Mommy Moments

I used to blog. And before that I would tap late into the night on my keyboard about anything and everything. And before that I would ramble page after page in my diary. And now when I have all of the most wonderful  things to relate and remember.... I am pathetic.

There have been many special moments with Levi in the past few months that I have neglected to record. He is growing and changing constantly. Three months ago I wouldn't have thought he could become even more fun, and yet, now he is.

In the past I would have a problem with trying to relate one moment without catching up on all the happenings of the months in between. Not anymore. I have to share the the sweet occurrence of this evening while it is fresh in my mind and heart.

When Levi was getting ready to go to sleep we were rocking and I was singing to him, as I do every night. His head was laying on my shoulder and he lifted it up to give me a smile and plant a perfect, puckered kiss right on my lips before moving his head to my other shoulder. After resting it there for two seconds he lifted his head up to give me yet another sweet kiss and then lay it back down. My heart felt so full of joy at his spontaneous burst of affection. 

Those are the moments that I live for now. Life is wonderful and busy and full....but in the midst of it all I am blessed so abundantly by those special seconds I have with Levi. They bring joy to every aspect of my life, and I am just so thankful that God has blessed me with my amazing boy.

My 11 Month Old

This time last year I was counting down the final weeks for the arrival of my boy. So hard to believe that now I am counting down the weeks to his first birthday. 11 months old.

Levi's current stats are as follows: He weighs 18.7 pounds, and is 29 inches long. He has six teeth and the seventh coming through now. He has the cutest little toothy smile these days. He has been doing the most adorable squinty eyed grin when he gets excited. I have yet to get a good picture of it. But it is just the cutest thing in the world. He is not walking yet. We thought he would be. He has the balance and the strength, but not the desire. He will just stand there balancing for over a minute, looking around and wondering what he should do. And then if he sees something that he wants, he will slowly lower himself to the ground, and crawl as fast as he can till he reaches his goal. He has been rambling lots of different sounds now. Dadadada, Bababa, occasionally I will here the mmmm sound. Yesterday he was repeating his dad when Cory was saying, "dada". It was very cute and it made Cory pretty happy.

He loves climbing up the stairs. Whether we are at home or at my parents house. He starts climbing but because he knows that somebody will always be right there, after a few steps he will turn around to give a big smile to whoever is watching him. Then he will go a few more and do the same thing. It is as if he is proud of what he is doing. In the last week he has taught himself to go down the stairs backwards. I am so impressed by him. I never worked on it with him. But I was just watching him on the stairs the other day and I could just see his little mind working as he tried to inch his foot over the edge. It took him a long time, and he was just thinking the whole time. But he did it. Since then he practices all the time and then looks up to find me and receive his praise. What a proud little face he wears.

He is so good at playing on his own. At the gym these days I can stick him in the kid's room and he will just play with the toys and walk around the furniture and look through the books. He loves reading. I love to watch him through the window, thoughtful and busy. So cute.

Since we are just getting over yet another cold/teething battle, we have been having some wonderful rocking moments in the night. I just pick him up and rock and cuddle him for a few minutes while he calms down before sticking him back in his bed. But sometimes I just love to sit there and hold my cuddly boy. He just doesn't sit and snuggle like that very often anymore so I have a hard time pulling myself away... even when it is 2:00. Don't get me wrong, I will be glad when we are back to consistently sleeping through the night. But because those late night moments are not all the time, I am able to love them and cherish them.

He has developed such personality. It is so fun to watch. He dances and laughs and plays and interacts so much. He makes the every day fun.

I never knew Levi could get cuter than the first moment I saw him. And yet, his cuteness is astounding. I never new I could love this little boy more and more with each day. And yet, I am astounded by that as well. His little smile, his little laugh, just makes my day.

10 Months Old

Life is so hard sometimes. And so wonderful. I wonder how those who are less happy, less fortunate, and less blessed than me cope with all of the little pains that arise constantly. My life is amazing. I am a truly blessed woman. I have a wonderful husband and the most amazing little boy in the world. I am so happy. It is in my happiness that I feel the little twinge of pain; the awareness of time passing and things changing so quickly.

Levi is now 10 months old. Two months away from being a year. I could cry at the thought. Literally, I did, last night when I was staring at him in his crib, sound asleep with the face of an angel. I had that wonderful, horrible song playing in my head as I watched him, “I count it as a privilege, I count it cause for praise, to kiss my children goodnight at the close of every day. For I know too soon they’re up and gone, and walking out the door. And I will never have a child to kiss goodnight anymore.” Oh man, I am crying again. I have become such a strange person. But I know how true that song is because I feel like it was just yesterday that we brought my little 8 lbs. 10 oz. bundle of joy home from the hospital. And I have loved every day, every moment that I have had with him.

My little prince is still weighing in a little over 18 pounds and 29 inches long. He cut four teeth in the last month. It has just been in the last few days that you can really see all four teeth when he smiles. So now his smile changed so much. It is because of those teeth that he had his first fat lip yesterday. After he fell I help him close and he got blood all over my shirt. It was just so sad. His little lip looks even fuller than usual now and it still has a little split down the middle.

He is really cruising with his little walker these days, which is what he was doing when he fell. It is so fun to bring it to the gym. I love watching him go all the way across with a big smile on his face, until he hits the wall and then he just looks at me, letting me know he needs help. So I turn him around and he keeps right on going. So much fun.

His new trick is playing peek-a-boo. He crawls over to any of our curtains in the house and hides behind them until I say, “Where is Levi?” and then he pops his face out to receive my excitement and smiles. Sometimes he gets caught in the curtains and has a hard time finding his way out. Or he peeks his head out only to find that he is facing the wrong way. Either way, the whole process is adorable and I find myself laughing at him and with him, and getting down on the floor just so I can get my arms around his cute little self.

He is still not a big talker. He is starting to ramble a little bit more while he is playing, and it is cute to listen to.  He gets so excited when I start singing and clapping he stops whatever he is doing and looks at me, waves his arms and claps while his whole body bobs up down. It is adorable. He does the same thing whenever he sees my dad. Oh he just loves his papa.

It is so fun having him at the gym with me. He wasn’t there for a few of my classes in a row last week and a few of my regulars asked about him. I said he was on an adventure with his grandma and they said, “He was on an adventure on Monday too!” I heard another one of my members say to him, “You are going to help me lose weight, because I want to come every day just to see you”. They like it when I “turn him lose” during bums and tums. He just crawls around and finds his treasure and smiles at everyone and climbs on me. Makes my days at work so much fun.

The other night when I was giving him his late night feeding he was half asleep and laying on the bed nursing in the dark. He suddenly got up onto his hands and knees and just started trying to crawl. His eyes were half shut and he had the biggest, most adorable sleepy smile on his face. I wish I could have those moments videoed. They are just precious.

Well those are a very few of my wonderful moments with Levi. I am so grateful for each one. I just wish that time would slow down so I could make sure I am sucking the marrow out of this amazing season where Levi and I are the best of pals.

 

Best Nine Months of My Life

I find myself throughout the day saying over and over, “thank you Jesus. I am just so thankful you gave me Levi.” I mean, overflowing with a truly thankful heart that He blessed me with this most precious of gifts.

Levi turned nine months old this week. Best nine months of my life. All of my grand ambitions of frequent ramblings about my baby have merely become a monthly check in of what he is doing and how he is growing. It works well enough for me as long as I jot down those things that really matter – like the face Levi has been making these days when he purses his lips. Or the deep growl-like voice that he uses these days. Or how excited he gets when I get down on the floor and start crawling toward him as fast as I can. Oh man – that baby is just every bit amazing.

Well January came and we had all sorts of bad rocking, cuddling, crying, sleeping habits to break. It was a feat, but babies are just so smart. I have been teaching him, and he is understanding. We moved him into his own room and started a bedtime routine. We nurse and eat and get jammies on and then we rock and read the same two books while smelling the same essential oil. Then we rock a little longer and I say Psalm 23 to him and just kiss and cuddle. Finally, I cradle him in my arms and sing the same song as we walk to the crib. I lay him in there, kiss him, pray for him and then leave him to go to sleep. My sweet boy learned so quickly what was happening. At first he would fight it, but it did not take long for him to look at me as if he knew, roll over and go to sleep. What a reward for a mom.

Anywho, we had our first big teething battle this week. It was rough. And to top it all off, shortly before I went to bed my mom was talking to me about how God gave such grace to moms so that they don’t notice their exhaustion in the night when their babies need them. I agreed with her. But alas, when Levi was inconsolable for four hours that night, I did not feel that way. I felt frustrated and, dare I say, irritated at my little angel. How ridiculous. I even had a moment where I joined right in with his wails. But finally, at 3:35, when he fell asleep, and I looked at his amazing little sleeping face, I felt such sadness that I could ever feel frustrated with that incredible little baby who only wanted me to comfort him and wondered why I couldn’t soothe his pain. Now that is a hard one to swallow. I was so grateful for the chance to snuggle up next to him and sleep for three hours with my arms around him. And the next day, he didn’t remember the pain or the fact that I was useless to help him. He only saw that I was there and felt that I loved him.

Anyway, now for my nine month old’s current tricks. He is a little over 18 pounds and about 27 or 27.5 inches long. I think he will be getting his bottom two teeth in shortly. Those are the ones we have been battling with this week. He has been pulling himself up on everything for nearly two months now. And for a while he has been walking along the coffee table. He will go back and forth between furniture pieces and three times when I have been there he has let go and balanced for a few seconds before falling on his bottom. We got an awesome walker a few weeks ago and he loves that thing. He holds on and walks all over the house with the proudest smile on his face. When he runs into something I just go and adjust him and he keeps right on going. It is so cute. He still is not saying any words that I can understand, although Cory said that he said “da” the other day. I believe it, he loves his daddy. He is just so busy all the time. He is really good at entertaining himself. He crawls around and finds treasures to put in his mouth. He makes the cutest little excited noises when he finds something of interest. He will go from one piece of furniture to another just pulling himself up and letting himself down. It is wonderful watching him learn and explore.

On re-perusing these paragraphs one would never have guessed that there was a time when I wanted to be a writer...and times still I dream of it in my heart of hearts. Oh well...when I read this later my purpose will have been accomplished. I will be able to remember some of the moments that I, sadly, know will fade. And any bored reader who happens upon this page will clearly feel how much I love my boy.

8 Whole Months

8 months since the painful and wonderful day that I brought my little angel into the world. Once more, I cannot believe how the time has flown. Cory and I were always happy. We have been blessed with a wonderful life. And yet, at the moment I wonder at a life without Levi. He makes me smile every day. The kind of smile that I can feel coming straight from my hear and shining out of my own eyes as I watch him. He is learning and progressing every day.  What a busy little boy he has become. All of his little accomplishments make him so proud. He has been reaching for people for awhile now. But in the last week he has really grown attached to his dad and reaches for him all the time. Cory loves it. He has been crawling like a champ for almost a month now. If I put him in the living room and go into the kitchen it is usually a matter of a few moments that I can hear his little grunts coming down the hall. When I peak my head around so he can see me, he stops wherever he is and puts up one hand, signifying that he wants me to picks him up. I tell him to, "come get mama" and he keeps trudging along for a few more feet before he puts his hand up again. So precious. He has been pulling himself up on everything for the last two weeks. Today when he was standing against a box in his room he moved his hands to rest against his dresser and one little foot followed before he balanced and then collapsed on the floor. I just love to sit and watch him. It is as if I can see the wheels spinning in his mind as he tries to figure out how to accomplish his goal.

And so we are tackling yet another year. The best year of my life so far, I really have no doubt. As I was writing my long list of goals and pages of things I am going to accomplish this year and on a daily basis I stopped a second and looked at my little baby. There are about twenty things on my list that I want to make sure I get in every day. But when I looked at my list it said nothing about enjoying the precious moments I have with my boy. Which Is ridiculous because every moment is different from the last. Every day we can create a new memory based on the new things he is doing. And so I have another goal for each day. I am going to get down on the floor and enjoy my baby. He loves it when I get on the floor. Wherever he is he starts crawling to me as fast as he can with the biggest smile. Today we are playing peek a boo. He thought it was so funny. Oh man, to be as cool in real life as Levi thinks I am.

Motherhood has turned me into such a strange person. I understand now how, after six children, my dad will cry at the drop of a hat. I am sure I am on track to be exactly the same way. I want to cry every time I think of the early days when Levi would just lay in my arms. The first moment he looked at me as he was laying on my chest. The first time he smiled at me. The way he looked when he used to suck his thumb. How easy it was to have sleepy cuddle days in bed because he was not quite so motivated to touch everything... Even the best things in life unfold with a little bit of pain.

I better stop my ramblings before I break down and end up spending the rest of my night watching videos of when Levi was first born. Really.... a bit ridiculous.