Levi: 21 Months

As much as I hate still referring to Levi's age in months, "Levi: Almost 2" as a blog title sounded even worse. Not to mention, he really won't be 21 months until June 10th (which means I am AHEAD on my blog posts for once!)

Easter 2015

First day of school/Last day of school

Although the last few months have had some really challenging moments, the wonderful moments have far, far outweighed the hard ones. Levi's personality continues to surprise us and make us laugh. Although he has regressed in all verbal communication, he has started to show signs of understanding certain words and phrases that we use daily such as "Dance, Levi!", "Give kisses", and "Are you ready to go night-night?" In hindsight, maybe we should spend more time on practical commands but he just looks so darn cute when he "dances".

Last week, Levi and I spent the week in Destin with most of my side of the family (Mitch had to stay back and give finals.) During that week, my older brother Josh was able to teach Levi to "fist bump" and to shake his hand when Josh said "Put 'er there". This was HUGE. A.) Because Levi was associating words with certain actions, and B.) because he responded to someone who was not Mitch or I.

In the last few months, Levi has made some great strides in his social skills as well! For the longest time, he wouldn't even respond to anyone who was not Mitch or I and he pretended like most kids his age and adults did not exist. However, he has started watching and playing with his cousins a little bit more and has been interacting with his aunts and uncles a lot more as well! He also continues to steal his cousins' food, but that is a lesson to be learned another day.

Levi laughs all of the time and mostly during rough play or being "scared". He loves wrestling with Mitch or being hit in the face with pillows (seriously, it's his favorite game). He also loves loud noises and suspense games. His new favorite toys are two Frisbees that were given to us at a restaurant in Destin in March. He will spin the Frisbee for HOURS. His favorite thing is to get both Frisbees spinning at the same time. It's really quite impressive. When we are outside of the house (in the car, running errands, at daycare, etc), his favorite toy is his "MP3 player" with his strap attached to it (the strap is just as important as the toy we have discovered!) The toy has buttons that will play music and he constantly presses the buttons while we are out because it soothes him. One day he is going to look through all the pictures that we have of him from this time and will wonder why he has a toy with a ratty old strap attached to it in EVERY picture. But it works and he loves it. Therefore, we love it.

My Cousin & my MP3 player, what more could a boy need!

In the last few weeks, Levi has also become very attached to blankets. However, since he does not have a "blankie", he insists on carrying around our full size fleece blankets (which is hysterical). He also insists on having ALL of the blankets. I cannot even count how many times Levi stole his Aunt Laura's blanket from her at the beach last week but it was just too funny to stop him. I am thinking purchasing Levi his own blanket is in our future!

Although we still have not heard any words yet, Levi is slowly beginning to communicate in his own way and it has been such a joy to be able to sometimes understand what he is wanting or feeling! So until the words and talking come, this mama is completely content to continue with the hugs, kisses, and happy arm flapping!