Fill Us Up & Send Us Out: 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!