Tales from the Levi Files

Having a kid gets more entertaining every day. And here are a few examples:

1. Levi has become quite the tidyer. He throws away trash, helps to wipe up his spills and sweep up his messes, and recently, saw fit to put the Kindle in our trash. Tim and I could not find it on a Saturday night, after I'd spent most of the day cleaning. We purposefully bought a bright red cover so we would not lose it as easily as something darker colored - but we couldn't find it anywhere, even after pulling the cushions out of the couch and lifting up the furniture. Tim suddenly thought to look in the trash, which I'd spent a good amount of time sorting mail into, and sure enough, the Kindle was partway down or kitchen trash drawer. So now we keep a close eye on him when he's tidying!

2. Levi fell asleep on the couch the other day - one of only two times he's fallen asleep randomly in his life, not counting long car rides where we may or may not dope him up on tylenol before we leave. And the first time was his first real fever. this time - he took a kind of short nap in the afternoon on Saturday, and while we were getting dinner ready, he asked to sit on the couch and eat some goldfish. I checked on him about two minutes later - and he had passed out cold, it looked like he just slid to the side with his face partially on his snack trap. I had to wake  him up about 20 minutes later to leave for church, and he seemed fine (if disgruntled, of course).

Helping mommy fill out daycare forms

3. One of the chores Levi helps with is putting away the dishwasher - which to him, is a marathon sport. He picks up all the dishes on the bottom shelf faster than any adult I've ever seen, and you need to intercept it quick and put it in the cabinet because he just needs to move onto the next one. He's mostly good at two-handing items, though he occasionally gets overzealous. Ah well. I'll take the excitement about chores while they last. Although tonight, he couldn't reach a couple of dishes that were on the other side of the shelf from where he was standing. His solution? shrug, push the shelf in, close up the dish washer, give it a good couple of pats/dishwasher high-fives, and march away, a job well done, in his mind :)

Best place to be? IN my toy box, of course!

4. "Doggie" is Levi's favorite word. He says it all the time, he makes "ruff ruff" noises almost as often, and in every. single. book we read, he points at every animal (except ducks, which he apparently thinks are worthy of notice also) and says "doggie!" This extends to real life....to a point. Our neighborhood is full of dogs, and when Tim comes home from work after picking Levi up, he'll stand on the sidewalk or porch and shout "doggie" long before the dog gets close, and looooong after he can't see the dog anymore. However, in reality,  he only loves the concept of doggies. If one gets to close, he shrieks and lunges at us, shaking like a leaf. and won't stop sobbing for an equally lengthy amount of time (one exception: when he got his haircut at our friends' house - I think maybe because he was in a chair high off the ground and away from the little poodle mix mutt). He's also terrified of our/any vacuum  and won't even be in the same room as one without freaking out.

Highlights

 Tired. Friday night. No full sentences.

Gave Levi his first lollipop - which he loved, and then we had to follow around cleaning p everything his hands or face touched.

First big play outside snowfall around New Year's.

Watched (for about ten minutes) his first movie, Brave, on New Year's Eve. Might have been sleeping instead - he was under a pillow.

Learned to juggle hangers. Almost.

Says "doggie" incessantly. About every object/live thing. Also makes "ruff ruff" noises regularly.

Also hoots like an owl. 

Learned how to whisper. Does it mostly in the car by himself in the backseat, when we can barely hear him and it kind of seems like the setting for a horror movie.

He knows how to get to the park down the street, and now occasionally walks us there - as in, grabs our hand, and heads in that direction.

Still cries when I vacuum. Probably because it happens so rarely.

Can reach our countertops. Only enough to swipe anything he can kind of see onto the floor - or: the perfect amount.


And to sum up: tonight, after playing nicely with Daddy for about a half an hour, he came over to me, I thought to snuggle before bed. Instead? Yakked all over me, the couch, and the carpet. Glad he feels so comfortable with me.

Enjoy the pictures!

Verbosatron

The holiday season is in full swing, and I actually ended up with a break the weekend before Christmas, since family isn't coming in until Sunday.

 We've had some fun times this season so far - the first weekend in December, my mom, sister, and one of my brothers came around and helped us all set up the tree and decorations. Levi got to pet a doggie (rottweiler puppy) while we picked up our tree, and also kept edging toward the golf carts, seemingly with the intent to drive away with one...

The second weekend in December my other brother came down from NY to visit us, and we had a blast with some local burrito eating, watching The King's Speech, and of course, How I Met Your Mother.

The following weekend, Tim and I had a night out with my wonderful coworkers at a fancy work party...which we got no pictures of. But the night was memorable for the funny stories, and to be honest, the incredible cheesecake that I got to eat two of (sometimes I benefit from Tim's allergies, what can I say?)

A couple of nights later we headed to our annual Life Group Christmas party, with tons of delicious, completely healthy food, and took home a lovely autographed photo of our friends and some candy/dog treats from our famous White Elephant gift exchange.

Mmm... Cornbread batter.

In Levi news, it feels like he's hit an explosion of words. It's really only just a few more than before, but he's been gradually adding words and signs for the past 9 months or so, and in the past couple of weeks he's been very good at repeating us and starting to use several words regularly: banana, Momma, Dada  cheese, cracker, dog, cow, moo, duck, and so on.

Probably tied to the words, he's become slightly obsessed with books about animals, particularly farm animals. There's a book my parents got us called Good Night Farm, and we read that every day, along with books about the zoo, monkeys, bunnies, and so on. Oh, and Sandra Boynton out the wazoo - I think hippo might be his next word :)

He's also starting to want to help us do things, or do things himself more. Cooking with daddy, dishes with mommy - even dipping the bubble wand himself before letting one of us blow the bubbles.

Levi is also getting very good at cleaning up - sometimes after himself, sometimes after us :) If he makes a mess during dinner, it's his job to pick up things that fell on the floor, and if he spills his milk by tipping his cup sideways, he has to wipe it up. He can spill all of his toys out of his toybox...but he has to pick them up after. And he's regularly coming around behind us (read: Tim) and closing cabinet doors, the fridge, the drawer with the trash in it....yes. Next up: folding laundry at 20 months :)

Are you still there smiley?

We're working on more sign language, since Levi is starting to use the few he knows regularly. He uses more, all done, please, and now thank you pretty often (sometimes it takes prompting). Also: touchdown. We're working on "help" next. And we're also working on using our words - mainly to say "mama" if he needs something, rather than whining or yelling.

We're also still working on identifying body parts. So far he's pretty good at eyes, nose, and occasionally ears. And of course - his belly. If you ask for his belly he'll lift up his shirt like a good little streaker for you.

Levi has fully entered the gaping, confused look photo stage. He still smiles regularly, but the moment the camera is turned on him bam. slack jawed, vacant eyes, wondering where exactly he is and what exactly he's doing.

He'll spend hours (well, OK, minutes, but he's only a year and a half old, so minutes are kind of like hours) playing with a piggy bank. Putting the coins in one by one, then taking out the rubber plug and starting all over again. Thanks Nannan and Papa for the England present.

We got Levi his own monster slippers for Christmas (Tim's family did Christmas the day after Thanksgiving this year), because he's constantly taking ours off our feet to play with. He loves them :)

 Best we could do for a semi-smiling photo. Thanks for the super cute vest, Auntie Kara and Uncle Matt!

You can't see it in the photo, but Levi's three older (boy) cousins are all playing in the leaves in front of him. He loves to play and hang out, but when he's first getting used to people, he'll just stand and stare for awhile. Like so.

Remember when most of your time as an older sibling was spent keeping the younger kids OUT of your PERFECTLY CONSTRUCTED Legos? No? Just me then? Or - if you're more like Tim, remember when your days consisted entirely of food, cartoons, and Legos, with the occasional short trip to school as an interruption? Anyway, Levi discovered Legos over the holiday weekend. Or rather - when you hit them, they fall apart. He dutifully said "uh-oh" every time, however, that does not translate to actually being sorry.

Playing with Papa and Nannan's brilliant present (more below). He opened that one first....and was pretty content to play with just that one for the rest of the gift opening :)

A toy which entirely involves opening and closing doors after you figure out how to unlock them? Maybe Levi will have a career as a safe cracker and be in a future Italian Job movie!

Reading his new noisy book with Nannan! Levi actually picks out his own book every night and sits quietly in my or Tim's lap to read it.

Maybe on the way to a smile? Maybe?

Levi likes to do all things mommy and daddy do - including dishes, cooking, putting things away, brushing his teeth, etc. I may have had to use three towels to soak up the water on the floor after this last bout of washing the dishes.

Photo bomb by chef Timmy at the end!

Thanks to Auntie Krista for taking marvelous photos in general.

Levi-isms

We thought we'd share with you a few new things for Levi that Tim and I find particularly hilarious :)

First - we've been teaching Levi to fist-bump. It takes him awhile to grab on to new skills, but once he gets it, he uses it non-stop. He waves hello, goodbye, thank you, good to see you, etc. waving = most forms of communication for Levi. He high-fives at least three times every time you ask him, and sometimes just starts hitting your hand when you didn't realize it was high-five time. He also signs "please" regularly now, almost every time he signs "more." Manners matter :)

He also tries to wear our shoes nowadays. Not all of our shoes, only certain pairs. He'll go grab them from where they are, put them on the floor, and then circle them, researching the best plan of attack for putting his foot in. Occasionally he can actually walk in the shoes. Or - maybe just one.

Levi can also play on part of our local playground by himself. He climbs up the four steps to the kiddie slide, switches his legs around, and pushes himself down! He even scootches forward to get off the slide onto the mulch below by himself. I forgot the camera today to get pictures of that, but we'll grab some soon.

Right now he has taken everything out of the three kitchen drawers he can reach - tupperware lids, measuring spoons/baking utensils, and plastic bags. And he's mad he can't get to the fourth, and only drawer missing from his schemes. Our kitchen floor is covered. And he's walking around chucking all of the above to decorate it more fully :)

Levi has also discovered stickers - he's been on top of coloring with markers for awhile, but we had some in a Halloween thing, and he started sticking them all over me. He also likes to stick the tape and labels on the Christmas presents I've been wrapping. He's a good little sticker-man.

I should say that Levi is good at coloring on paper...and on people. We make sure he's not going to town on the walls/floors/carpet/furniture/toys, (though I did find chalk randomly on the wall by our backdoor yesterday), and he's usually pretty good about it. I figured skin is fine, so long as he asks permission first (I can see his daycare teachers now with green marker on their faces...). And what is the best body part to color on, you ask? Why, his belly, of course! And mommy's too, shouldaseenthatcoming.

We had some fun family events in the past couple of weeks - Halloween and trick-or-treating, picking out our Christmas tree, and a visit from the fabulous (and favorite) Katie!

He's also slowly figuring out how things like doorknobs, some of his put the right shape in the right hole toys, and other such problem-solving things work. If a door handle is lever-style, he's got it figured out. He knows our old-school doorknobs turn, but he can't figure out quite how they work. (good. hasn't reached adult-level intelligence quite yet, at 18-months old).

And the beat goes on...

Well, we're battening down the hatches in preparation for our favorite Category 1 Hurricane Sandy who's coming to visit. The rain started at about 4 p.m. today, and the trees around our house are looking more bare by the hour as the wind has kicked up.  We'll see how it goes as the next 72 hours unfold.

But back to the important things: Our cute little boy. Who really is a true little boy - I know I've blogged about that before, but when I was stepping into the elevator at daycare the other day, I smelled his little blonde, curly head, and Levi has officially lost that soft baby smell. He (thankfully) has not reached full-on boy smell, which I'm afraid to say I suspect smells like sweat, dirt, and other less-savory things. Right now we're in the yogurt, bananas, and hot dog smell phase :)

We had the last swimming lesson of the fall on Saturday, working on kicking, jumping in the pool, blowing bubbles, and being OK on his back in the water. We practice some of his skills in the bathtub (where the water is much, much warmer), blowing bubbles, lying on our tummies and kicking, etc. Sometimes, if the water's low in the tub, we make waves. but not too often:)

Its crazy how much Levi keeps learning things and growing up. I remember thinking a few weeks back that it seems to be going slower than it was the first year of his life -- but he's still packing so much information in and learning every day. I think I read somewhere that kids learn the most in the first five years of their life, and Levi's well on his way there. Since he can understand us pretty well now, we're working on listening to mommy, daddy, and his teachers. Levi does things like wiping his face, and putting his toys away (usually) on command. He uses a spoon instead of his hands most of the time, and even brushes his teeth pretty well. We're going for thoughtful and civilized as wee\ raise him, though we still embrace getting dirty and wrestling :)

His language also seems to be developing - though we still hardly know what he's saying most of the time. He now says "yay!" when he's clapping, usually congratulating himself on completing some basic task. He sounds like he's trying to repeat what we say, so we're trying to teach him basic names of the things he interacts with every day. And also, fun words like "shenanigans." Because why not?

He takes the talking to himself pretty far - most nights, he goes to bed without crazy scream fests, and for awhile after he goes to bed, we can hear him in his room chatting with himself, his blanket, and his pillows. Not sure what they're discussing in the dark, but he seems to find it entertaining, because about half of the chatting involves laughing like crazytown :) maybe he's got imaginary friends???
Most of the photos on this post are from our recent four-day vacation down to Virginia Beach. We'd never been there before, and weren't sure about how a family vacation with an 18-month-old would go, but it actually was very, very nice. We spent the first day at the aquarium, as it was raining in the morning. Saturday, we filled our time with just about everything beachy you could imaging: Swimming in the heated pool, lounging on the beach, playing in the ocean, going for a bike ride up and down the boardwalk, and dinner out on a beautiful porch with fresh seafood. It was actually kind of nice to have to work with Levi's nap schedule and early bedtime - I got to go to the gym, we rested and read books and sat out on our balcony in sight of the ocean, and enjoyed the jetted-tub in our suite. We spent Sunday walking the boardwalk and visiting a super awesome brand-new playground before heading back home. We took the more scenic route, crossing a 13-mile bridge.tunnel, and then driving up Route 1 along the coast of Maryland and Delaware. A lovely little vacation in the midst of a busy fall!