Freyja

I have the best dog ever! Freyja  is constantly by Levi's side. When he pulls her hair, she licks his face to make him let go! He of course thinks she is hilarious when she catches a ball, plays with Isis or pants in his face.
 
However, Levi does not think she is funny all the time. Like when Levi is playing with the doggie door. Usually Freyja is careful when she comes in the doggie door now, but sometimes she forgets and runs over Levi.  He will eventually learn to not hang out by the doggie door.

As of today Levi is 8 months old!

Dusting the floor

Before you call CPS, he did this all on his own. We really don't make him dust for us! For that matter, I have no idea where Levi learned to dust, because he certainly has never seen his mama do it!  Perhaps his Meephs taught him on Friday when she babysat him.

Old tricks and New tricks

A person couldn't ask for a more pleasant way to wake up on a Saturday morning. At 8am I hear my son begin to babble to himself. I lay there and listen for a while.

After a few minutes he tries out his favorite trick, babble at the top of his lungs.

"GAAAAAAAAAH! YAAAAAAAHHH!"

Then he tries out his new trick that he just started last night, and my new personal favorite.

[whispered in the sweetest tone you've ever heard] "aaaaahhh. gooooo. yaaaaah."

He babbles some more before he begins to whimper. (It is 8:30 now.) I walk to his crib and peer in. The biggest grin you ever saw grows on his face. My heart melts again for the millionth time. I take him out to the living room where he laughs and giggles in his bouncer. I make my hot cocoa, munch on fresh berries and watch Levi's smiley face bounce up and down, up and down.

Let the day begin! I'm ready for this day to continue!

Bathtubs and Squished Flowers

Last night I was giving Levi a bath. I put him in a baby bath tub in big bathtub. He has enjoyed splashing around in his tub, exploring the toys I put in there for him. But last night he decided to expand his exploration to the walls of the tub.

First he touched the far side of the tub. Scratched it to feel the texture. 

You could see him thinking: Huh? Smooth. Very interesting.

Then he reached over to the opposite side of the tub. Scratched it to feel the texture.

Expression: Utter Shock and awe! Mouth forms a perfect ohhh shape.

See him thinking: WOW! They look the same AND feel the same!!!

Hear him giggling with joy and excitement at his new discovery.

I don't know why that discovery was so exciting, but it made me happy to see.

How wonderful it must be to: 

1) make discoveries for themselves, rather than have to study about it in a book or be told about it

2) discover new things every single day, and rejoice in it

3) uninhibited by what people think about you. ( how you react, how simple the discovery)

It makes me think of my students. So many of them, by the time they are in middle school, are beat down. Some of them are so beat down that they have given up on themselves. They no longer seek new discoveries, because they believe they will only fail in the attempt. They have been mocked by their peers so they become afraid to go "out on a limb" to discover new things.  It is safer to hide behind certain undesirable behaviors.

On the bright side, sometimes their other teachers and I am able to reach a student. We can encourage them and help them build self confidence.  Too often we do not see this come to fruition. We just plant seeds, that later bloom fully or, sadly, get squashed again. But it is the hope that I can help a student bloom that keeps me going back to work every day. 

I recently heard about a student that I didn't have a big hand in helping but did a little. We helped her bloom again. She moved away. She is continuing to bloom despite circumstances working against her. I am so very proud of her. And that is why I teach middle school...to help the squished flowers.

Now will someone help me figure out how I got from the bathtub to squished flowers?

Well trained parents?

We survived one Christmas, 2 more to go.
The inevitable topic came up, sleep. "How is Levi sleeping?" He actually sleeps fairly well. Many nights we sleep for a 6-8 hour stretch.
Lately though he has been sick. A couple of months ago all 3 of us had a nasty bout of strep throat. That messed up his sleep. Then just when he got back into a routine of nice long stretches of sleep, he got Bronchitis. :-(
The thing that shocked family was the fact that Levi does not usually go down to sleep until 9 or sometimes 10pm. The family looks at me like I am a cruel mother. I tell them that we have tried to put him down earlier but if we start trying to put him down at 7 we just waste our time trying to rock him to sleep for 2-3 hours. He won't go down earlier.
They of course ask, "Why don't you just put him in the crib and let him cry-it-out? Have you tried it?"
Sister pipes up, "My kids cried 30 min the first night. 15 the second night. Now they sleep great."
"I can't tolerate it for more than 4 min." I didn't tell them, I was in tears myself at that point. In my defense it had been a rough night to begin with. I was frustrated to the point of desperation.
My loving family's response, "Well, he has you well trained."
I do frequently wonder if, after trying so long to have a child that we didn't know if we would ever have, do we spoil him? Am I going to be one of those helicopter moms that I have despised for so many years?
What they did not know was that Levi spent the first 6 weeks of life crying incessantly. He could not sleep for more that 1-2 hours at a time. We took him to the dr's office 40 minutes away and our newborn baby would cry for 30 minutes solid before he fell asleep. He must get his stubbornness from his mom and dad. When he was about 6 weeks old he was diagnosed with GERD. My poor baby had been crying in pain for 6 weeks! I felt awful! Then in a couple weeks he stopped crying as the medicine kicked in.
So now I have a terribly difficult time letting him cry for more than a few minutes after having had my fill in the beginning.
So I bought the No Cry Sleep Method book.  It is not a one-size-fits-all method. It has a bank of things to do to what works for you and your child. It is NOT an overnight cure that is so convenient for parents. The emphasis is on routine, but not so rigid that you can't live your life. Many of the things in it we had already been doing intuitively, like play the same music each night to signal sleepy time. i.e. training like Pavlov's dogs.
One aspect of the book that I do not like, they say to begin the routine and get the children to bed by 7pm. We get home from work at 5 or 6 so to get him in be by 7 we'd have to start as soon as we get home. I would not get any time to play with him. The book says if that is a problem you can get up early. Uh...yea, right.
I choose to ignore it. Levi gets enough sleep, he just goes to sleep later and sleeps in late. It works for us so far. We get to play with him and he gets his sleep.
Yet, I am not used to not conforming to social norms.
I do not mean to offend all my friends who use the cry it out method but, I see it as cruel to leave a child to cry himself to sleep. They say it teaches the child to put themselves to sleep. I don't see any teaching going on, just abandoning them to figure it out themselves. Besides that, I have cried myself to sleep before. I sleep hard after a good cry but it is not a pleasant way to go to sleep.

I have yet to meet another mom who sees things the same way. I admit, I am not an expert on child psychology. I'm only a mom with a tender heart. So I ask you this, "Does Levi have us well trained? Am I going down a path that leads to bad parenting where the child runs the show?"

Christmas Letter 2011

Friends and Family,     

                                                                                            

Merry Christmas! We hope you are well. 

This year has been an exciting one for us. From January to June was a blur of worry about our jobs. We weathered that with our jobs intact in the end, although Jesse’s job was altered so that he works at 2 schools now instead of one.

 

Our miracle arrived on June 30^th, 2011 at 11:08 PM. Levi William Herrera was born! The first few weeks were filled with diapers, feedings, sleeplessness and crying, lots of crying. Then he was diagnosed with GERD, essentially baby version of acid reflux. This was not surprising given my family history. Once the medicine kicked in Levi became an incredibly happy baby! 

 

Levi has the cutest most expressive eyebrows! He is a social baby. Jesse and I went back to work after 6 weeks, when school began. My mom takes care of Levi for us during the week and Jesse’s mom does it some days when my mom takes quilting classes. Mom takes Levi with her when she volunteers up at church. Levi is passed around among the other ladies at church.

 

We went to the Dallas Arboretum with a photographer friend to take pictures in October with all the pumpkin displays. Levi did beautifully. He posed and smiled for the pictures. Then at the end when we put him in the car seat he konked out for a few hours.

On October 2^nd Jesse and I celebrated our 7^th anniversary and Levi was baptized. I prayed long and hard that Levi would not cry for the baptism. He did great. He smiled and jabbered at Pastor Gary.

 

For Halloween Levi dressed up as Tigger! That night he started to jabber in a way that sounded like a roar. 

Levi is getting really good at sitting unassisted. However he does not yet roll over, at least not on purpose. He loves to eat all kinds of baby foods. I have yet to find one that he doesn’t like. He drools like the Niarga Falls but no teeth yet. He plays in his activity bouncer or sitting on the floor independantly for longer and longer periods of time. He is learning to pretend his over-reach to face-plant was done on purpose. He does a very nice push up and scoots backwards on his belly. When his feet meet resistance he pushes up on hands and knees and rocks forward and back, trying so hard to move forward!

Levi met Santa (aka Earl Amox) this year. He was not afraid of him. In fact to prove it, Levi pulled on Santa's beard! Santa handled it with grace, as you can see. 

The picture shows Levi "baby Jesus" with "Gabriel" or rather "Gabriella". This year Levi was asked to be the baby Jesus for our Christmas eve service at 3:00. I wonder how he will do; he wiggles a lot.

    

We hope you all have a blessed year!

Mary, Jesse and Levi

5 months old

The belated "Levi is 5 months old" post. It has been busy so I've not had time to do much.

Levi got to meet Santa this month at our church. Unfortunately I was not there for this picture. (That is Mom's thumb in the corner.) Levi has the privilege of knowing, Santa because he goes to our church. So thankfully he has no fear of Santa thus far. We'll see next year if he will fear him. I kind of doubt it though because Santa's beard is real, only the suit and hat are different from his usual appearance. 

Levi's first baby food was peas. Second was prunes. His response to prunes was cute:

1st spoonful- shocked look and spit out.
2nd spoonful- whole body shiver
I'm thinking he may not like prunes.
3rd spoonful- ya know this stuff is not so bad.
By the time he was to the end of the bowl of baby food, he was trying to help me put the spoon in his mouth because I just wasn't doing it fast enough for his liking.
At the end of his meals I usually let him play with the bowl and spoon and let him get messy, finger paint etc.

Levi Giggles

Tigger Roar

This is Levi's Tigger roar on Halloween night after his bath. I just wish I didn't sound so stupid. His daddy can do a fake laugh that sets Levi off with giggles.

4 months old

4 months. I can't believe it has been 4 months.

On October 2nd Levi was baptized. Levi did very good. He didn't cry; he was  happy baby. Afterwards he fell asleep.

Levi is teething like crazy. I can't feel any teeth coming in yet but he is drooling everywhere and chewing on everything he can.

Levi loves his bouncer! He can turn the music on and sometimes I think he actually turning it on, on purpose.

A couple weeks ago we went to the Arboretum with Jesse's coworker, Monica Maldonado. She does photography on the side. As you can see, she is very good. Levi did very good, laughing and smiling the whole time. When we finally took a break, he zonked out.




My all-time favorite picture, with twinkle eyes.


Something miraculous has happened, he has begun to sleep longer at night. All of a sudden he is sleeping 6-8 hours at a time! I feel like a new woman! I even feel like I can function again.


He is trying so hard to figure out how to roll. He has rolled over from front to back several times by accident. It is fun to see the surprised look on his face when he does roll over. For a few days he has been rolling onto his side from his back. He wiggles and moves different ways, trying to figure out how to go the rest of the way onto his belly. Jesse and I encourage him and try to help but he hasn't it gotten it on his own yet.

Tigger bright-eyes

Levi continues to babble incessantly. The funniest thing happened on Halloween. We dressed him in a costume that a friend gave us...Tigger. He looked adorable in the costume! Jesse, Levi and I sat out front passing out candy.  Neighbors across the street from us came over to say hi and play with Levi. A pair of families came trick-or-treating. They commented on Levi's costume. He thought that was funny and laughed about it. Then I don't know if it was the costume that did it, but it sure sounded like Levi was roaring. Really he was just "talking" but it sure sounded like he was trying to roar like a tiger. I caught it on video after a while.

Cereal. So the dr told us at the 2 month check up that when we feel comfortable with it, we can add cereal to his formula. She said this helps the reflux not flux into his esophagus quite so bad. Now that he is 4 months old we decided to try giving him some soupy cereal. He doesn't like it at all. He even made the gagging sound that my sister made when she was little and she tasted something she didn't like.

I thank God every day for this amazing, happy little miracle!

3 months old

Levi is now 3 months old! 

He is becoming very good at "talking". This month he has experimented with pitch and volume rather than any new vowels. He has discovered shrill and loud.

We put Levi into a bouncy chair play station thing for the first time a few days ago. He loves it. It has a mirror that he can talk to, music he can jam out to, and knobs he can play with to make sounds, when he is a little older. His legs are not quite long enough to reach the floor yet but we put a pillow under it for him to stand on. 


Levi loves to "stand" on your belly. He actually bears weight on his legs. He is getting pretty good at rolling from his tummy to his back.  He will roll over the first time or 2 that you put him on his belly. After that he throws his head down on the floor and wails in frustration! : ( It is sad but at the same time, so dang cute it's hard not to smile.



A couple times when I put him down on his elbows, he throws himself forward like he wants to crawl but hasn't learned to move his arms. So he does a face-plant instead.

Levi also likes to chew on his arm when he lays on his belly. Actually he has been chewing on everything and drooling excessively. He bites hard on my finger. I suppose this is the early stages of teething.

He is beginning to take interest in things farther away now. At a restaurant last night he was fascinated with all the motion in the server area. He watches the dogs run and play. I can't wait to see how Freyja reacts to Levi grabbing her tail! She'll be surprised but I am confident that she will be patient with him. She is the type that will let him jump on her and pull her hair. She will just give him a look. My other 2 dogs will avoid him like they would the plague! 

"Talking"

"iiieee"

At 3am Levi is wide awake. He has been fed, has a clean diaper, and he is wide awake instead of sleepy. His dad and I are bleary-eyed and hoping for a little more sleep before going to work. He began "talking" to Jesse, who was holding him. So far Levi could say, "oooh!" and "aaahhgg!" This morning he has added a new "word" to his repertoire, "iiieee!" I heard him smile in response to his new word. I couldn't help but smile too.

Morning has broken

This was my post on Facebook this morning:


6:30am Levi was laying on a blanket on the nursery floor kicking his feet, flailing his arms, talking up a storm, happy as can be. While his mommy was laying on the floor beside him, trying to get five more minutes of sleep, but secretly loving this moment, a gift from God.

2 Months

Two Months
I can't believe Levi is now 2 months old.

Milestones
He will frequently smile in response to our silly antics. When we talk to him in vowel sounds now. ah, ih,eh, oh, and uh. Sometime he even humors us and will respond with his own vowel sound. Or if he is in a particularly good mood then he will say, "guh!" Then Jesse and I get all excited!  It is the little things in life...ya know?
Well, my little genius child also does a kind of little belly laugh at times. It used to be that he would do that in his sleep in between his Joker style smile. A couple times he has done it in response to something he deems particularly funny.

We now have a baby workout center in our living room! When he tires of being held, we put him in the swing for a while. Then he likes to lay on the floor and swing with his hands and feet at the things hanging down from the 2 arches. Finally he likes to finish his workout with some time in the vibrating chair. 

Sleep...if you saw my previous post you know that sleep is still somewhat of a rare commodity still. He still averages 3 hour chunks of sleep at a time. Some nights he is awake every 1-2 hours but mostly it is every 3 hours. On rare occasion Levi will sleep for a 4-5 hour chunk of time.  I thought about trying to do one of the sleep schedule things that say he will be sleeping through the night by 8 weeks. I just don't have the discipline or the heart to do that kind of thing. I will let nature take its course for now.




 Oh and we received our first family portraits in the mail! The people scheduled to come right before us didn't show up. So the photographers spent over an hour with us. They got some great pictures!


 








The Dr Visits this Month

When he was about 4 or 5 weeks old we took Levi to Dr. H for his weight check. He was born 7lbs 2oz and dropped to 6lb 5oz (11% body weight). He had lost more weight than doctors like them to lose. Well while he was there being weighed he was crying and crying and wouldn't stop.  Finally Jesse put him on his shoulder like when we burp him. We told Dr. H that he liked that position, it calmed him down frequently. Sometime that is the only way we could get him to sleep. She noticed that he was calm while upright, fussy when we laid him down. She gave us a prescription for acid reflux. That night we noticed a difference. Over the next week Levi became a whole new baby! He didn't cry every waking moment. He slept more. He was happy and alert when he was awake. We couldn't believe how wonderful parenting could be when the baby wasn't crying 24/7!!
Today, I took Levi to his 2 month check up. He weighs 12lbs 3oz which is in the 50th percentile range. He is 23 inches long which is between the 25 and 50th percentile range. His head circumference is also in the 50th percentile range. Yea! All normal and average!
He had 4 vaccines. Yes, he screamed and screamed. All the way to the car, he screamed. Then I put him in the car and drove. He fell asleep in 60 seconds flat!

Sleepless Nights

We knew what we were in for...a sleepless night. Levi slept all day long, only waking to eat a little bit. We knew he would eventually wake up and be ready to stay awake for a while.

He woke briefly at 8:45pm, ate and was back to sleep by 9pm.
At 10 we went to sleep, praying that we would get some sleep that night.
He woke up 2 hours later. We fed him.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Rocking, rocking, rocking.
Blink.
Blink.
Eyes Wide open.
He was not going back to sleep.
He was going to stare at us, the fan, the blank wall, everything!
We put him in his crib to see if he would be content there and we could go to sleep for a while.
He fussed.
Rocking.
1:00 am
Rocking.
We prayed he would get tired soon.
2:00 am
Rocking.
Rocking and feeding again.
2:30 Sleep
With the grace of a dancer,
I stand up and cross the distance to the crib.
I lift him into the crib as gently as a feather.
Blink!
...Holding my breath...
... I'm not moving...
Eyes close.
...I'm still not breathing or moving.
Silent as a cat, I back away, climb into bed, pray he stays asleep
and I sleep
          ...for 3 hours until he wakes again...


In spite of all that, I wouldn't trade it for anything! After Levi falls asleep, I love to watch him dreaming. He gets a whole face smile as he dreams about what ever it is that little boys dream about. I love to see Jesse lay on the floor with Levi while the make faces and noises at each other. I love that now when I come home, Levi wakes up and looks at me, bleary eyed; he smiles.

The First Month

Daddy's hands

What a ride this month has been!! They say childbirth is the hardest thing you will ever do. I agree, but a close second is surviving the first 2 weeks of mommy-hood! First let me say I do not have any idea how women survive if their husbands are not home for at least the first 3 weeks! Jesse has been the best husband and father anyone could ever hope for!! I thank God for such an amazing spouse!!

3 days old  

The best part of this first month is gazing upon our miracle! Each day he becomes more and more awake and alert for longer periods of time. I am watching him become not just a baby but a real person with a personality.

The hardest part of the first 2 weeks was the lack of sleep, raging hormones, being in pain from giving birth, nursing pain and not having a clue what to do. They say that babies sleep for 16-19 hours per day. They say that we should sleep when the baby sleeps. So we should be able to get plenty of sleep, right? What they don't tell you is that it is in 2 hour segments and you are holding and rocking him while he sleeps for 10 of those hours!

6 lb 10oz

Lack of sleep and hormones gave me the baby blues for the first 2 weeks. Poor Jesse. He would look over at me and see that I was crying. He'd ask why. I'd sob, " I don't know!" or "I'm so tired." I'd calm down after a while. The it would happen again later. "NOW why are you crying?" My response was, "I'm still tired." or "I don't know why he's crying." Jesse was doing everything humanly possible to alleviate my tiredness and help me by fixing meals, changing diapers, cleaning, laundry, bringing me pillows and water. Levi was wanting to nurse constantly (and still is) so it was up to me to nurse and rock him for hours and hours a day. Jesse could and did rock him to sleep frequently but I don't like to hear Levi crying so much when I am able to nurse while rocking him so he doesn't cry. So I did as much of that as I could for the first several weeks.

I have not figured out how women nurse exclusively day and night. After a week of trying to do that, I caved in and asked Jesse to give him a bottle of formula during the night. I tried pumping but I have been unsuccessful at that as of yet. That has me stressed out, which makes everything more difficult. I want to throw in the towel, but then I think about all the germs at school that we will be indirectly exposing Levi to. So I'm still trying.

The "ooh" face

The picture above shows us weighing Levi in a mixing bowl on our digital kitchen scale. : )



What I love about being a new mom is watching Levi wake up. his face goes through a myriad of expressions as he does so. He stretches his arms up above his head and twists his body in the biggest stretch his little body can manage. Then he makes his "ooh" face which means "I'm hungry" and if you don't give him what he wants he'll scream.  Yea he has us well trained already! Sometimes he just stares off into space and I wonder what he is thinking.


I can't wait to see what new things he will learn to do next month!



*Photos at top were done by BellaBaby Photography. Rights were purchased.

Picture of Levi

My little angel sleeps! 

Week 38- nearly there!

The waiting game continues. I did, however, survive the stomach flu on Saturday and Sunday. At first I thought I was suffering from self induced nausea from nervous waiting. Then I thought I might be going into labor because I had read somewhere that some women get sick right before labor and my warm up contractions were getting to the point of painful. I slept very uneasy Saturday night waiting for the contractions to become more regular. But no... they were 30 min, 5, 8, 18, 45, 10...you get my drift. I woke up sorely disappointed and feeling only marginally less ill.  I decided that the contractions must have been more intense due to dehydration.

By Sunday evening I was feeling as good as I could while being 38 weeks pregnant. DH...not so much.

Monday- I actually got up off my bum and did a little organizing in our front room. This is the room that is normally presentable but is currently not.  When school was out I dumped all my school stuff in there that I needed to sort through.
10pm-3am Levi was trying to find an escape route! He would not go to sleep, nor would he let me sleep either! Jesse and I were amazed at how far my belly pushed out! I have never read anywhere that you should worry about a baby moving about too much, but i was starting to worry that he was under some kind of stress causing all the movement. Maybe he is claustrophobic like his momma?
Finally he settled down and I was dozing off, when the thunderstorm rolled in! Oh well, more preparation for sleepless nights!

Tuesday- Dr. Apt. Good News! I am 1 cm dilated. And according to the fetal monitor, having little bitty contractions 4 minutes apart. I am feeling them 15-30 minutes apart right now. The others are generally too minimal for me to notice. He is not yet fully engaged in the pelvis though. The doctor said to make an appointment for next week but she doesn't think we will have to wait that long! I am so excited to finally see Levi in person!

Lord, I hope she is right. I pray for patience and trust in Your timing. And I pray for inner calm.

I think I can...

Well I'm finally showing signs that I will one day have this baby! Praise God!!
At the OB appointment, while hooked up to the fetal monitor (aka old lady monitor), the dr asked me if I felt anything.
I said, "He moved." in a tone that respectfully said, Duh that happens frequently.
She shook her head and said, "You just had a contraction about a minute ago. We'll watch to see how far apart they are for the next 20 min." Sadly, I only had the one during the 20 minutes so I am not in real labor...yet.

She reminded me that Levi only has 4 days until he is considered full term! Dr. Hsu said that most women are anxious for the baby to come once they are full term.
I raised my hand and said, "I'm there!"
She also reminded me that since this is my first, I will most likely go all the way to 39 or 40 weeks. At least she didn't say 41 weeks.

My prayer tonight is to ask God for patience. I have never been good at waiting or not being able to plan anything with certainty.