Levi: Weeks 49 & 50 Summary

Another two-in-one post because I've been slacking a bit! It will summarize Levi's 49th and 50th week of wonderful life.

FEEDING
Last week (week 49), we started the weaning process! I can't believe the time is already here. I did a bit of research on weaning, because I didn't really know how it worked, and I decided to go with a more gradual process to make it a bit easier on both Levi and I. So basically, last week for his third feeding of the day, instead of nursing him I gave him a sippy cup of milk. Then a few days later, I replaced his second feeding of the day with a sippy of milk. That is where we are at now! Eventually, by the time he turns one, all of his four feedings will have been replaced with whole milk and my milk supply will have gradually decreased. There's no going back now!

As far as solids go, Levi has been a garbage disposal this week! Seriously, the dude can eat. He actually tried a lot of new foods in this time span, including:

Mandarin oranges (his new favorite!)
Pineapple slices
Bowtie pasta with marinara sauce
Teething biscuits (these have become his daily afternoon snack)
Scrambled eggs
Succotash (edamame, corn, and diced red peppers)
Blueberries and raspberries (he is NOT a fan!)

In the process of weaning him from milk, I've also worked on weaning him from purees as well. So these weeks, I only gave him 2 oz of a pureed veggie at lunch and dinner and then gave him finger foods afterwards until he was full! I'm not sure how realistic it is, but my hope is to have him eating all finger foods/table foods soon after he turns one.

SLEEP
Levi's sleep patterns have been awesome the past two weeks! He will occasionally wake a bit early from some of his naps, but nothing too crazy. His nighttime sleep has been excellent though! He has been able to sleep 12 hours straight since he was about 5 months old, but he has never been super consistent about it. There were always a few nights per week where he would wake at least once. But, for the last two weeks, he has slept through the night without waking at all! It's been bliss and I am so thankful for the extra rest.

MOTOR SKILLS
One major development in this time frame is Levi's ability to crawl on all fours! I realized that he seemed to have a lot more ease of learning when we were in his room, since it is carpeted. Literally, in about two days time, he had crawling down! He still has a bit of trouble on the wood floors--since they are a bit slick--but he has made so much progress. Brian and I laugh that he is almost one year old and finally crawling...he's advanced ;)

OUTINGS/EVENTS
Man, I've been reminded the past two weeks how rough winter is when you stay at home with a baby!  We haven't really done anything too eventful, simply because its a lot of work to get all bundled up for the cold weather! That's lame, I know. Here are some photos of my cute munchkin:

We did go play at the mall playground one day!

Grace.

On November 9, 2013, we discovered that babyMat #2 was expected to join our family next year. The entire week before, I had been hyper-emotional. Like crying over the stupidest, most petty things, emotional. I figured that was a bit odd, but didn't really think much of it. And as the week continued, I just continued to become more and more tired. Little did I know...

The day that we found out, Levi and I were heading to Frankfort, KY to attend a baby shower for one of my close friends from Florida. On the 1-hour drive home, I was exhausted. It was only 3 o'clock in the afternoon, yet I felt like I couldn't stay awake. As soon as I got home, I crashed on our bed for almost 2 hours. When I woke up, I just knew I needed to take a pregnancy test.

Positive! Whoa.

Brian was surprised, but overjoyed when I showed him. I was happy, but also had a lot of other emotions floating around in my head. The baby was due to arrive on my mom's birthday: July 14, 2014. That would put our two little ones 19-20 months apart. This excited me, but scared me all the same. As the days went on and I was able to talk to a few close friends, they encouraged me! I knew it would be hard those first few months, but what close friends Levi and his brother or sister would be! My apprehension turned into great anticipation as I thought about what this little guy or gal would add to our family.

Levi wasn't so thrilled when we
first told him about the new baby...

As the days went on, I grew more nauseous and more hungry! Simultaneously. I found it strange that I was feeling nauseous so early on--when I was pregnant with Levi, I didn't feel that way until at least 8 weeks. But I counted it a good sign! Our little babyMat was growing in there and taking everything out of mommy in order to do so! And maybe because I was so nauseous that meant it was a girl? Brian was hopeful--which was adorable to me!

I began daydreaming about baby names and about decorating a nursery for a sweet baby girl. I began thinking about how fun (albeit, crazy) it would be to have two little boys so close in age and I grew to love that idea too. Whatever the Lord blessed us with--boy or girl--we were excited for!

On November 21, I began to miscarry the little life we were so excited for. We had to schedule an emergency ultrasound that day to determine what was happening with the baby. The ultrasound wasn't able to determine that I was actually having a miscarriage, but my doctor was able to determine that the baby was measuring at 5.5 weeks along. According to my date calculations, the baby should have been 6.5 weeks along at that point. This either meant that my dates were off or that the baby had died and stopped growing the week before.

I knew in my heart that the latter option was true.

We went home, trying to stay hopeful, but preparing for the worst. Physically, my condition did continue to grow worse and my body began to reject the baby. It has been an extremely emotional few days, to say the least.

I don't write this to gain pity or for any condolences. I wanted to write about this experience for several reasons: to record my feelings, to reflect on all the details of this baby's brief life, and to make the realities of miscarriage known.

One thing that I have read that helps with the grief of miscarriage is naming the baby. Doing this gives the baby an identity and keeps with the idea that no matter how tiny the life, the baby will never be forgotten.

Brian and I have decided to name this baby Grace.

Grace taught us about the brevity of life. Here one minute and gone the next. She taught us about God's grace in giving us our next breath, our next minute, our next day. It's not something we deserve, yet He sustains each of our lives. And He also ends life in His time.

Baby Grace has shown me that I should never take one day with her brother Levi for granted. Because as quickly as she was gone, he could've been gone as well.

Grace reminded me of the blessing I have in her daddy. Oh, what a blessing he has been through this entire experience--taking over all the Levi duties, the household duties, and still working so hard to pay our bills. God has shown His grace to me by gifting me with my husband.

God's grace has been shown through our community group and close friends at Sojourn Community Church. They have provided meals, taken care of Levi everyday, and even just sat for hours and kept me company when Brian had to go to work. This has been such a gift so that I am able to rest and recover.

I'm sure in the coming days and years we will continue to learn from our losing of this sweet life. We may never understand why this has happened, but we certainly rest in the fact that God is in control of all things and we can have hope in His promises.

This post is a tribute to baby Grace. Never born, but never forgotten.

Levi: Week 47 & 48 Summary

What a two weeks this has been! Busy, busy, busy--and it's only going to get worse as we begin the holiday season. Levi has seriously become a little boy over the past two weeks! It's crazy how much he has grown and developed. Here's a summary of his 47th and 48th week, spanning the dates of October 26-November 8th.

FEEDING
Levi is still nursing! Hooray! He is doing really great and is a lot less distracted these days. He nurses 4 times per day for about 5 minutes. So its quick and easy these days! We will start the weaning process within the next week, which I look forward to but also have a twinge of sadness about. However, I do feel accomplished that we reached our goal of nursing for a full year.

Our big boy has an ever-growing appetite! He is still eating the same amounts of purees as normal, but I have been giving him finger foods after every meal now. Nothing that requires much work--just apple slices, pita with hummus, or whatever we are having for dinner. He is LOVING it and his fine motor skills have greatly improved in the past two weeks! My hope is that when he turns one, we will slowly stop purees altogether and move on to "big boy food". Now that I know he actually gets most of his finger foods in his mouth, I am much more comfortable with letting him feed himself. Plus, its much easier on me!

NAPS
For the most part, his naps are still the same. He had a bit of trouble toward the end of week 48 because he was a bit congested. He would fall asleep without a problem, but he would start stirring around the 45-60 minute mark and had trouble getting himself back to sleep. That usually only happened during his first nap of the day. Usually, if I remembered to give him his Benadryl before putting him down, he would do a bit better with getting through that sleep transition.

I am wondering when he'll drop to two naps? He seems to be a bit of a late bloomer in the sleep department--he's like me and requires a lot of sleep. So I'm not going to rush it! I like his third nap, because it helps me get dinner going in the late afternoon :)

NIGHTTIME
Now, I don't wanna jinx myself, but since moving into our new house Levi has slept super well at night. It might be a few factors combined--his room is farther from the road in this house, the morning sun doesn't shine directly through his windows anymore, his room is carpeted so it's a bit warmer. I don't know if any of these factors have played into it, but little man has slept through the night almost every night since we've moved in. He has woken around 6 AM on occasion, but I just feed him a bit and put him right back down and he usually will sleep until at least 7. Either way, I'm happy that he'll at least sleep from 7 PM to 6 AM consistently. It's been a long time comin'!

WAKE TIME
I haven't talked about this in a while, but not much has changed. Usually his first wake time is about 1.5 hours and every one from there on out is about 2 hours. Levi does super well playing independently and he officially loves any toy that lights up and makes noise (like any other kid)! Brian and I are so excited for his birthday and Christmas, so we can get him some fun new toys to play with.

MOTOR SKILLS
The last time I updated on Levi, he had had a wonder week. I'm always amazed once we actually get through the terrible-ness of those wonder weeks, the advancements that Levi makes in his skills. Here are new things Levi can do since that time:

• He now gets up on all fours consistently and will rock back and forth. He will still only scoot on his belly, but we can tell he is getting a bit more curious about crawling the "right way". 
• Levi will reach into his little "snacker" and pick up Puffs or Cheerios with his thumb and forefinger.
• He is becoming more adventurous and will often crawl from room to room.
• Levi has pulled up on his rocking chair one time, but because it wasn't stable, he fell and bumped his cheek. He hasn't done it since :(
• He is putting more and more syllables together, but still won't say anything but Da-da. (Funny story: he now screams "Da-da" when I change his clothes or his diaper. He hates being cold, so he'll just cry out for Brian, even if he's not home. Apparently, Levi thinks I'm torturing him.)
• Levi loves to try to stand now, if we help support him. He has even tried putting one foot in front of the other!

OUTINGS/EVENTS
Brian's mom and dad visited us during this time frame! It was so nice to see them, plus they really helped us a ton with our new house. We went to Cincinnati one day to get some house supplies from IKEA. Boy, I love that store. It was Levi's first time, and he wasn't particularly thrilled! He was already way tired by the time we got there and he was not entertained. That made for a quicker trip than we would've liked, but that's life with a kiddo!

This was the first day that Levi was back to "normal" in our new place!

His new room! I love it's coziness and brightness.

Just normal everyday stuff! He still adores the swings...and Thomas the Train.

Fall weather fun!

And Levi's new way to sit in a shopping cart! He likes to take everything in.

That's all for these two weeks! Pretty soon, I'll be updating on my one year old :(