9 Months Old

At 9 months old you are really turning into quite the little man.  You are becoming so capable and so determined.  You remember where things are, and how to get the things that you like to play with.  You remember the things that are entertaining to you in each room of our house.  You love to play peek-a-boo with the shower curtain, or the curtain in your bedroom. (you do this when you stand up in your crib when you are really supposed to be sleeping).  You love to open and close drawers and cabinets, and push toys with wheels back and forth.  It is really cool to see how your brain is developing and connecting things together.  Physically you are getting so strong.  Your crawling is for real now-no more of that army crawl stuff.  And you are fast.  It is nearly impossible to keep up with you anymore!  Our 9-month photo shoot only lasted a few minutes because that was as long as I could get you to sit still.  This stage is really fun, and I love watching you learn new things every day.  

You are also starting to try to say a few words.  You definitely say "Mama" and "Dada" intentionally and you have started to say "papa" when you have to go potty.  Sorry Papa, it is nothing personal!

With this fun also comes some extra stress.  You get scared when we leave you alone in your room to sleep, and since you don't like to sit still you stand up in your crib.  You haven't quite figured out how to get back down in your crib after you stand up so we have to go in and help you down.  You stand there and say "Mama, Mama" until I come and help you.  And then of course last week you started boycotting sleep, so for the past 5 days it has been nearly impossible to get you to sleep at all during the day, and it takes hours at night.  I am hoping this passes quickly.  Despite your lack of sleep you are an absolute joy when you are awake, which is a miracle.

Everyone you meet is still totally charmed by you. My favorite example lately is when we were eating dinner at smoke and the two thirteen year olds next to us said "you have the cutest baby ever".  They loved watching you eat your food and slam your hands on the table because you couldn't get enough.  They were happy that you never screamed or cried the whole time we were there.  

I do have real 9 month photos of you, but I don't have time to get them up so here are some substitutes for now: 

Separation Anxiety

While I love the fact that Levi loves Tim and I so much that he hates being away from us, I think separation anxiety may be the death of me. This kid will not sleep.  He won't nap unless he is so exhausted that he literally crashes, and no longer has any concern for what is going on around him, and it takes hours to get him to fall asleep at night.  We just got over the hurdle of night feedings, so now I am wary of creating any other bad habits while trying to solve this problem.  I feel like we have tried everything, so I hope this passes on it's own very quickly!  I feel bad for Levi because I know that he is not getting the sleep that he needs, and I feel bad for Tim and I because it is really frustrating and exhausting for us as well.
In light of all this complaining, Levi is happy and healthy so really, life aint so bad!

Sleep, glorious sleep!

I am a a little hesitant to put this in writing for fear that I may jinx it, but here goes...Levi is no longer eating in the middle of the night!  For the longest time he would wake up between 3am and 4am to eat.  Since our doctor was concerned about his weight for a while I did not want to cut any feedings. Since his last appointment though, he got a thumbs-up for weight and she said to go ahead and try to night-wean him.  Technically I have not cut out any feedings, I have just started giving him a dream-feed before I go to bed instead of waiting for him to wake up a few hours later and ask for it.  It was a long and exhausting road to breaking this habit, but it was so worth it!  For about a week when he would wake up we would go in and comfort him, or offer him water, but he would still be awake for an hour and a half each time.  Then one glorious night, he slept.  He slept all night.  And he did it again the next night, and the night after that.  I think that now, with the exception of growth spurts and illnesses, I will finally be getting full nights of sleep!  Let's just hope that writing this down didn't ruin everything...

First "Emergency"

This past Saturday we experienced our first Levi "emergency".  It wasn't actually an emergency, but it seemed like it at the time.  We had spent the day at Tim's parents' house babysitting Sydney.  While we were there we played with their cat.  Thinking nothing of it, we went on with our day, went out for dinner, and headed back to the city.  When we were about halfway home Levi woke up in his car seat and started screaming.  Now, keep in mind that this kid hates the car, so this was really  nothing out of the ordinary.  After a little bit of this we decided to pull off and see if he needed to go to the bathroom.  Tim takes him into the oasis and discovers that Levi's eye is completely swollen.  It was hot to the touch and seemed to hurt when we touched it.  We called the doctor and she said to take him to the ER since it was probably an allergic reaction.  By the time we got the the ER the swelling had gone down significantly, he had no fever, and seemed to be in good spirits (despite the fact that it was about 3 hours past his bedtime).  The only conclusion that we could all come to was that he may have a slight allergy to cats.  This is also based on the fact that he has developed a rash after being around cats once before.  He saw his doctor for a follow-up today and she too thinks that it sounds like a cat allergy.  She says that when he is older we can decide if we want to actually do tests to determine the allergy, but for now to just try to keep him away from cats.  We are just glad that he is not allergic to dogs!

Lunch Time Fun

Levi seemed to be having an exceptionally good time today while eating his squash and lentil soup.  Not sure why but he kept laughing hysterically, it was pretty fun!