Less Than 10 Minutes

Sonja and I have been trying to get Levi into a bedtime routine and get him to the point where we can just lay him down at night and have him fall asleep. Oh the pain. Levi is a pretty sweet boy - so when he cries it really breaks our hearts (I'm sure it might also have something to do with him being our son and all). Anyway, Sonja's been doing an awesome job these last few nights of driving the bedtime routine - eat, change into pajamas, story and song. Then, we lay him down...and that's when the crying begins. We wait 10 agonizing sweet-baby-crying minutes, check on him (but don't pick him up), then repeat. We only let it go on for about 30-45 minutes, though (we don't want to scar him or anything). The other night he finally fell asleep after about 45 minutes. Last night Sonja was being a trooper and doing it on her own while I was working late - after being down for about 30 minutes he found a new cry to try on her and she broke - you can't understand how hard it is unless you've done it. Tonight Sonja had some errands she wanted to do, so I was on duty with the bedtime routine. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to hack it - that I would crack too soon. And, truly, I almost didn't make it 30 seconds. I was enjoying our time of hanging out, just Dad and Son, and reading and getting ready for bed. So much so, that when he started crying after I laid him down, it took everything I had to drag myself out of the room and go set the 10 minute timer.

But tonight it all paid off - he cried himself to sleep in under 10 minutes. I know it was 10 minutes because the timer I had set so I wouldn't go in too often hadn't gone off yet. And, now over 2 hours later he's still asleep.

I just hope it is the sign of things to come and not just him taking a night off while he plans out new cries to work on us.

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And, for fun, here's a picture - a little blurry, but still pretty cute:

Organizing. . .

Can you guess what I've been doing lately? Organizing our digital pictures & video. Of course, I have to open all the files I've already organized and view them all again.

This video is when Levi was only two days old. For those of you who do not know I got banned from the nursery twice*. It was hard while it happened but it's a blessing now. While I was banned Tycen would go into the nursery and take videos for me so I could watch our little guy. The blessing is now we have video of Levi when he was just a tiny baby which I don't think we would have had otherwise.

When I watch the video (and I've been watching it a lot) it surprises me how small Levi was. Maybe some of you were able to see it right away but I didn't see it until I watch this video just a few weeks ago. It is probably better that I didn't really see how small he was for it would have made it harder on me. Instead, I was just oblivious to it all - the cords, his size, being able to see his ribs while he hiccuped. I only saw a sweet, healthy baby boy (and all other babies were giants). But now when I watch it, I cry and am very thankful for the wonderful care he got while he was in the hospital.

*banned for having a cold...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Then and Now

A couple pictures of Levi from one he was only a couple weeks old and now when he is 5 months old. Oh, how he has grown. . .

Getting Bigger Every Day

Our little boy is definitely growing. Here are a couple of videos and some pictures. The videos are hot of the press from tonight. The pictures are over the last 10 or so days. The video of Levi and Dad is really long, but I didn't feel like editing it down. In the video of Levi and Mom, I'm not sure what the frog did to Levi, but I'm sure it's learning a lesson.

Five Month Old Levi

Blame

I was just reading in Luke 2 where Jesus (as a boy) got left behind in Jerusalem and his parents had to go back and look for him. After looking for three days they finally found him...and they were ticked! I just imagine that in moments like that it would be a perfect opportunity for Joseph to look at Mary and say, "he doesn't get that from my side of the family!"

Detatchment

This past Sunday, Sonja and I realized we had double booked/overbooked ourselves during church. Sonja was teaching Children's Church and leading our Bible Quiz practice while I was going to be making the FPU announcements and manning the FPU table. This left very little (or no) time to watch our little boy. So, Levi had his first Sunday in the nursery. He spent 4 hours in there (1st service, Sunday School and 2nd Service) and did really well. But, you can be sure he got checked on by mom and dad probably close to 20 times throughout the morning. I'm sure it helps that we have a fabulous nursery and nursery workers.