ways and challenging ways. He rarely eats a meal without throwing most of it on the floor. He constantly grabs at things he knows he can't have. He constantly stands on things (chairs, diaper change table, grocery store cart) that he knows he's not allowed to stand on. He tries to run everywhere at top speed. But he also does other big boy things - he puts his clothes in the hamper at the end of every day. He helps mommy with the dishes. He is starting to put his toys away. He will walk straight from the sidewalk after you take him out of the car up to the front door. He points at things he wants or wants you to tell him about. And, oh yes, he puts gravel in his hair :)

Levi spends a lot of his time trying to figure out how things work (yes Dad, I can hear you saying "he'd be a good engineer"). When we unplug the outlet protectors to plug in a cell phone charger, he finds the outlet protector and tries to put it back. He spent a half hour last night trying to get the top to my to-go coffee mug back on. He tries to put things back the way they started after he takes them apart, and even when encountering new things, he still tries to find out how exactly they're supposed to work.

He also loves. and I mean loves. all things water. He tries to jump in fountains he sees, and at a church picnic recently, he did a nose dive into the pool. Tim was right next to him, but it makes me happy that I signed him up for swimming lessons. They say (well, OK, my mom always said) that you should expose kids to water early in life. And I think (OK, also, she thinks and now its ingrained in me) that everyone should know how to swim. not dog paddle - swim. And Lancaster offers affordable classes through the city recreation program that are way cheaper than the Y, hurrah!

At Levi's first major league experience - Phillies vs. D-backs

We actually took a lot of photos for once, so there is a good chance Tim might be back soon with a photo narration post!