Living the Country Life: Levi

Wow, I really have been slacking off on getting this post done. The awful weather that drug on and on just made me want to do absolutely nothing. It's amazing what 2 days of warm weather & some sunshine will do for the mental well being of everyone. Levi has done so much growing up even since his birthday over a month ago.

To start with, I took the boys to get their 2/4 year pics done (Pictures on this post from K. Mills). Levi was such a ham the entire time. Charlie was not as cooperative so whenever he wouldn't listen, Levi would bust over and do exactly what we were trying to get Charlie to do. She mentioned 2 year olds are the worst but he was in a great mood & really put on a show. Eventually we did get some good ones of Charlie but most of them he is hunched over & just not trying very hard at all.

So Levi....let's just say a lot of times we feel like first timers over here with our sweet little 2 year old. Of course Charlie had his moments at the age of 2, but really he was a breeze 98% of the time and I thought that people who talked about "terrible 2's" were exaggerating a bit. HAHAHAHAHA. LOL...I think Levi is the definition of 2. He is stubborn & irrational. He wants things to be done a very specific way and if not done to his standards he will redo it himself. Ok, so Charlie has always been like that too, but Levi is much more dramatic about the whole thing. Levi was born days after Charlie turned 2 & he was easily occupied with things like toys or tv for more than 2 minutes at a time. If give 2 minutes of unsupervised time, Levi will destroy things. He has no interest in TV, only in getting into things he shouldn't. We put his beloved stool up but that doesn't seem to stop him, he'll just drag chairs, baskets, boxes, or whatever will work as a temporary stool to get what he wants. As Charlie would say, "LEVI IS JUST SO CURIOUS!"

He has more than his fair share of meltdowns daily & I think his worst time of day is supper time. He just can not stand to wait more than 30 seconds for food when we come home. And most nights he will have a holy fit over whatever I make saying "ME DON'T WANT THAT" with the biggest tears ever. Ten seconds later he'll sit down and plow through it all.

He is still a pretty picky eater. His favorites are all fruits, yogurt, toasts, roll ups, noodles & pizza. He refuses vegetables almost all of the time & gets pretty mad if you try to mix vegetables into his food. He will either sort it out before putting it in the trap or sort it in his mouth and spit out what he doesn't like. Annoying for sure. Green beans and corn are ok sometimes but other than that....no vegetables. Anything on mom & dad's plate is also considered Levi's.

Of course it's not all bad. He is really sweet when he's not losing his mind and so far, he only loses his mind when we're in the comfort of our own house. Levi is much more cuddly than Charlie ever was and loves to sit on my lap & will give hugs & kisses to everyone. I think his vocabulary is very impressive, he speaks in full sentences & repeats everything. My favorite things he says right now are "Be nice, mama", "my stay up" and "uff-ta". He loves routine just like his big brother and we like it too!

He's a smart little cookie. He's getting pretty good at his abc's. This video is from mid-March and he's gotten quite a few more down since then. Counting he's got 1-2-3 & 8-9-10, those middle numbers will come eventually.

He loves, loves, loves being outside. He's a big fan of Patty & sometimes Daisy but he just loves being outside playing. He loves the cows & helping in the barn. He always announces "Me help Anya (Ryan), ChaCha help bumpa." His favorite thing is feeding the babies, he loves carrying the bottles around. He also loves mixing feed for the calves, riding in the skidloader, riding in the tractor & "helping" bed the cows and riding on the straw cart. He's quite the little helper and doesn't let anyone take a break. He gets so excited when Haiden comes out too...those 2 are going to drive Charlie crazy I think! Back at home, he also loves going over to nancy's to see the chickens & seeing if there are any eggs.

This winter we have been sort of attending ECFE. We go every other week to a mixed age group while Charlie is in school. Levi loves the singing (& the snacks) but he will not separate. Right now I'm not pushing it since it's only every other week but it's kind of surprising since he doesn't have any separation anxiety any other time. He loves going to Cheri's and does very well there. Rarely has a meltdown & shares well with the kids. Depending on who she all has there, sometimes she lets him take a nap on the floor with the bigger kids. He tells me every day "me night night on mat!" with the biggest grin. Then Charlie will say "NO, you slept in the porta-crib" and then they will argue about it the whole way home. I think he says it more to just get a rise out of Charlie than anything. haha.

I would say that in the past month we have also started what I would call "recreational" potty training. Often times his diaper will be dry when I change him & if it is, he will sit on the potty and go pretty much every time. I'm pretty confident that if we buckled down and spent a few days really working on it he would pick it up. But, I'm not in a hurry right now & am happy with his 1-2 success a day.

He also moved out of his crib after a random night of being mad. Brother knows what he wants & then goes with it (just like Charlie, which makes me convinced potty training won't be too bad once we commit to it). After successfully sleeping on the floor in Charlie's room on his crib mattress for a week, he decided he wanted to go back to his own room. So now he's sleeping in his room on the mattress on the floor. We don't care, as long as we're all sleeping! He's going to bed around 7:15-7:30, usually sleeps until 7-7:30 am and then takes around 1.5-2 hour nap in the early afternoon. We still read a ton of books & sing songs. He loves when Charlie reads to him too. They read "Moo, Baa, Lalala" and on the last page it says "it's quiet now, what do you say?" and Levi always says "PLEASE!" He loves singing choo-choo from ECFE, abc's and baa, baa black sheep, twinkle twinkle & away in a manger.

Stat wise he was 30lbs & 35" at his 2 year appointment. That makes him the same height Charlie was at 2 but a couple of pounds smaller. He's wearing 24month or 2T clothes. He got a shot at his appointment and only cried a little. of course Charlie was telling him the whole time that he was going to have to get as shot and it was going to "hurt really bad." He also had to do a lead test & that didn't phase him at all. Hard to believe he can go through a finger prick and squeezing out the blood with no tears but tell him he can't play with a scissors and he will lose it :)

Sweet Levi - so much spunk in one little guy. It's so hard to capture all of his quirks & personality into one post so I'll just say he's so happy when he's happy and so mad when he's mad :)