Curls, Dimples, and of course, Trucks!

Aaaaaaand I have had a muy productive evening, which is rapidly declining into approaching a comatose state of exhaustion before 8 p.m. Thus, the bulleted post:

Pre much-needed haircut

Touching the inside of a big tire at a local truck show

• Levi takes showers now, at the grown-up age of 2 years and three weeks. This is funny both because of his tiny size and because at 28 years old, I still hate water running over my face. I would take baths if I had  big enough tub and it was more efficient. 

• Speaking of genetics, Levi likes to sleep with as many pillows as possible, often covering his head.body. As do I :) Tim came in the room after checking on him the other night and said "how is that sort of thing genetic?"

Wearing daddy's flip flops

• We're trying to teach him to kick a ball - but he mostly likes to throw it. Aim and precision....not so good yet. 

• He has taken to calling me anything but Mommy, or nothing at all. When we go around saying our names, he says his own, he says Daddy, and for me he just giggles, or says daddy, or says gibberish. Apparently this is a family trend, as I was known as "Uncle Holly" for quite some time to my nephews.

• Levi can climb all around the playground all by himself now without a hand up or needing someone waiting at the bottom of the slide. 

Making pancakes with mommy on mother's day

• His big-boy room is nearly done, including some fabulous prints from Despicable me and quotes from Harry Potter. really, his big-boy room is about his parents getting to have fun with kid decorations :)

"Moo?"

• I think I've said before that Levi will often repeat what we say. Tonight I was giving him a mini lecture after he slapped my hand when he didn't want me to do something. We had to talk about how he needs to use his words, and that even if he does use his words, sometimes the people in charge (mommy, daddy, Miss Tasha at school, etc.) will not simply do what he wants, although we will listen to his words. He kept repeating key phrases out loud "Mommy's the boss," "you're in charge," etc. I wish I'd taped the audio to play back to myself for...the next 20 years or so. 

• Levi has great diction for some words - no trouble with "fork," or even "downstairs." However, Tim tried to teach him to say "crocks" ....which didn't go as well. I insistently now only call them "black shoes." But sometimes he uses the other word...

These are like purses, right? 

You can go UNDER the truck??!

Strawberry ice cream = Levi's new best friend


Got my juice, one hand on the wheel....

Tuckered out after seeing all the trucks

Mess.

It's been a whirlwind since our last post.

Shortly after we left off, Levi got to spend a week with Tim's parents, his Nannan and Papa, while we

disappeared to the Dominican Republic for a lovely relaxing time. I don't know who had the better time: us without a toddler, at an all-inclusive result, or Levi with his two grandparents at his beck and call :) He stayed in daycare while we were gone to keep him on schedule, and got to do fun things like get a new truck every day, one of Tim's original construction vehicle/John Deere collection. They also had some fun playing in the mud and visiting a local children's train event.

When we got back, Levi had, of course, changed so much in just one week! He was a little confused at first when we both walked in his room Monday morning, but seemed game to get ready and go to daycare with me.

He learned to say the "s" sound while we were gone. He also was willing to try to blow his nose by himself. and managed to stack about half of our wood pile in his play slide. And can climb the really steep stairs at the playground all by himself. and probably dozens of more things that I can't remember

right now.

In some ways, Levi seems to be learning in leaps and bounds - we got him magnets for his birthday, and he constantly pretends to count them. He now actually gets upset if he can't help clean up his messes, and will tell us when there is a mess to clean up. He finally stopped trying to knock over my piles of folded laundry. He also seems to know where the oreos are at any time, even though we try to hide them.

He had a moment of sanity around two dogs the other day - usually he freaks out and starts screaming and shaking. But he let a little Shitzu and an old mutt come up and sniff him, and seemed kind of sort of OK, as long as I had my arms around him.

In other ways, he seems to get scared/be wimpy/get upset way more often than he ever did as a younger child. While some of that is certainly normal toddlerdom, he seems to be sort of regressing. He saw a spider while he was in the tub the other day (probably a testimony to my housekeeping skills...) and lost. his. ever-loving mind. He did not stop screaming and shaking, even though the spider was nowhere near him, until I picked him up, soaking wet and soapy, and drained all the water. At his two-year appointment at the doctor, he was only OK while he was in one of our laps/next to us and touching us.

Anytime the nurse or doc came near him, he just started wailing inconsolably. And that was before the blood stick.

I think most entertaining right now is his insistence of doing everything that mommy and daddy do. He now likes to brush his teeth in the morning (although sometimes he just likes to put mommy or daddy's toothbrush in his mouth - yuck). He tries to put his socks on by himself - or sometimes put his socks on Mommy. He got mad today when I started to clean up his mess from dinner without his help :)

We had his second birthday party over the weekend, with a picnic in the park and delicious pork made by Tim, and some of my family, our neighbors and some friends just handing out, playing some bocce ball and
blowing some bubbles :) Levi seemed to enjoy it, and of course some of his presents later as well. He got a Red Sox hat to match his Daddy, and some new socks. And a new fan in his big-boy room installed compliments of his Grumpy.

#BostonStrong

And then there were words

Levi is talking up a storm these days - and of course he's got the same inflection we have. He was putting something into place on a toy the other day, and he said "there you go!" which is what we always say when he's figures something out. When we say "say please" or "say thank you" he often answers with those words,

but they're in a sentence of other words that we don't quite understand yet. He also now will repeat just about everything we say - when reading, when talking with him, when pointing out something (yellow truck, brown doggie, etc.) that he might be interested in. It seems like a flood of words all the time, especially because he narrates most of what he does anyway - while eating or playing or reading. He even says his name, though with no L sounds and no V sounds, its more like "weyi"

He also likes to figure out how things work - recently, somewhat to his detriment, as he stuck (baked) beans up his nose one night at dinner. I couldn't stop laughing, because it does seem so logical - here are two holes..here are two items about the same size..so they must need to go in said holes. Tim covered his mouth and Levi sort of sneezed them out, and we chastised him, but i don't think it had much effect, because about a week later it happened again. We didn't realize it until I looked at him, and his eyes

seemed to begetting red, and he was sticking a finger way up his nose - then he sneezed and they popped out, but that time he got a strict talking to and an immediate time-out, so hopefully that does not become a habit.

We traveled to spend time with Tim's family for Easter, and put hot wheels cars instead of candy in his Easter basket. The packaging was just about as popular as the cars, of course - he spent awhile on the drive home playing with the eggs, opening and closing.

We spent an evening in the local science museum on Friday night, and Levi was ecstatic to play with many of the games. particularly ones with bangs or crashes.

Hopefully, spring has finally sprung here, so we'll soon have pictures of being outside!

Genetics

So we have a confession to make: we are terrible about remembering to give Levi a bath. We do manage it about once each week, and sometimes we get into a groove of twice each week, but usually several nights in a row pass where one of us says "man, we forgot to give Levi a bath tonight." He never gets to the stinky phase, but grimy is a state that he tends to exist in at times :)

Friday night, while the bathwater was running, Levi was putting his toys into the tub (which he for some reason does one at a time.... I had stripped him down to his socks and diaper, and went back to his room to get jammies and a towel. I hear a splash, so walk back to the bathroom - and he jumped in with his socks and diaper still on. I started laughing and ran to grab the camera. He seemed to notice after a minute that he was getting waterlogged, so he started climbing back out again. Silly boy! Although I must confess, I have more than once climbed into the shower with at least one item of clothing still on :)

While Levi's favorite word is still "No!" his second favorite word appears to be "cookie." If we need something from him, we'll ocassionally bribe him with his three favorite things to eat: a nutrigrain bar, a cheese stick, or juice (which is actually 90 percent water mixed with V8 or sometimes OJ). However, the other night Tim was trying to convince Levi to come inside after playing in our backyard for awhile. Levi insists on staying outside, but also would like one of us to stay out with him, regardless of the temperature or wind speed. He'll stand at the door sobbing to go outside, then stand at the door sobbing if we step back inside for a moment. So Tim offered him the usual to get him to come back inside - but he just shouted "no!" to each one. But. When Tim offered him a cookie, which he usually only gets when he's been exceptionally well-behaved, he immediately stopped crying and asked to be picked up and brought inside. Again, not much to be surprised about; I spent a good $40 this year on girl scout cookies, almost all of which are thin mints. And at least he regularly says thank you without being asked these days. Now how to keep that trend for the next 17 years...

I forgot I had more bathtime stories. They are at least memorable, if not often :) Recently, Levi discovered (entirely without direction or provocation) that if he fillls his bath toys with water or air, puts them up against his belly, and squishes them, they make fart noises. Yep. Not yet two years old. Normally I'd totally blame Tim for teaching him something like that, but Tim says he had no part in it - Levi just started doing that one night so he ran to get the camera! I can proudly say he did not pick up that sort of habit from me, but having grown up with two brothers close in age, I was not surprised at all. In fact, my main thought was "yeah. that's about right."

Levi loves to read more and more. Some evenings we'll just sit and read book after book in the living room. He also gets to bring one book to bed every night, to look at if he doesn't feel tired or just to have next to him (OK, sometimes he cuddles with them like a teddy bear. something he might also have gotten from me...) Sometimes we can hear him reading some of the words he knows to himself - usually animal noises or words like tractor, ball, or baby. This week, one night he asked to take Chica Chica Boom Boom to bed, which I think I might have read to him two or three times in total. I loved the book when I was a child - I remember thinking - these words that sound the same are genius! That night, for a good ten minutes after he went to bed, we heard random "BOOM"s from his room.

Sharing Ice Cream

The little man also continues to carry quite the belly, even though he's lengthening out. He and a little friend had a hilarious conversation the other day - Levi was sitting on the ground, playing with a toy. he had on a onesie that his jeans came up over (instead of a baggy sweatshirt or something similar) and his buddy suddenly asked what was in Levi's belly? He poked Levi lightly, and tried to look down his shirt and then inquired if Levi had a ball in there. HILARIOUS. Levi didn't even seem to notice, and though his friends mom tried to explain how you shouldn't touch other people and make statements about how they look, Levi's little friend still wanted to know what, precisely, was in Levi's tummy?? Its a confusing world - some ladies have babies in their bellies, of course we have food in our bellies regularly. Its perfectly logical when one seems large to inquire if there's something in particular making it so. I don't know that I can or should contribute Levi's tummy shape to either Tim or I -- while I certainly match it right now, I barely filled out my clothes as a  child, and though Tim was a bit  more round when he was younger, it was mostly because of meds he was on, because now he's a beanpole. (even on a pasta+meat=all good diet as a younger guy, he still barely weighted more than me. I tell him its because I have more muscle than him).

Snapshots of Levi

So I think Levi is better at cleaning up our house than we are. He won't leave until the bathroom (by the front entrance) door is closed, he is very careful to put the tiny toys in the tiny toy bucket, the big toys in the toy box, and the kitchen-related toys in the kitchen toys drawers. Drawers and cabinet doors should be closed before going to bed, and shoes should be put away.

A couple of nights ago, as Levi was closing a cabinet drawer (one of my ongoing pet peeves in our kitchen, as my fabulous cook of a husband rarely closes any cabinets after he takes something out of them), Tim said "Levi, you sure know how to make Mommy happy."

True story. Anything from making a monkey sound when he, in fact, sees a stuffed monkey (Tim: "of course you know how to make the sounds of your kin, Levi"), to repeating words more and more often, shouting "cheese!" gleefully, or clapping in time to Tim's rendition of a song from Skippyjon Jones. Levi loves to dance to music, and tends to clap at the ends of songs.

Of course, he is still a naughty almost-two-year-old at heart, so he spends his fair share of minutes in time out, has to clean up his own messes, and generally making me want to pull my hair out (See: "playing" with dinner so that it ends up covering his entire body, high chair, and a good dose of floor square footage as well).

And even though he seems to get heavier every time I pick him up, he still remains a cute little boy with his dimples and love of the outdoors and thinking things we're trying to teach him are funny (see: hiking a football, blowing bubbles in swimming lessons).

Video of Levi and mommy dancing