brood

While I’m here, I thought I might post some things that are going on around here these days. It has been a while!

walking: Levi has walked 3 times now. Just a few steps each time, but he’s slowly working on it. It is so, so exciting to watch because he is so happy and excited.

talking: Wow. Levi is talking A LOT! He says the following (new words): ball (okay, so it isn’t new, but it is constant), food, shoes, GO, bye-bye (dye-dye), Ma, dog, bear, more, and he repeats just about anything he hears. I guess it is time to really start watching what we say!

signing: He is now using lots of sign language, too. He uses more, eat, milk, and maybe a few more we aren’t quite picking up on yet….like pointing at the door to go. Now that he is communicating some of the things he needs/wants, it is incredible. We’re working on ouch, drink, music, and some others.

Ma and Pa: The funniest thing in the world is that he calls Mark “ma” and I’m “mama”. Now, we can’t figure out if he’s saying Mark or if he just has two mamas. It makes us die laughing every single time.

Other things:

He’s obsessed with shoes. He likes to wear them now and put them on then take them off (hours of entertainment!).

He loves stairs. He crawls up and down, up and down, up and down. And he’s pretty darn good at it, if you ask me.

He is still in love with Pearl. He also adores the kitties and is learning to be gentle with them by practicing on Steve. Poor guy.

He has lots of good friends, which I want to post about separately.

He loves to eat on his own and is eating lots of grown-up food. His new favorite drink is grapefruit spritzer. He is always saying “more” and signing for it.

He’s a water baby! Just call him Levi “splash” James Haller.

He sleeps on a big-boy bed…his own futon and loves to stretch out.

He loves music, particularly listening to his “ma” play guitar. He always calms down when we sing to him.

That boy can dance! We all know who he got it from, right? Not me! He does a hilarious thing where he bangs his head to rock songs and does a one-shoulder lift to songs with more of a pronounced beat, like old-school rap.

It is hard to take him out to eat. He wants to be down, exploring, which is totally understandable. We’re going to have to start looking for restaurants that are specifically kid-friendly! Austin is pretty good, though. Picnics are good, too. Especially when the weather is cooler.

That’s about it for now!

Our sweet little son said his first full sentence today. See, our guy is a ball-a-holic. He can’t get enough of rolling, bouncing, or throwing. And, often, he uses other objects as balls and rolls, bounces, or throws them. Today, it was a book. I didn’t realize it, but I suppose I say “don’t throw it” a lot when it comes to objects that might hurt others. So, at our mama co-op playgroup, he was about to throw the book and I told him not to throw it and my wee-one repeated the entire sentence, then softly put the book down. Is there a genius in the house? Sorry.

I’ve been informed by an Haller home insider (aka Mama) that Levi just took 4 steps. He apparently was so excited by this activity that he laughed thoughout its execution. Mama, also excited – probably moreso – exclaimed upon completion “You did it!” To which, the 1 year old seemed to reply “did it!”

Two proud parents are we!