All the ways my toddler is awesome

In celebration of Levi’s 17 month birthday, I want to share with you all the ways that Levi is awesome. That’s right, my kiddo is awesome. I know I said I wouldn’t be giving another update until he was 18 months old, but Levi’s grown and matured in so many ways this past month that I feel it’s my duty to acknowledge his recent milestones.

Things Levi loves:

• Crayons – At the library during story time or in his basement playroom, all he wants to do is get his hands on crayons. He’ll actually scribble on paper with them but prefers to draw directly on the coffee table.
• Music – He’s the only one who doesn’t mind my singing voice and loves it when I sing “B-I-N-G-O” and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” to him. He’ll even move his fingers together, trying  to make the spider hand gestures.
• Books – I was concerned that he no longer had the patience for story time. Turns out, he wanted me to sit on the floor next to him instead of him sitting with me in the chair. He’ll rifle through his bins of books, discarding certain titles as if he’s looking for something specific. After each book he’ll sign “more” and then hand me another one to read.
• TV – Well, sort of. I don’t let him watch TV very often, but every once in a while I’ll play part of a “Wonder Pets” or “Sesame Street” episode. He’s starting to show an interest in the characters and the action on the screen, and sometimes he even does the sign for “please” while handing me the remote!

Things Levi says:

• Up! means “pick me up,” “hold me,” or “put me in my highchair”
• Go! means “leave”
• Nana! means “banana”

Things Levi does:

• Feigns ignorance – I know he knows what “No!” means but he pretends that he doesn’t. He also seems to think that “Stop!” is something I say because I like to hear my own voice.
• Walks – He proved he’s capable of walking on his own at Thanksgiving when he took his first steps. Last week, though, his confidence suddenly skyrocketed and now he’s walking instead of crawling about 70-80% of the time.

I put together this short video of Levi learning to walk. The song is “At Last” (how appropriate!) by Brown Recluse.