Levi at 11 months

Levi weighs 21 pounds and wears almost all 12 month clothes, except for one piece rompers which are 18 months. He could probably move to 18 month pajamas, but the 12 still work too. He's now in size 4 diapers.

Something about the lighting/distance of the monthly pictures makes him look like he has much less hair than he really does. The back and sides are getting that long scraggly look that Isaac had around the year mark, and the top is still much shorter but growing.

Levi has now lived half his life with no teeth and half his life with 2 teeth (5.5 months each way). I think he's finally working on getting some more. He's drooling like crazy again and has been super fussy lately. At times he claws at his mouth with his fingers and it's pretty pitiful. He's wearing an amber teething necklace but I don't notice a change at all. It's a shame, I've heard such great things about those but they never worked for Isaac either. Unfortunately I cannot see any teeth under the gums, but I'm fairly certain they're under there somewhere and making progress.

We're still dealing with ear infections but he's scheduled to get tubes this week. We were at the pediatrician last week with another ear infection (well, she said his left ear looked "fair" but she could tell it was going in the wrong direction, so she gave us antibiotics). She also said even if he had an infection on surgery day they could still do it, so I hope that's true. I'm so ready to put this ear stuff behind us.

I'm also hoping the tubes help his language development. Right now he babbles a lot, but it's not very distinct or clear. He says a lot of "rarara", "yayaya", "gagaga", and the occassional "dadada" and that's it. No real words.

Levi now waves, sometimes hi but definitely bye bye. Sometimes he even waves when we go from one room to the next. He flails his whole arm and it's adorable. 

He's so close to walking. A couple of weeks ago he started letting go of whatever furniture (or us) that he was holding onto and standing by himself. He made such progress so quickly that I thought for sure he would be walking in a week or two, but no. This weekend he stood up by himself (without pulling up on something) several times, something Isaac didn't do until he had been walking for several weeks. He was so proud of himself! I still expect him to be walking by his birthday. He loves pushing his push walker all around the house and has even figured out that the kitchen chairs work in the same way.

Levi is eating less and less pureed baby food and more real food. He can drink from a straw sippy cup when he wants to, but he's not a big fan and would rather play with it. He does not drink from a regular sippy cup at all. I really want to get rid of bottles at 12 months so I'm a little worried about this. I know it will come in time. We also moved him from 4 to 3 bottles this month. He used to get a bottle at 7am, 11am, 3pm, and 7pm. He started only drinking a few ounces from his 7pm bedtime bottle, then he got to where he would take a few sucks and push it away. Now he gets a bottle at 7am, 1pm(ish), and 7pm. This works much better and he now eats decent meals, snacks, and drinks all of his bottles.

Isaac and Levi love each other so much. They play nicely together 95% of the time, with the only exception being when Levi grabs Isaac's toys and Isaac isn't in the mood to share. Isaac keeps Levi entertained in the car and loves to kiss him before bed and as soon as he wakes up. I love watching my boys be sweet together.

Every day I see less Baby Levi and more Toddler Levi. It's bittersweet. He definitely can throw a nice little temper tantrum but toddlers can be so much fun too. He knows what he wants (or doesn't want) and isn't afraid to tell you boldly, and I can't wait until he can start using his sweet little voice to tell me with words.

Quite honestly, the past 11 months have dragged by, but all of a sudden I find myself saying the cliche "I can't believe he's almost a year old!". He just seems so big to me now, even though he's still a baby. Even though I'm looking forward to leaving the baby behind and moving on, there's just something about saying goodbye to your last baby. I look forward to what's ahead, but it's strange to leave this part of our life in the past.