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.
