18 months

Levi is 18 months old this week and has started going to nursery! Yay! They let me send him a couple weeks early because I taught sharing time this month. He's a bit sad when I drop him off, and then he clings to the nursery leaders; but he always cheers up during snack time. I love to peek at him in there, looking like such a big boy.

He is still such an awesome sleeper. In fact he sleeps in later than any of my other kids ever have, like 10:00 or so. The latest was 10:45. And when he finally wakes up, he's starving. He's been known to eat 5 packets of oatmeal. Or 10 bowls of cereal. Seriously, he spends over an hour eating breakfast, screaming for more after each bowl.

He is a climber - he especially likes getting up onto the dining room table and the swing set. In fact I had to photoshop out the huge bruise on his forehead in all these pictures. He has learned to move the step stool anywhere he wants to go. He's particularly drawn to the knives on the counter.

He has discovered the great outdoors. It's his favorite place to be. He screams to go outside whenever his brothers are out there.

Levi is a screamer! He screams when he's happy, screams when he's sad, screams when his brothers get too close to him while he's eating, screams when Brennan takes a toy away from him, screams when I change his diaper (he doesn't like to hold still). I'm getting a headache just thinking about it. I guess as the 5th kid he has to make sure he's heard. He also talks constantly, and he acts like we should be understanding what he's saying.

From the time he wakes up to the time he goes to bed, he is busy - running back and fourth and moving things from place to place. He'll have some kind of container (bucket, bin, bowl, etc.) and fill it with a bunch of little things, like blocks, one at a time. Then he'll take the container to another part of the house and empty it, one block at a time. Then he'll fill it again and go somewhere else to do it all over again. Funny kid. He also likes to sword fight his brothers, collect sticks and pencils, get thrown into the air by his dad, run away laughing when I tell him to come here, and cheer when his dad or brothers come home.

He is a sweetheart. He was never a real snuggly baby. In fact the more tired or sad he was, the more he'd push me away and just want to go to bed. But now, every once in a while, he'll hug me with his head resting on my shoulder. Then he'll pat my back and say "aahhh," and I just want to freeze time and savor it.