Growing, Learning, Loving Levi

Family

Jan 20

The last couple of weeks have been interesting and unusual in our house, but nothing dire. A round of the cold bug has hit us once again, with Levi getting it first last week, and Noah and I catching it from him. Jason was gone all last week for training in Edmonton, and has thus far escaped that particular virus, although he was laid low a bit over the weekend by some kind of stomach flu. He has recovered nicely, and Levi has all his former energy back, so I am hoping my own recovery isn't far behind so I can keep up with him again soon!

Sometimes, when raising children, you look at your child and realize that you have entered a new phase and hadn't really noticed the transition. The changes might be subtle, but they are there.

After a week of being the only parent home, Levi has bonded to me that much more, especially since there were several days where all he wanted to do was lay on me and sleep. Since he is such a "daddy's boy", it was nice to have him actually ask for me once or twice after Jason came home, as this has been pretty rare in the past. Also, he is starting to understand more and more--actually doing tasks that you ask him to do sometimes. Of course, he keeps testing the boundaries, too, just to make sure they are still there.

Levi has started to want to "help"--whether it is loading the wood box, or unloading the dishwasher, or running to put something in the garbage, he likes to transport things and be involved in the tasks of the household. Sometimes the help is less desirable--such as when he gets his goat's milk out of the fridge for you but accidentally spills something else that was sitting on the shelf beside it. :-) Oh, well. It's all part of the process.

Levi's current obsessions are: shoes--he constantly pulls out the rest of our shoes and boots and walks around in them, getting frustrated when he can't lift his oversized footwear over steps or his little ride-on truck toy; toques--he is always pulling out his two or three favourites and walking around the house with them perched crazily on top of his head, sometimes even trying to wear more than one at a time; his bellybutton (still!). He rarely has an idle moment where his finger isn't poking that little hole on his belly. I don't know what the fascination is, but it has become a running joke around here that he is "pumping the primer", or that it's his "go-button."

After nearly five months of having our days all to ourselves, I feel like I am finally just getting back into the groove of having only a toddler home all day. Seriously, I used to be much better at this. In my memory, I was totally organized and had all kinds of ideas for keeping the little guys occupied. However, I also remember being tired a lot. :-) Maybe the memory of organization was only on the days when I wasn't overcome with exhaustion, which has blurred out the disorder of the rest...

However, a combination of Levi learning to be more self-entertaining and less clingy, and me having better ideas of things for us to do together or him to do on his own, has made our days (the ones not plagued by illness-caused lethargy) much smoother. I am thankful.