Before Christmas Levi was showing some interest in the potty and he used it a couple of times successfully so we thought potty training would be a breeze. Just about everybody told us we were crazy for potty training so early – even though we weren’t doing much except allowing him to use it and putting him on after naps etc. for a few minutes so we got kind of lazy about it. But then, when we started to think about training for real we got a little worried that we missed our window because he has NOT been interested in anything to do with the potty.
Last weekend we took things a little more seriously. He was in big boy underwear all day everyday (except naps) from Friday morning to Monday night. I cleaned up SO many messes. Potty training and carpet do not mix. I started setting a timer, and he had to sit on the potty for at least 2 minutes every 15 minutes. Do you know how fast 15 minutes go by? It was completely exhausting. And it wasn’t successful at all! The timer would go off after 15 minutes, he’d sit on the potty while I entertained him with songs, puzzles, toys in water, books, games, TV, computer games, anything really. Then he’d get up off the potty and pee on the floor within 2-5 minutes. Often (if it happened to be on the linoleum) he’d laugh and jump in the pee like it was a mud puddle, all the while saying “look mommy! pee!” I figured we were in big trouble.
Then on Monday he seemed to get it. He tried really hard to get to the potty, and though the pee usually ended up on the floor, he actually seemed to try and I think he actually was successful once on Monday. That was enough to encourage me to keep going. So every day I picked him up from daycare, we came straight home and changed him into underwear. He didn’t haven an accident all week, but he didn’t pee on the potty either. He just stayed dry until bedtime and his diaper went on. I figured that was better than accidents though!
This weekend I had to give myself pep talks to do the whole 15 minute thing again. But we haven’t set the timer once! And we’ve only had ONE accident. I don’t know what happened, but he totally gets it. He’ll be playing and suddenly shout “PEE!!” He runs over, sits down, promptly pees, stands up and says “look daddy!” Then he runs into the kitchen and demands “Jell-o please” (He gets a little jelly straw when he pees), then runs back, picks up the potty, runs to the toilet, dumps it, flushes and waves bye bye, then goes back to playing. It happens every single time. I’m completely shocked and so incredibly happy. We’re not there yet though. He’s waiting until his diaper goes on for nap time before he poops, and for some crazy reason he HATES pulling down his underwear. Consequently, he sits on the potty underwear and all and just pees through it so it has to be changed every time. We think we’ll attempt that tomorrow.
Last night we went to the far NW corner of the city for dinner with friends. On the way I wanted to stop and look at a dining room table that I’d found on Kijiji. I was almost certain I was going to buy it so we took two vehicles so it could go in mine while Dillan and Levi could go in his car. Unfortunately I didn’t buy the table so we were 45 minutes from home with two vehicles! On the way home, Dillan passed me and I pointed out his car to Levi which he found quite funny. ”Hi daddy! Hi! Daddy fast!” I agreed that daddy was fast and told him to keep watching daddy. A minute of two later as Dillan was getting further away, Levi started to get a bit excited. ”Mommy! Fast. Mommy! Go fast! Catch Daddy!” Then he put up his two hands and started jumping them forward as though chasing somebody while making growling sounds. Then he snatched his hands back with a big growl and said “Catch!” (It’s hard to describe in words…just imagine him trying to tackle somebody while constrained in his carseat). He got quite worked up demanding that I go fast so he could catch daddy. After a while (when Dillan was out of site) he said ”Where daddy go?”When we got home and Dillan’s car was in the garage he let out a big sigh “We’re hoooommme! Daddy home! Catch daddy.”
I’ve been working on Levi’s “big boy” quilt for a while now. It’s hard to find the time these days, so I find I’m neglecting the rest of the house and locking myself in my sewing room for every minute of his naps on Mondays and Fridays. One day he got up from his nap too early for my liking, so I allowed him into my room for a few minutes and told him that mommy just needed 5 minutes to finish something. Of course he wreaked havoc within seconds so I grabbed one of the quilt squares with a red and blue tow truck on it and said “Here Levi, this truck is for you. You need to take care of it.” Well! He carried that little 8″x8″ piece of fabric with him everywhere for the rest of the day. It was so cute. The next morning he was jabbering away about something, scrambled to the top of the stairs, rustled around and came back downstairs triumphantly holding the tow truck again. A few days later, Dillan took him upstairs for something and came back down on his own. Levi is usually right behind Dillan, especially if Dillan is on a different floor than him (he’s still a real daddy’s boy), but this time he stayed upstairs for a few minutes. Next thing we knew, he was standing at the top of the stairs yelling and throwing a HUGE fit. Dillan said “I don’t know what’s got into him, but he is MAD about something in your sewing room.” I ran upstairs to see him pointing indignantly at HIS tow truck which I’d had the nerve to sew into the quilt with other pieces of fabric. When he saw me, he pointed at the truck and said “Levi truck! No mommy truck! Levi truck. Mine. NO MOMMY!” Dillan gave him the whole strip of pieces that was now sewn with his truck and told him he could now take care of all the cars and trucks. This made him feel quite smug and he carried around the strip the rest of the day. He’s now getting used to seeing “his” truck in the quilt and lets it stay in my sewing room, but he still makes a point of searching the whole quilt top until he finds it and letting me know that it’s “Levi’s truck. No mommy truck.” I can’t help but feel pleased that he’s taking to his quilt.
If anybody had any doubt about my coffee addiction…
Over Christmas one morning I was sitting on the couch with my coffee watching Levi play. He came running over to me, peered over the edge of my cup and said “nope”. Then he went back to playing. It’s then that I discovered how well he knows my routine. I sit on the couch with my coffee every day and won’t play with him until I’m done…but I had no idea he had figured out the relationship to coffee and play time! Now he often comes and looks in my coffee cup. If it’s gone he says “Mama, come. Play.”
One of his most clear words is “coffee” (by far his most clear word is “hockey”). One morning we were sitting in the drive thru and he said “Mama coffee?” I said “Yes, mom’s getting some coffee.” To which he said “Mama coffee. Levi donut.” How could I refuse that??
And finally, I had bought an apple juice one morning at Tim Hortons when he was sick. We don’t usually have juice in the house but I wanted more fluids into him so I bought some with my coffee. A few days later he was feeling better but the juice still wasn’t gone so I let him have some. He took a sip and said “mmmm…..coffee”. I said “Levi, that’s not coffee. This is juice!”. He looked indignant and said “No juice. Coffee”. Again, I informed him that it was in fact juice. He took the bottled, turned it around and pointed to the ‘Tim Hortons’ printed on the juice label and said “See? Coffee”. I stood corrected.
I can’t believe how long it’s been since I wrote on the blog! I’m a little mad at myself because I know there were good stories that I meant to document and now have forgotten. I did find some notes from over Christmas that I’d scribbled down so I think I’ll write really quickly about those first, but I won’t have the details that they should!
The first time we ever heard Levi use a real name was over Christmas. One day he just started calling “Sarrrraaaaaahhh”. It was clear as could be, and no doubt he was calling Auntie Sarah. He also ADORED his uncle Andy. He never attempted Andy, but he talked about “uncle” constantly. One day out at the farm, Andy walked away without saying goodbye and Levi completely flipped – “Uncle! Uncle! Uncle!”. It was pretty cute.
We stopped counting his words over Christmas at around 100. Who knows how many he has now. I don’t know how intelligible he is to anybody else, but Dillan and I understand almost everything he says. He’s putting two and three words together regularly. Actually, yesterday (as a side note) he marched over to the counter, pointed at the train shaped Welsh Cakes that Julie had made and demanded “Mama, more choo-choo cookie”.
On boxing day all the Briggs side of the family came over for dinner. It was an awfully full house, and of course Levi loved having all the people there to show off for. Dillan’s cousin Kevin was heading towards the door and snagged a piece of cheesecake on his way, but dropped quite a few crumbs on the floor. Levi was across the room and shouted “uh oh!”. He ran to the closet, grabbed the broom and dustpan and proceeded to clean up after him. I do believe I’m training my son well 
The other funny thing that happened over Christmas was at the Canada/US border. We’d been sitting for a little while to get back into Canada. Finally we pulled up to the window, Dave chatted for a few minutes and we drove away. Levi lost it! We couldn’t figure out why on earth he was so upset until finally he told us that he had wanted a TimBit! The poor kid thought we were at the drive thru.
Our plan was to transition Levi to a toddler bed when we got home from New Brunswick. My thinking was that he’s going to be in a playpen for 2 weeks at Christmas, so I didn’t want him to go from a big free bed to a playpen and back to a free bed. I don’t know if that was a good strategy or not, but it made sense in my head. It doesn’t matter now anyway!
On Monday mornings I’ve picked up a private speech therapy client. Levi is often still napping twice a day, so he naps while I do speech and it’s going quite well. This past Monday though, I heard a *thump* followed by “Mamamamama!!!” I thought he threw a book out of his crib, but he sounded pretty upset so I ran upstairs. There he was, standing in the middle of the room looking rather upset. Not crying, just upset. Apparently he can climb out of his crib!
That night Dillan transitioned the crib to the toddler bed. Basically the front of the crib comes off and is replaced by two little rails. Levi was SO fascinated with this process. He went and found his toy tools and copied all Dillan’s moves. But then he started jumping on the bed, sliding off of it, running back and forth in it, and generally making excellent use of this new-found freedom. I was SO nervous. And quite honestly, not ready to give him that much freedom. I really enjoy putting him down and knowing that he’s safe in his bed – whether he sleeps or not I know I’ve got an hour or so to myself. And I REALLY like that hour.
I put a night-light in the hall, and we dragged a mattress across the top of the stairs. Just in case he decided to wander in the night I wanted him to see, and not fall down the stairs! But that night, and the two since he hasn’t left his bed at all! He’s fussed a few times, but when we go into his room he’s standing at the end of the bed just as he’s always done. He’s always sleeping soundly in bed when we check on him, and still there in the morning. He even still waits for his music to start playing before he calls for me. I know this is too good to last, but it certainly hasn’t been the nightmare I expected! We’ll see what happens tomorrow when he’s supposed to nap during the day.
This weekend Julie, Aidan & Soren visited. Overall we had a fantastic time and Levi LOVED having his cousins here. He still has a bit of difficulty sharing his toys, but he had to be involved in whatever they were doing at all times. When they left, he cried and cried until they came back inside for hugs. That seemed to help him understand that everything was okay, but he was still a little down after they left.
We had a funny incident in Toys R Us. I let Levi wander and touch things on the shelves for a while. He casually pushed a few buttons and poked at a few toys. Then he found a Little People Ferris Wheel and was completely taken with it. It came in a HUGE box, but he picked it up and lugged it across the store, huffing and puffing the whole time. When he found Aidan & Soren, he plopped it down and played with other toys on the shelves the way his cousins were doing. Aidan & Soren noticed the Ferris wheel after a while and sat down to play with it. By this time, Levi was a good 20 feet away playing with something else when he looked over and saw them with HIS toy. Well! He yelled “no no no no no no”, ran down the aisle, used one hand for each boy’s shoulder and shoved them away from the toy. I didn’t want to encourage that kind of behaviour, but it was so funny that I mostly just laughed.
Last night, it was getting close to bedtime and I said to Levi “Let’s go upstairs, mom’s going to give you a bath.” He looked at me and said “no!”.
Me “Oh! Levi, do you want a bath?”
Levi “Yeah!”
Me, “Okay, let’s go have a bath.”
Levi: “No. Dada”
Me:” You want daddy to give you a bath?”
Levi (very excited): “Yeah!”
Me: Surely that can’t be what just happened. “Can mommy give you a bath?”
Levi: “No. Dada”
Dillan was still at work, so he did settle for a bath with mom, but it was pretty cute (though just a little bit sad for mommy).
Also last night, I ate supper without Dillan so I sat at the table flipping through a Lee Valley catalog. This morning, Levi would not sit at the table. He wandered around the house obviously looking for something. Finally, he found the Lee Valley catalogue, climbed up into his chair and started eating with one hand while flipping through the catalogue with the other. Every once in a while he’d point to something, look up and jabber at me for a minute and then go back to looking at it and eating. Clearly he’s taking everything in.
I’m finding these posts a little harder to do. Levi’s marking less specific milestones every month but doing lots of cute little things. It seems I’m posting more randomly rather than when he’s one month older!
Levi loves it when we all sit at the table to eat together. We don’t do it all that often because he eats quite early, then I eat, then Dillan eats whenever he gets home from work. I try to wait for Dillan most nights, but it doesn’t always happen. Anyway, when we do all sit down together, Levi clasps his hands together and chatters a little prayer before we eat. Usually it’s not prompted, and is so super cute.
He makes lots of fun animal noises. Most of them sound quite similar. He has a high pitched squeak for cat, bird, and monkey. Then a low pitched growling sound for dogs, bears, and pigs. With the bear, he’ll put his hands up like they’re claws, growl and take big menacing steps. He tries his best to copy pretty well any. He walks around the house “talking” constantly. He tells stories with all kinds of animation. He waves his hands around and changes his tone and points at stuff. If only it made sense to us, I think they’d be very entertaining stories!
Having said all that, he’s doing SO much more just in the past week or two. Last week in the car, I heard his water cup fall. Then “uh oh mama, wa-wa down”. I was SO excited. When Dillan got in the car I told him what I’d heard and Levi said exactly the same thing again. Definitely not a coincidence. This past weekend when we were in Spokane, every single time Dillan walked out of sight Levi would look at me and say “Where dada go?” And one morning, we got Levi out of his playpen and put him in bed with us. Of course he didn’t stay there for more than a few seconds before he was scrambling down off the end of it. Dillan asked him where he was going and Levi said “go out da door”. Sure enough, he ran to the door and tried to open it (which incidentally, he could do unless the chain was on). Apparently I was looking for single words, and Levi has jumped straight to sentences. He’s been chattering for a long time now, but it’s only been since he’s started to say the same things over and over again that we’ve understood what he’s saying – that and it’s starting to get a lot more clear.
I was reading a developmental milestone chart at work the other day and Levi is above average for everything except for language – and he’s starting to get that now. He is consistently (and often) jumping with both feet off the ground. He’s starting to sit and read books with us much more frequently and points to all kinds of things when I ask him. He’ll point to things I didn’t think he knew. It’s my favourite time of day.
He’s demonstrating his temper again when he doesn’t get his way. Thankfully, they’re always short-lived and he’ll usually get distracted. The only time I almost cave is when he pouts and lets a big tear roll down his cheek. Sometimes, first thing in the morning he wants to sit on my lap and read books for the longest time. There is nothing I’d rather do, but we’re late for daycare/work so I have to say no. I can’t stand saying no to reading books and cuddling – and then when I see the pout and tear I just want to call in sick to work!
Levi had his 18 month doctor’s appointment, so I thought I’d add a few more things. He’s 26 lbs which is at the 50th percentile. It’s 81cm tall which is about where he was measured at 12 months. It’s strange because he looks perfectly proportioned to me, but he charts only at about the 25th percentile for height and really hasn’t grown according to the measurements. Somehow his toes are still poking out of his pajamas though. He’s now been measured 3 times in the past two weeks though, so it’s right!
The doctor thinks he has a blocked tear duct so he’s been referred to an opthamologist. In the mean time, we have to press a warm cloth to his eye 3 times a day. Thankfully. Levi tolerates this well – better than getting his face washed!
The doctor asked how he was doing with all his milestones, and determined he’s right on track. He asked about talking, and of course I said I’ve got a few concerns. He did his best not to laugh at me, but I’m certain he almost rolled his eyes a few times. He basically told me to relax and stop holding my kid to a higher standard than everybody else. He made me count all Levi’s words, then laughed and proceeded to tell me he didn’t believe me. Then made me count them again. Every time Levi opened his mouth the doctor said “there, what was that? He was trying to tell you something. Is that the way it sounds every time. Yes? Okay, that’s one more word.” Turns out Levi has 15-20 “words” that Dillan and I understand. You might not be able to, but he says the same thing everytime so we know what he’s saying. I love our doctor. He asked if I was concerned about Autism. I said, no not in the least. To which he said, “Well, at least you’re reasonable about that. He has some pretty incredible social skills.” So now that I’m relaxing a little, Levi seems to be communicating SO much more (yes, it’s probably just a change in my head and not in my son, but it’s still fun).
Almost every single time he poops, he runs over to me, points to his diaper and says “oh! Dah”. I put him on the potty immediately, but he doesn’t like that part much right now. We talk about poop all the time, and if I can, I put his poop from the diaper in the big potty to flush. He LOVES this part. He waves bye as it goes away. I’m certainly not in a hurry to potty train at 18 months, but we’re on track I think.
This morning, Max threw up by his food dish (wow this post if full of all kinds of bodily functions – sorry!). I didn’t notice, but Levi came running into the kitchen and said “Ma!!” and motioned for me to come. I walked over and he pointed across the room at the pile and said “uh oh” and then started jabbering away. Just then Max walked by. He pointed at Max and started shaking his finger and jabbering LOUDLY. He was giving Max quite a little lecture.
I wish we could understand more of what he’s saying because he sure seems to have some stories to tell!
Levi was scheduled for his 18 month immunizations on Friday morning at 9am. This meant that we had to be out of the house by 8:30 which isn’t a big deal because we’re usually out by 7:15 on mornings that I work. For some reason though, Levi slept until 7:30 that day so I was a little more rushed than expected. He’s been climbing up anything and everything these days and has just discovered that if he climbs on the chairs, he can then get all kinds of interesting things off the table! So Friday morning, right at 8:30 he climbed onto the chair. I turned my back to grab his immunization card off the counter and heard a crash. There he is, laying on the ground looking stunned and sucking in a breath to take that first scream that you know is going to be a good one. His head swelled SO much, and I could see a crease down the middle of the goose egg so I know he hit something on the way down. After a minute or two he was acting normal again, but that bump was so big! I tried to put some ice on it, but he’d have nothing to do with it.
I put him in the car, and off we went to Strathmore. The nurse took one look at him and grabbed an ice pack at the health unit. He wouldn’t have anything to do with that either, but by this time it was already looking so much better. She told me that she couldn’t give him his immunizations because he had a “head injury”. She also said it looked bad enough that I should take him to a doctor to make sure he was really okay. I wasn’t that worried about a concussion or anything like that, and he was acting totally normal, so I was torn on whether I wanted to spend my day at a walk-in clinic (my doctor doesn’t work Fridays). I called Dillan and he thought I may as well take him because I’d worry about it all weekend if I didn’t. So I asked for a clinic in Strathmore. I found the clinic and was relieved that it was completely quiet so I figured we’d get in right away. I explained the situation to the receptionist, who looked at me quite sceptically and went behind a wall to “discuss” things with the nurses. I could hear most of the conversation despite them whispering. Things like “well, the health clinic wouldn’t send them over for nothing” and “screen for abuse and neglect.” So the receptionist comes out and says the doctor will see me at 3:50. Great. So now I know they’re suspicious of me, and if I don’t drive all the way back to Strathmore they’ll probably be even more suspicious. I usually have very busy Mondays and Fridays because I cram all my errands into those two days. Plus we were having friends for dinner on Friday night and I had no food in the house, and nothing prepared. So, dinner was cancelled, no shopping or other errands were done, and I was feeling sick about the situation the entire day. We went back for our 3:50 appt. and the doctor barely looked at Levi. She was quite interested in the pictures I had taken of the lump, and I was grateful that I had them – surely neglectful parents don’t take pictures of their hurt kids! She wanted to know every detail of how he was hurt, and if the health nurses had done a full physical exam of Levi.
So in the end, I just felt like an extraordinarily bad mom. But Levi is fine and continues to climb on chairs. I told him he can’t climb or sit in a big person chair until he’s 7. Dillan thinks I’m unreasonable, so we made a deal that he goes to the doctor with the next injury