Levi has gotten very good at rolling from his back to his tummy now. He can do it pretty quickly if he wants to but he still hasn't figured out how to roll back which means that once he starts getting tired of being on his tummy he just complains until someone rescues him. Haha. He has gotten very good at pushing his chest up while he's on his tummy though and pivoting to try to get to toys. He is also very into screeching lately and experimenting with his voice- usually at an exceptionally high pitch. He squeals when he's happy and he shrieks when he's mad. I get very excited when he finds a different octave and decides to coo instead! Just this week he has started to really get the whole prop sitting thing and can hold it for a good 10-20 seconds or so before slowly folding in half or tipping to the side. He LOVES to stand and wants to do it all the time. He is fascinated by food and if Eric or I am eating something he tries his best to grab it and put it in his mouth instead. I can't eat while nursing him anymore because he will unlatch and stare and me and then try to put his hands in my mouth. In general he is a very distracted nurser these days and will frequently stop eating to look around, especially if he hears Eric nearby. I wear a nursing necklace and have found that that helps a lot to keep him focused and his little hands busy. If I don't wear it he is constantly waving his arm around, grabbing at my hair, my clothes and my face. He also kicks sometimes while nursing. Basically he is just never still unless he is really asleep.
Levi loves his feet. He likes to grab them with both hands and try to put them in his mouth. He pulls socks off to try to eat those also. He loves to chew on things, especially his fingers, and he is always slobbery although we haven't felt any teeth coming in yet (thank goodness!).
Levi really likes to be outside and to be around other people to watch, although he really hates it when the sun gets in his eyes. Thanks to the family FHEs we have started doing a couple weeks ago, we have learned that Levi likes to fingerpaint (with the paper and paint inside a ziplock bag taped to the floor) but is underwhelmed by bubbles. He is generous with his smiles but chuckles only very occasionally- usually when being smothered with kisses.
We are still working on figuring out sleep. We don't swaddle Levi anymore because he can roll. Instead, he sleeps in a zipadee-zip (we affectionately call it his "zippy"). It makes him look like a little starfish and it's adorable. And it keeps him from scratching himself in the night, which is especially helpful as he is falling asleep because he is obsessed with rubbing his eyes when he is tired and as he is falling asleep. He still struggles to sleep at night although naps are getting a little better. He usually takes three one hour naps a day: one in the morning around 9, a mid-day nap around 12 or 1 and an afternoon nap any time between 3 and 5. He sometimes fights going down for naps but if I catch him in the right sleepiness window before he gets too tired, its usually not too hard to get him down during the day.
We start putting Levi to bed at night around 8pm. I nurse him to sleep at night and he usually goes to sleep really easily and if we are lucky he will stay asleep until around 12:30 or so when he wakes up to eat. The last couple weeks though he has been waking up around 10 and fussing until one of us gives him back his binky which helps him fall back asleep right away. After that 12:30 feeding, he is still distinctly lacking in a schedule and unfortunately he has been waking up A LOT lately. I usually end up feeding him again sometime around 4 am but he is up a couple other times besides that when he just needs his binky back to fall asleep again. He is an adorable little side-sleeper. Even if we lay him on his back, he immediately rolls on his side to sleep. Levi pretty consistently wakes up for the day around 7 am. When Eric and I are especially tired (ok most of the time) I just change his diaper and then bring him into our room and lay him on his play mat by our mirrors and he is generally content to talk to himself in the mirror and play with his toys for a little while.
I am definitely looking forward to when Levi starts sleeping better. I try to establish good sleep habits with him but it's hard. We have a distinct bedtime routine and I keep him in the dark during the night (thank you blackout curtains!) and light during the day for naps. I am just hoping he will learn how to self-soothe a little more so that when he wakes at night he doesn't need us to help him go back to sleep as much. Someday it will happen right? I find myself wishing I had read Bringing Up Bebe when I was pregnant so I could have started practicing "the pause" earlier. But oh well, I'm sure we will work it out eventually and in the meantime, I actually function quite well on fragmented sleep. :)
So yeah, that's a little update on Mr. Levi. He is very expressive, very opinionated, curious about the world and I just love him so much. Since Eric was home yesterday, he helped me snap these pictures of Levi and I love them! I love how they catch at least a bit of his personality.
