Levi update

Oh how I love this kid. He has so much energy about him. He loves to be around people and it's the ultimate punishment to send him to his room by himself. He is loud, whether he is happy or sad. He commonly squeals  with delight or excitement. He is always talking, always :)

He is 3 years 10 months and amazes us at how smart he is.

He's learned his shapes and we're working on counting and the alphabet. He recognizes some letters and he picks up on learning fast. He loves to sing the alphabet song, and usually at the top of his voice. Commonly, when he is swinging at the park he will sing songs whiles he swings. When I sing him primary songs before he goes to bed I sometimes ask him to sing with me. He always sings the alphabet song as I sing a primary song. He also sings a common song titled "Malachi". The whole song is "Malachi, Malachi" repeated over and over. Sometimes he throws Cambree's or Mason's name in there.

He loves to make snowmen. Most of his snowmen have a bum and he says they are pooping. He came up with that all by himself. He loves to tromp around in the snow. It will entertain for a long time. 

I've been trying to teach him a routine in the morning and evening. It's gone pretty well. 

 The boys love to get in Malachi's crib and play with balls.

Levi only likes to paint rocks or blank sheets of paper. He'll run outside and get rocks from around the yard to paint.

He likes to help me mop. He likes to sit on the tub and push the mop around.

He likes to build snowmen for the sole purpose of knocking them down.

I've tried to teach Levi that mistakes happen and it's ok and we need to think of how we can fix it. Now, anytime something bad or unintended happens he says "it happens, it's ok".

Levi has picked up the habit of biting his nails. I never cut them anymore because he chews them until they are really short. In fact, just today, he showed me his nail was bleeding because he bit it too short. I've even caught him trying to bite his toenails. 

Last summer Levi got his finger slammed in a car door. Levi was so sad and his nail eventually fell off. His finger got infected and he had to have antibiotics.

He's still not 100% potty trained yet. He rarely has an accident during the day, only when he's playing outside and doesn't want to stop playing long enough to go inside and go potty. For a long time he was not potty trained at night. I even started having him wear cloth diapers at night because I was sick of buying pull ups. But, he is getting so much better. In the past month he's only wet the bed at night twice!! He loves to change his underwear during the day. Almost every time he goes potty he will change his underwear on his own. He loves his plain blue underwear the best and will always put those on if they are clean.

He still has his imaginary friends the "spiders and dragons" that he pretends his hands are. If he's being mischievous and I tell him to play nice he will tell me that it's not him, but his spider friends that are being naughty. His primary teachers told me he talks about his dragon and spider friends the whole time in primary.

When it snows  he loves to help me clean the cars and shovel the snow off the driveway. He is such a trooper and most of the times he outlasts me. I am cold and ready to come in the house but he could stay outside for hours. I love having him hang out with me especially when we are working. 

He does not really like his new bike he got for Christmas. He still prefers his balance bike and hardly tries to learn to pedal. Malachi is ready for the balance bike so I hope Levi starts to like to pedal soon.

Here is Levi and Olson. Olson is our friends Eric and Amanda Turner's boy. They are 6 months apart.

Grandpa towed us behind the 4 wheeler on the tube. Levi liked it, Malachi liked to ride on the 4 wheeler better. Grandpa then built a big snowhill in his front yard with his backhoe. It made a great hill to sled down.

Levi has all of a sudden had a gigantic appetite. He eats about 6 good meals a day and he's not a picky eater at all. He is constantly telling me he is hungry. He is still super skinny though :)

Levi is transitioning into not taking a nap. It's been a little rough. When I still had him taking a nap every day he wouldn't fall asleep at night. I'd put him to bed and he would keep sneaking out over and over. But, he still gets tired and needs a nap. He'll nap a couple days a week. He gets grumpy in the evenings because he's tired.

Levi's excuse of not wanting to sleep when we put him to bed was that he was lonely. He would also come into our room at night and tell me the same thing, that he was lonely and needed a friend in his room. I learned to go lay in bed with him for a few minutes until he fell asleep because if I just helped him back to bed and left with him awake he would just come right back into our room.

He's always has his two blankets he sleeps with as security items, but when he said he was lonely he started to sleep with a stuffed animal too. It worked for a week or two. We ended up putting Malachi's bed in with Levi so they are now sleeping in the same room. The first night we put Malachi in there Levi told me he did not need his stuffed animal anymore because he had Malachi in there to be his friend. They have both transitioned very well to sharing a room. Sometimes at night if Malachi cries out Levi will shout at him to "be quiet". That makes Malachi cry even more and Levi shout even more. I usually have to get out of bed and intervene. The last couple nights Levi has actually told me that he wants Malachi out of his room. Hopefully this is short lived.

Levi is very good with sound effects. He has a sound effect for everything he does. He is also a very good entertaining storyteller. His stories are very detailed and I think his record is a 45 minute story, which we had to stop him because church was starting.

Levi loves to play in sand and dirt. He literally crawls and rolls around in it. We'll go to the park and he'll play in the sand the whole time.

One of his favorite things to do is to ask papa to let him borrow the ipad so that he can either play games or watch movies. One time I just let him watch Toy story and I also let him use my headphones so that he can watch the movie in style. He was a very happy camper. 

He still pesters Malachi at times. I'm thinking it's just a brother thing and he's always going to do it. We're working on being nice and trying to make Malachi happy. They do get along quite well though. There was one time Levi had a dentist appointment so I dropped Malachi off at my mom's and as I took Malachi in the house he reached for Levi in the car. He wanted to be with Levi. As I walked Levi into the dentist office he told me he missed Malachi. So, I know they like to be with each other. They always have to be into what the other one's doing.