Little Pumpkin

There are many reasons to have children: getting other people to take care of your home and yard for you, giving someone the responsibility to care for you in your old age, and the most important: entertainment.

Levi is constantly entertaining us. Yesterday while we were sitting on the front porch, Levi kept walking around and around in a circle, essentially running laps, and cracking up every time he rounded another...corner of our porch. Somehow, it's hilarious. One day he very carefully put the pieces of bacon we gave him for dinner on top of a dishcloth, which was on top of his sippy cup. When we handed him the bacon again to eat, he delicately put it back on the cloth....yes. He seems to have such intensive reasoning processes and conversations in his unknown language, and it's so funny :)

Helping Daddy cook

Recently, we turned Levi's carseat around to face forward. Safety standards recommend to face backward until kids turn two, so we were aiming to keep him that way as long as possible, but we're pretty sure he gets carsick. He's randomly thrown up three times (aside from when he actually had a tummy virus) in the car. The good news? Tim and I can clean up Levi, area of the incident, and be back to business in only a few minutes now. The bad news? That's not a skill we really want to have.

Yay for hugs!

Oh - but why I was explaining that originally was to tell you Levi's new habit of straining as high as he can to see out of the windshield. Tim calls it Levi's "peeking" face. I never had a mirror that worked in my car to see him while I drove, so this is pretty exciting. I turn around at red lights all the time to say hi. He either has his peeking face on or his "zoning because I'm in a car and now I'm super tired" face. Both equally funny.

Related to that, Levi has been sick to his stomach pretty often over the past few weeks. Once he actually had a little virus, but he's been throwing up pretty regularly at night - just once each night, two or three nights a week. He's not fussy, he's fine during the day, nothing at all seems to be wrong. So we're thinking it could be one of two things: either acid reflux, or celiac (inability to process wheat products). We've been tracking what he eats, and eliminated carbs for dinner in case its the former. He actually hasn't thrown up since we eliminated carbs and made sure he eats at least an hour before bed, so we'll see how it goes. We'll chat with his doctor about it at his next appointment, or sooner if it seems to be worsening. He's already got some seasonal and environmental allergies from my side of the family; we were hoping to avoid the food issues from Tim's.

What's the deal with that, anyway? I thought your kids were supposed to get the best qualities you have. Levi has: my stinky feet, the habit I have of making noises to narrate everything I'm doing; Tim's (previous) tendency to eat and eat until he's a little sick to his stomach, and more that I can't think of right now Not that he also doesn't have good qualities, but couldn't we just remove the not-so-great qualities of genetics when we reproduce?

Levi's newest love is markers. Sometimes drawing with them. Other times just putting the caps on and off, which he can't really do by himself, so he brings them over to us to do that. He also prefers to color on papers that are already colored on, rather than a new piece of construction paper.

We had our first swimming lessons with Levi today, which he of course loved. For the first time in his life, he seemed to stop kicking though, which was ironic I guess. he did like the jumping off of the side part and playing with the kickboard. Aaaaand got rowdy when we were trying to leave, of course.

Fall is my favorite time of year - it makes me SO energized and happy. I keep thinking of fall activities we can do, and fall decorations. Last weekend we went apple picking with friends, and Levi LOVED it. he picked some of the apples himself, and also ate an apple for the first time - usually he doesn't eat them cut up, but he was all over chomping on a whole apple for a couple of hours. I made two pies for a work party, which were delicious of course, and we brought some extras home to snack on - Ida Reds, very tasty.