Months 6-9

How is it time for another Levi update already?! My entire pregnancy I thought time had literally stopped it was going by SO SLOW. I would wake up some mornings and get really excited because surely, I was several weeks closer to meeting my sweet little boy (and lets be honest, several weeks closer to not feeling like a beached whale). But alas, I would still be WEEKS away. However, now that Levi is here, I feel like I look down at him and lose entire chunks of time. How is he only 3 months away from being a year old?!

Months 6-9 have been EXTREMELY good to us. For the first 6 months of his life, we genuinely believed that Levi hated sleep. He would only nap for 30 minutes at a time (about twice a day) and then he only slept an average of 6 hours at night (with many wake ups). Needless to say, we were zombies for first half of his life, which could explain how he grew up so much right under my nose! However, right around 7 months, Levi started napping longer and waking up less at night. We had tried letting him cry-it-out when he was around 5 months old with no success, but suddenly at 6 and a half months he latched on to sleep training almost immediately. (And by sleep training I really mean, Mitch and I had the stomach flu and were to sick to stay up trying to get Levi back to sleep.) After that one night of the awful stomach flu/impromptu sleep training, Levi has slept from 7:00-8:30 with no interruptions. Y'all, it is like manna from Heaven. So to all of you parents out their wondering "Will this EVER end?!", yes it will! Turns out Levi just wasn't quiet ready for sleep training the first time.

Another reason Levi sleeping through the night is a miracle, is because he is teething ALL.OF. THE.TIME. Luckily, he handles it pretty well and just drools like Beethoven the St. Bernhard (particularly that scene where he shakes his head and slobber goes everywhere.) Currently, Levi is cutting his 6th tooth and particularly likes to eat paper to soothe his pain. Mitch can now truthfully tell his seminary professor that it wasn't his dog, but, in fact, his son who ate his homework.

Saying Goodbye to our first house

Since he now has plenty of teeth to chew on things, we have started Levi on table food and needless to say, he is a 'foodie' in the making. How did we know he was ready? Well, when you are holding onto your son and have a piece of pizza in the other hand and he suddenly leans down and takes a huge bite out of it on his own, you kinda figure he must be ready. So, his first real food was pizza. No parent of the year award there! (Which accidentally banging his head on a door frame, letting the dog lick him in the mouth, realizing too late that he ate a piece of paper/dog hair/food off the floor, and forgetting to put bug spray on him counted me out for that award a looooooong time ago anyways- but hey, he's still alive and well and i get a good size piece of humble pie with about every meal)

Although he is a little bit behind, Levi has started army crawling a bit! He has yet to get up on his hands and knees but that doesn't stop him from sliding along the floor at a pretty fast pace (which in my defense, is how he gets the paper in the first place.) Although he cannot keep up with them by any means, he loves watching and following his cousins around the living room. Bentley and Caleb talk to Levi as they play and bring him toys for him to play with and it's just about the sweetest thing ever. They also try to throw balls at him for "Baby Levi to catch" and well, he has yet to catch one with his hands but the day is coming!

All of the grandsons

Just last month, we took Levi to the beach for the first time and he LOVED it! He loved the pool, he loved the ocean, and he loved the sand so much he ate a good bit of it. I have never seen a baby his age love the water so much. He may not look anything like me, but he loves the beach just as much as I do, and I am so thankful. I am also extremely thankful that he has my skin tone because he didn't burn at all (which is saying a lot since sunscreening a wiggling baby should be considered a sport). Needless to say, it was a great first family vacation.

Parenting is slowly becoming more normal to us and Levi is becoming more enjoyable, funny, and expressive every day. I will be the first to admit that even after having Levi I still do not really like babies. GASP. I know that is about the worst mom thing to say but it's the truth. I love my baby, but I do not miss his little baby days, and thats okay. I love Levi so much it hurts but that doesn't mean that I will love every minute of raising him. Thankfully, I have a God that will love Levi through me on the days where I am bone dry. Thankfully, I have a God who will love Levi through me on the days that I fail over and over and over again. Thankfully, I have a God who knows that I cannot truly LOVE (agape) Levi without Him, and he is okay with that, because His power is made perfect in my {many, many} weaknesses.  Praise the Lord.