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.