Fake crying!

This is too funny...

Happy 5 months baby boy

21 weeks

Dear Levi,
Today you are 21 weeks old.  Holy moly! 21 WEEKS! You are such a fun boy and I am so glad you are here.  Especially today.  You give me a reason to wake up in the morning, and on mornings like this morning, I need a reason.

This week you are still crawling around like crazy.  You have pretty much mastered sitting with support.  You will soon be on your way to getting into the sitting position and also sitting on your own. You are doing well in the highchair... thank goodness.  I put the bouncy seat away this week... :( My baby is growing up.

You added apricots and mangos to your eating repertoire.  We are now on Similac Spit Up ready to feed formula.  It has been great. You rarely spit up.  We are on day 6ish of this formula and I'm so happy with it right now... I just hope it keeps it up. You drank out of a cup of water this week and thoroughly enjoyed it.  So proud of you!

You are wearing 6-12 month and 9 month clothes. You grew out of all your 6 month clothes this week!!

No updates on height and weight... but your hair is STILL red. 

You are obsessed with Lucy! Yall love each other and are best friends.  

I love you baby boy.  You are such a precious gift. 

 Love, Mommy

Dear Mr. Owl,

Levi has discovered you.  Prepare to be slobbered on each Tuesday!

Love, Levi's Mommy

When life gives you lemons...

Go cry yourself to sleep....

That's how that goes... right?

Look out... I'm pretty sure I see thunder clouds in the distance.

Some days...

Some days make me LONG to be in my husband's arms.
After this week... thinking of ALL the cruelty and evil that exists in the world, it makes me want him with me.
It pains me to think that he will have to witness some of that.  I'd rather him be home with Levi and I...with our happy baby.

We have spent so much time apart. Surprisingly I could probably count the days we have spent together... because our ones apart are too many to count. Some days it feel like the whole world is against us...

Then I remember...

If God is for us, then who can be against us?
Romans 8:31

love

Is his Robey showing... Take 2!

Stephens family... send me some pictures of William as a baby so I can prove to people he looks NOTHING like me in comparison to how much he looks like William!

Mommy guilt

Dear mothers day out employee,
Yes thank you for noticing that my son "spits up more than most babies". But I really didn't need for you to inform me that "it means you should have breast fed him". You are lucky I'm a strong woman with a blog so I can vent about you behind your back rather than tell your boss how incredibly rude you are. For the record, I tried my HARDEST to breast feed. But it didn't work for us. So shoot me... I'm a horrible mother. I know.
Love,
Levi's FAVORITE mommy

PS I hope he pukes all over you!!! Preferably on your face!!!!!!!!!!

Speechie Stuff... but good for mom's too!

It's no secret I'm a speech pathologist and I'm constantly on the look out for good materials.

Here are a few ideas.
First, RUN, don't walk... to your neighborhood target. Locate the dollar spot and then choose one of every item! There you have it... you are set for back to school. Here is my loot... all for less than $30

Checklist/ to do list.... I have these in mind for a special friend of mine! These are mini dry erase boards, so they would be perfect for daily lists for kids on the spectrum, or with ADD/ADHD... or really anyone child who has some scatterbrained tendencies! Also a weekly sticky to do list for me!

 Mini stamps (rewards galore)

Can anyone say election year? 6th grade government/president materials

Harldy Working/ Working Hard sign (adorable... and the kids will love it)



I also got some random "fact cards" great for non-fiction retell.
And then of course a bunch of stickers!











Second, have you seen these?

Picture from Steece's Pieces

These are absolutely PERFECT for all beginning readers.  They would also be great for working on story retell, following directions, colors, sight words... you name it.  Lego deserves a big THUMBS UP for making these.  There are three right now... but I'm sure they will make more! 

If you want to win some free Lego money... head over to Steece's Pieces to enter the giveaway! 

What great educational toys/ back to school finds/ SLP materials are you excited about?

Now he's 20 weeks!

Well last week I jumped the gun and called him 20 weeks too soon.  But now he really is 20 weeks old.   I can't believe he'll be 5 months old at the end of next week.  Where does the time go?

Dear Levi,
 This week you are busy crawling around like crazy. You are trying to sit up and do lots of crunches every day. You love your bouncer and are starting to do well in your high chair.

You are eating pears, peaches, apples, bananas, prunes, carrots, green beans, (a taste of) watermelon, avocado, pumpkin, rice cereal and oatmeal. You are taking Enfamil AR ready to feed formula.  So far so good.  Nutramigen ready to feed was a bust.  You puked your last 6 ounces of it all over me.

(Check out those RED eye lashes!!)

You are wearing 6-9 month, 6-12 month and 9 month clothes.

You weighed 14 pounds 14 ounces on Wednesday July 11th. And you are still around 26 inches tall.
Your eyes are still blue (see below picture). And you hair is STILL red. And your belly button still has some black in it... left over silver nitrate.

You dislike the bumbo, the carseat, and being hungry.

Silly boy!

 Hello drool!

 What? A boy can't touch his foot? 

My day

We always hear about Levi's day... but what about mine?

I threw on some clothes when I heard Levi waking up this morning.  He is my alarm clock.
I fed Levi and Lucy and then gave Levi his bottle.  Then he puked all over me. Love. it.

With 10 minutes to get to mom's group I threw on new clothes. Almost forgot bottles.
Hung out with some great ladies and babies. Went to lunch with Tina and Charlie (so glad they are back!).

Ran to target to buy fruit to make Levi some more food. Put him down for a nap.  Spent the next 1.5 hours elbow deep in baked peaches, apricots and pears. Let's just say I'll never bake fruit again... Peeling THEN steaming is so much better!

Levi woke up and played while I loaded the dishwasher and then I fed him another bottle.  Second bottle of the day with Enfamil AR Read to Feed aka liquid (our SEVENTH kind in 5 months)... and still no spit up. Halleluia.

And here I sit... catching up on blogs, being my husbands secretary (aka filling up his go phone with money so we can talk while he's in the field) and watching wedding shows on TLC.

And there you have it... my day so far.

The view from here

Yes I'm still alive

So I know I've just barely been posting on here... and well that's not my intention.  But every time I sit down to write what I'm thinking about I end up writing and editing and writing and editing until I decide it's not worth it.  So here's a short version of the inside of my head and also what we have been up to:

The catching up part:

• William keeps getting random days off.  This is mostly due to slightly (ha!) disorganized military training. A whole lot of "hurry up and wait", if you will.  
• The above statement means that Levi and I are on constant "William watch" just waiting for the word he is on his way to meet us.  I keep dropping what Levi and I are doing so that we can see him.  It drives me half way nuts... because I'm a control freak.  But obviously it always ends in the wonderful time we have together. 
• Levi is a busy guy.  I can't believe how big he is getting.  William and I have so much fun with him.  He's very laid back which definitely helps since we are always on the go.
• William is leaving August 3rd for Mississippi.  I know that our times of short notice trips to see each other are numbered.  Next week William will be in Brownwood so I know we won't see him for a while.  
• Levi has been going to "Summer Play Days" at our church.  It's twice a week for 6 hours.  I think he has enjoyed it.  We had a minor "whoops" moment when I found out they sort of forgot to feed him Monday afternoon.  It had been almost 5 hours since he had eaten and when I walked in he was screaming bloody murder.  I took a deep breath (I knew he was starving from the cry and the full bottle) and just excused myself to the hallway to feed him.  They apologized a lot. I was very proud of myself for not flipping out on them.  It paid off the next day when I got a call from the director saying that her staff "reported" themselves to her and they totally restructured Levi's class for the remainder of the summer. Phew!

Inside my brain:

• When you are sad for us... it makes it harder for us to be happy. (Just a thought for everyone out there).
• Lump in my throat is still there.
• I'm not scared of him leaving and I'm not afraid of something happening to him physically.  I'm terrified of what he'll be like when he comes home.  I'm not naive and I know people change over there... I'm scared he'll never be the same. 
• I can't wait for our mini vacation. 

Just kidding its 19 weeks! Not 20 Weeks?!?!

Hello everyone. I have a SHOCKING announcement to make...

LEVI IS 19 WEEKS OLD!

AND HE STILL HAS RED HAIR!

Okay, now that that is taken care of... back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Dear Levi,
You are 19 weeks old! Umm... what?! How did this happen?

You  are supposed to look like this!

But instead, you look like a little boy!

And see those little red knees... that's because you have been crawling!!! 

I love my precious smiley boy.  You are soooo good! No one can dare call you fussy, or difficult, or any other negative word. 

And your giggle is CONTAGIOUS! Sometimes I have a contest with myself to see how hard I can make you laugh! 

You are eating lots of yummy food.  But we found out yesterday that you do not agree with sweet potato... or it doesn't agree with you.  So we will add sweet potato to the list with "lactose" as things to not feed you for a while.  I'm also going to remove soy from your diet (which happens to be in your rice cereal).  I sure hope you aren't allergic to much else! 

You are even getting good at sitting up! Mommy is going to have to move your bed lower down soon... because once you are sitting and crawling I don't want you to fall out.  

You are an amazing little boy.  Don't grow up too fast okay? 

Love, Mommy