Our little Levi is 21 months old - practically 2! Can you believe it? I can't. The time has FLOWN. Often I wish time would slow down a bit. In the past month he has become quite the little parrot. He is constantly pointing to things and saying, "See, see?" which means, tell me what this is called, so I can try out saying it. He still loves cars, and now is really into the the characters from the movie, "Cars". Mater being his favorite. He calls him "Mater-bus" and often appends the word "bus" to lots of little names and phrases. Hippo-bus. Apple-bus. He loves trains, and can name several of them in his books: Thomas (which he within the last month started calling Thomas instead of "ta-ta"), Gordon, Percy, James, and Toby. So cute. He also loves music. Both singing and dancing to it. Anytime there is the slightest sound of music, he starts bouncing up and down, and spinning around. He loves having dance parties with his siblings. Although he's pretty particular about the music he likes. If he doesn't like the music I turn on, he promptly turns it off. When he's excited about something (which is almost always) he gallops to get there, leading with one foot, and hopping all the way.
He is always exclaiming what he says, starting many sentences with, "Oh!" or a sharp inhale. Especially when we are out and about, and he sees something he recognizes (like Mater-bus), he'll do a sharp inhale, "Oh, Mater-bus!" and then look to me for approval. He's picked up a few funny little phrases, "Oh, my!" "Oh, no!" "Alrighty." He is a chatter box, and has started to talk in little sentences. "Watch Thomas show." "More milk, please." "Clean diaper." And he nods yes vehemently when it's something he really wants, sticking his chin out as far as it will go. He speaks in much longer sentences which he fills in with lots of words I don't understand yet. Among his chatters often come little snippets from songs, like the Alphabet song, which he calls, "ABCD" or Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam. The other day he had my mini hymnal and was singing "Holy Night" (a line from Silent Night) over and over and over again. Cutest thing ever. I didn't even know he had picked up that song over the holidays. The day after Sam's birthday he started singing the Happy Birthday song, which is pretty funny, because we ended up singing to Sam after he was already in bed, so he wasn't even there for the song. Perhaps he was laying up in his crib listening to us? He plays the piano any chance he gets, and does so pretty methodically. There have been times when I have thought it was one of the older kids, because he doesn't just bang keys. He's hitting notes one at a time, and making his own little tunes. He loves to sit on Sam's lap as Sam plays songs from the Children's Songbook, but he usually turns the page before Sam can play more than one line of each song. He loves playing with blocks, and will get into legos any time given the opportunity. He knows what Ninjago is, and recognizes Ninjas. He got a set of Thomas mega blocks for Christmas, and he can spend long stretches of time building and rebuilding variations on Thomas.
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| His Aunt JaNae and Uncle John got him the perfect Ninja T-shirt for Christmas. When I see him crawling up things with these two ninja's on his back, it makes me smile. |
He's a very good eater when it's food that he wants - he's getting very picky about eating what we are having for dinner, and trying new things is a struggle. He loves fruit. He goes through a lot of apple sauce and pears. One of his favorite snacks is fruit leather, which he calls "cheese". He's a great self feeder, and loves to have cereal with milk that he eats on his own with a spoon.
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| Feeding himself chocolate pie on my birthday. |
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| He had dumped the rest of his milk from his sippy cup all down his forehead and hair. |
He loves to say prayers before bed, and always whispers back the list of items we tell him to say, no matter what tone of voice we use when we say it. His favorite thing to be thankful for is "Buckas" the word he using for Grandpa Payne, and often repeats that one several times in a prayer. He's also learned how to pretend to sleep, by making little soft fake snoring noises, and will lay down on the kids beds and pretend to sleep. Cutest thing ever. Speaking of the other kids beds, the other day, after Olivia had left for school, I was on the computer downstairs, and Levi was upstairs playing in the toy room. It had gotten really quiet, so I went up stairs to see what he was up to, and found him almost really asleep laying on Olivia's bed with his blankie. He could probably do just fine in a big kid bed, but I'm worried what he would do with all that freedom in his room. He loves to empty drawers, and try all his clothes on (by putting his leg through a hole.)
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| Here he is trying on everyone's shoes in the mud room. One of his favorite things to do! |
Just today he decided he no longer wants to crawl or slide up and down the stairs. Going up he uses one hand on the wall to balance himself, and going down he carefully grasps the next railing down with each stair.
He definitely has his opinions about things, and isn't afraid to let his opinions be known. The other day I heard him in the pantry, so I peeked around the corner to see what he was getting into. He had found a box of Trix (a very rare treat to find on the cereal shelf) and was happily munching away. When he saw me, he just started shouting, "no!" and pointing for me to leave. He will also grab you by your clothes and try and drag you from where to you are, pleading "Come" if he wants someone to play with him. Often, he just wants me in the room to watch him play. The other day I was leaving the toy room when I heard him say, "Momma..." and I looked to see what he needed. He wasn't actually calling me, but rather he had all the little dolls in Olivia's doll house, and was having them talk to each other. I caught him telling "Buckas," the grandpa doll, to go take a bath, before dropping him in the doll bath tub.
We've started letting him participate in our ritual of family movie night on Friday nights. Now anytime it starts to get dark, he looks at us hopefully and says, "Watch movie night? Watch Ninjago?" pointing at the large wall where we project our movies. He's often disappointed when we don't turn something on, but so delighted, hopping all over the room proclaiming "Movie Night! Movie Night!" when it is movie night.
We just love having this terrific toddler around all the time - he brightens our day. It is so fun to watch him learn and grow, but a little part of my heart gets sad each time he moves on to the next stage. Sometimes I just want him to stay my baby forever.
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