Big Boy Bed!

Yesterday we went out and bought you a big boy bed.  It is super cute with your two favorites-a cat and a dog-on the headboard.  When I asked you if you wanted blue or white, you said very clearly "ummm, blue". and even said it again when I asked a second time.  (We had already picked blue, so it's a good thing you agreed!) My plan was to give you a very slow transition, thinking that you are still pretty young to move out of your crib and that you may like the safety of sleeping in your crib.  I was planning to do a few weeks of story time in your bed, followed by a few weeks of just naps, then slowly move to night time in the bed.  This all went out the window when we saw how excited you were about your new bed.  We didn't know how you would do but decided to let you try to sleep in it last night.  We knew that your crib was still right there if you decided you weren't ready.  We moved all of the questionable furniture out of your room and put a gate outside your door so that you couldn't escape.  We were prepared for a long night.  You did AWESOME!  You had a bit of a rough time settling down at first (but the past few nights have been rough for you either way), but once you fell asleep you were fine.  You didn't try to get out of bed a single time.  We think that you may have hit your head on the guard rail at one point, but that was about all of the excitement that happened.  You are still sleeping soundly in your big comfy bed and I am astounded that my sweet baby boy has gotten so mature.
One thing that your dad and I love about your new bed is that we can snuggle with you in there.  It is more comfortable now than the glider, and we liked being able to sit with you in your bed to read books, and lay down with you to help you settle down.

For my records...

You have been going through a really shy phase.  You get very overwhelmed when you are around other kids (you do fine with adults).  In the past two weeks I have seen you get much braver around other kids.  At our small group you used to sit on my lap the entire time and ask to go to the bathroom just to escape being around all of the kids.  Two weeks ago you briefly got off of my lap to grab toys and then promptly came back to sit with me.  This past week you played with the other kids the whole time!  Also at church you ran around and played happily with all of the other little kids with no concern about where Mom or Dad were.  I loved seeing you laugh and play with kids your age.

You went through a brief (though it seemed endless) stage of sleep troubles.  You did not want to be in your room by yourself, so any time that you woke up, we were up with you.  You had a lot of trouble falling asleep (it took hours on a lot of nights), and didn't sleep for very long.  You are finally coming out of that.  You had three nights where you didn't wake us at all even though we watched you put yourself back to sleep in the monitor.  Last night you did come into our room a couple of times, but I am hoping that that was just a fluke.  You go to sleep a lot easier too.  We sit in your room until you are asleep, but that only takes about 15 minutes instead of two hours. 

Your vocabulary is continuing to grow each day, and you love to learn new words.  Your annunciation has also gotten a lot better to the point where people other than me can understand you most of the time.

I would almost be so bold as to call you potty trained, and put you in underwear when we leave the house.  You stay dry almost all the time now, and even if you don't it is after you have told us that you had to go but we just couldn't find you a bathroom in time.  I am a bit nervous to make the switch to full time underwear, but I think that we will be there soon!

Model Material!

All of your dad's dreams of you becoming a model have come true.  You were asked by a family friend to be in a photo shoot for a Kidco safety gate.  You did so well the first day that they asked you to come back the following week when they would be photographing a different gate.  You cried a little bit during the photo shoot, but it was a lot of fun to watch all of the adults act crazy to get you to stop, and smile big.  They said that you did great, and that since you are so photogenic they only needed a couple of good shots of you to be able to have a final image.  You will definitely be on the box a baby gate come January, and in their catalog as well!  It seems like the easiest job ever since all you had to do was be held by some random woman for about 15 minutes while a bunch of adults made you laugh, then you got paid an exorbitant amount of money and got to eat Portillo's with Papa (2 weeks in a row!)  Another fun thing about this gig was that I actually took you in for a professional haircut.  During the haircut you got to sit in a chair shaped like a police car and watch Thomas-you were the happiest kid in town.

Here you are all dressed up and ready for your first day of modeling:

Spoon!

I just have to document that in the last few days Levi has mastered the art of feeding himself with a spoon.  He doesn't quite have the fork figured out yet-he always tries to spear his food with the handle.  But the spoon he has under control.  Yay Levi!

Catching Up

You have changed a lot since the last time I posted.  At almost 15 months old you are a walking, talking ball of energy.  It is nearly impossible to keep up with you these days.  You are still very verbal, and communicate your thoughts, feelings, and desires clearly.  You have started putting multiple words together in the past couple of weeks.  You will now say "Hi Joka" or "Mama please" among other short sentences.  You like to say "Hi" to every random person you see, so you are constantly winning the hearts of strangers.  You greet people that we pass on the street, people you see in a store, pretty much anyone.  Despite your love of talking to random people, you are shy.  You get overwhelmed, especially when you are around other kids.  We are having a hard time attending church because it is impossible to leave you in the nursery.  You will scream the entire hour and a half if they don't page us.  We are trying to ease you into staying there by staying with you for a while, but it is a very stressful situation each week.  We hate seeing you that upset, and feel like we miss the whole service anyways.  You love to watch other kids play as long as you have a safe distance between you and Mom or Dad by your side. When you are playing on your own, you love to walk over and cuddle for a minute.  I like your little check-ins, and they make your growing independence a little bit easier.  You love food and continue to surprise me with the many different foods that you are willing to eat.  A few weeks ago we went to a Lebanese restaurant and you could not get enough of the pickled beets that were set out as an appetizer.  You LOVE asparagus, and would eat an entire bunch in one sitting if we let you.  You have become less of a carnivore than you used to be, and turn your nose up at chicken most of the time.  I hope that your exposure to a variety of healthy foods will have a long lasting effect on your eating habits but only time will tell.  You are finally a wonderful, consistent sleeper.  You nap every day for 2-3 hours, and go to bed without much trouble and sleep until the same time every morning.  You are super flexible and really don't complain even on the rare occasion that we keep you up really late.  We are constantly grateful for your easy-going nature. 
Since the weather has gotten nicer you have gotten to spend more time exploring the outdoors.  We have gone hiking a few times, camping, and sometimes just sit in the grass.  You love to get your hands dirty.  You love sand, and dirt, and grass.  I like taking you for walks and watching you look around at all of the little details that I take for granted every day.  You love to watch cars drive by, and see birds and butterflies.  It is fun to see your brain working, and learning so many new things. 

First Steps

You took your first solo steps tonight!  There were only about three of them, and you refused to repeat the trick, so of course we have no video of this monumental milestone.  I am hoping that tomorrow you will pick up where you left off tonight and begin your career as an official toddler.  I will be ready with the video camera in hand whenever you decide to try walking again!

1 Year Old!

The first year of your life is complete, and it went by so much faster than I could have ever imagined.  We had such a fun year, and you learned, grew, and explored in so many ways.  At a year old you are 19 pounds, 11 ounces and 29 and 2/8 inches tall.  Tall and skinny just like your dad.  You still have only six teeth, but judging by the amount of drool that I have seen lately I would say that you are working on some more.  Dr M was very impressed with the number of words that you say consistently.  That number is currently 10, with those words being: Mama, Dada, Joka, Up, Milk, Water, All done, Please, Papa,and Potty.  Everyone you meet us still astounded by your calm, happy nature, and your easy smile.  You get overwhelmed when you are in a large group of people, especially other kids that you don't know.  This results in you staring intensely at your surroundings, and not really doing much else.  You can walk, but refuse to completely let go of whoever is holding your hand.  You will loosely hold my finger, and walk confidently, but if I try to let go, you sit down and crawl.  We have been having an unseasonably warm Spring, so we spend almost every day at the park, and you love feeling the wind on your face, exploring the grass, and watching people play sports.  I am excited for the summer because I know it will be a lot of fun to let you play at the beach at Sandy Pines, and run around with your cousins and friends.
We celebrated your birthday with a big party at Nana and Papa's house.  You are so popular that 40 people came to celebrate you!  You ate an ENTIRE cupcake (very neatly, and slowly), opened a lot of gifts, and got passed around so everyone could hug you and tell you "happy birthday!" .  You were calm, and content the whole day, despite the fact that you were up all night the previous night.  We are so grateful for our friends and family who love you so much, and love  to celebrate you!

Seattle Vacation

You had your first experience being on an airplane and spending an extended period of time with totally new people in a totally new place.  We went to Seattle to visit your Aunt Niffer and Uncle Oliver.  You did great on the plane on the way there.  You had a ton of fun making friends with all of the other passengers, and even got lucky enough to have your own seat on the plane!  One flight attendant thought you were having too much fun and shushed you a few times, but at least you were happy and not screaming!  We didn't land until almost midnight so you were up way too late, but maintained your happy-go-lucky attitude throughout the night.  You met a lot of new people and we were very well taken care of while we were there.  We got to stay with Niffer's parents, and they acted as your stand-in grandparents the whole time.  They pulled out all of their toys for you, babysat, and dealt with your hatred of night time with no complaints.
We got to see a lot of cool things while we were there.  We dragged you across the whole city multiple times, and you were a great sport napping in the car, and whenever else you could.  You kept a stuffed dog in the car with you at all times.  He reminded you of Joka and helped you to remember Joka throughout the trip.  We visited the aquarium where we tried to teach you to say "fish".  You got the "F" sound down, but the rest of the word got kind of lost amidst a bunch of spit bubbles that came out when you tried to say it.  You liked seeing the otters, and called them Joka since they were fluffy and playful. You also got to stick your hand in a splash pool filled with fish, saw on octopus, jellyfish, and sea lions. I think the aquarium was your favorite attraction by far!

We went to the Museum of Flight where we saw a lot of airplanes and visited the original Boeing plant.  We spent the most time in the World War II section looking at the planes there and learning the history.  We also got to tour an old Air Force One plane as well as a Concorde.  You were understandably not too excited about any of this stuff but your dad was!
We celebrated Fat Tuesday with a Mardi Gras party at Niffer and Oliver's  You ate Spicy mac and cheese which resulted in a bad stomach ache later.  You loved it while you were eating it though!  Niffer made you an early birthday cake since she won't be here for your real birthday.  You liked the part where everyone was looking at you and singing to you, but you did not like the part where you were supposed to eat the cake.  You got progressively angrier as we tried to encourage you to play with the frosting and put a little in your mouth.  You were screaming by the end of it.  I am not sure what is so scary about frosting.  I was worried that you didn't like chocolate, but we learned later when Daddy fed you lots of chocolate samples that that was not the issue.

We took a boat tour around the harbor and got to see a different view of the city as well as the mountains. It was a beautiful day and you liked looking out the windows of the boat.
We visited the Pacific Science Center and there was a ton of cool stuff there.  There was a room full of dinosaurs who you also labeled as "Joka".  You got to sit in a T-Rex footprint and touch robotic dinosaur skin (creepy).  There was also a splash pool which you loved, a butterfly exhibit, and an IMax that didn't scare you as much as I expected it to.  After that we walked over to the Space Needle and went up to the observation deck.  It was perfect timing because we got to see the view while the sun was just starting to go down, and then once it got dark we got to see it all lit up.  

On Friday we decided to have a more laid back day since we had been rushing around all week, so we just headed over to Pike Place Market, ate a bunch of stuff, and perused the shops.  Then we went out for Neapolitan style pizza which you thoroughly enjoyed.
We spent our last day at Experience Music Project which is a really fun place.  We looked at a few special exhibits: Avatar, Nirvana, and Battlestar Galactica.  You weren't especially excited about any of these exhibits but I think you will love EMP when you are older!

We tried to get you to eat the cake again with no success.

We had a great time and are excited to visit again in June when Aunt Niffer and Uncle Oliver have their baby!

10 Months Old/January

We started January off by going to visit the Miedemas in Grand Rapids.  You got to spend lots of quality time with your cousins, Jack and Caroline.  It was really fun, now that you are older, seeing you all play together.  You and Jack do a good job of playing together while Caroline is a great nurturer.  She would often stop playing to give one of you a hug or sing a quick song.  I love seeing you develop these relationships with your cousins.
When we got back from Michigan, you and I promptly came down with a horrible virus of some sort and spent about a week stuck in the house.
We also got to meet your second cousin Aidan, who is 6 weeks younger than you.  Though he is younger than you, he looks at at least as old as you, and is probably a little bigger. We went out for lunch and everyone thought you were twins.  Your Dad's Aunt Sharon and I have vowed to get you two together a lot more often so that you two can get to know eachother as you grow up.  Plus, Sharon and I will take any good excuse to hang out with eachother.
At just over ten months old you finally prefer to crawl than hold onto things and walk.  You have discovered that crawling is way more efficient for you.  This means that I have to wash the floors once a day to keep all the mud that Joka tracks in off your hands and out of your mouth.  You are a little more shy now and are more attached to me than you used to be.  You get nervous around people that you don't know or haven't seen in a while, and will often cry if they so much as talk to you.  This is funny to me because you started out as a very outgoing kid.  I'm sure you will go back to being outgoing once this phase passes, but your shyness definitely catches people off-guard now.  You still love music, and anything that can be turned into an instrument.  Your favorite toys are the ones that you can bang together to make a sound, or ones that play music for you.  You will often turn the music on on your exersaucer, crawl away and play until it turns off, and then go back and restart it. You like to dance along to music also, which is really fun to watch.  You are getting really good at making your words sound close to what you are trying to say.  It seems that your annunciation is improving.   Your newest word is Joka (said:Goka) which I think you learned from jack while we were in Michigan-he says it almost non-stop when Joka is around.  You crawl after Joka saying Go-ka, Go-ka, Go-ka.  You LOVE Joka so I think you are happy to be able to call him when you want to see him.