letters for levi: September 2011

:: 20 months ::

There are days when you exhaust me (ok, most days)... and yet even still, I wouldn't trade it for anything. You are hilarious, smart, funny, adorable, sweet, and clever. You really do light up my world young man. It's pretty hard to remember life without you, even though you're not even yet two years old.

You have so much energy these days, especially when you wake up in the morning. You seriously hit the ground running - running circles around the house, jumping in place (which you can now do with both feet off the ground at once!), throwing yourself on pillows or the couch, just going slightly crazy as you burst at the seems with little boy spunk!

You also love to dance. You're constantly asking for music and then when it is on, asking for it to be turned up louder. You can get a whole group of adults off their bums and on their feet mimicking your moves and enjoying your enthusiasm. You sure aren't shy!

Recently I took you to the pool since it's starting to warm up here again. Over and over you asked to be put on the side of the pool so you could jump into the water into my arms. You're such a brave little tyke and I'm definitely looking forward to the weather heating up a tiny bit so we can swim more without needing to go to the heated pool.

You've been teething all four canines this month. Yikes. Those things are painful. You're handling it well though - the amber teething necklace that we discovered are certainly helping.

You are back to enjoying full length stories. I can't remember when you began to get impatient with going through each page, but you certainly went through a phase that you just wanted to read at your own pace and point out things in the pictures. Now you're back to loving the actual story, taking it all in, and making comments as we go. I love it. You also still love to read on your own.

Each night we pray with you before bed. You rest your head on my shoulder (or dad's) as we pray and then at the end we say "in Jesus' name" and you chime in "ame!" You love closing with "amen" and do it at the end of meal-time prayers as well.

One of the super cute things you've started to do this month is to say "where?" You say "weeh? weeh?" with your little hands turned up and eyebrows raised. It is melt-my-heart adorable. Both daddy and I just love it.

Your most over-used words at the moment are "mama" and "dada", usually spoken like this: "mama dada mama dada mama dada mama!" or "mama mama mama mama!" or "dada dada dada dada dada!" It's cute, but totally over-the-top.

I can't remember if I've ever written about this before but you also know a ton of animals. You can identify them, say many of their names, and make their noises: elephant, tiger, lion, bear, zebra, giraffe, crocodile, duck, cow, horse, pig, chicken, rooster, owl, frog, seal, monkey, bird, dog, cat, snake, bee, butterfly, turtle, hippo, panda... and maybe more. It's one of my favorite things at the moment actually - to read animal stories with you talk about which animal is what, name them, listen to you make their sounds... all of it... it just so cute!

You've started saying "no" just once rather than your string of "no no no no no" that you were doing previously. You also say "so" (soap), "pa" (potty), "push", "dow" (down), "wah wah" (water), "beh" (bed), "cah" (car), "bih" (bib), and probably others that I'm forgetting right now.

Speaking of bibs, you're very particular. We have a blue one and a red one and if the blue one is in sight and you get the red one offered to you, you pretty much throw a fit. Apparently you prefer blue! Sometimes you're offered another type of bib, where one is colored yellow and the other blue. When given those choices you choose the yellow one! Little boy knows what he likes, that's for sure!

You also love to accessorize. You're quick to grab one of my necklaces, scarves, or belts, or one of daddy's hats or his watch. Lately it's been hard to leave the house without you having chosen one of my beaded necklaces. You certainly turn heads and get giggles, but you love it and so of course so do I.

This month we also got you a small baby doll (wearing blue clothes!). You are learning to cuddle the baby, pat him to sleep, wrap him in the blanket, etc. It's really cute. You like it, but you're not overly interested yet. It will be fun to see how much you play with it after the real baby comes! Not long now - mommy is 39 weeks pregnant so baby could literally come any day.