Lewis Tidbits

I wanted to record some of our more recent memories and tidbits with Lewis. So, here they are!

Lewis Moments:

Lewis sometimes will put himself in time out when he does something like throw a toy. He’ll say, no throwing toys. I go time out. And off he goes! Then he cries once he gets there – just for a minute. And then he finishes his time out calmly. So funny! The other day he put Mr. Bear Man in time out. I’m not sure what for, but it was pretty cute!

At lunch today, Lewis wasn’t wearing a shirt because he had taken his church shirt off before eating. Mommy was feeding Beau during lunch. After she finished, Lewis looked at her, then looked at his own chest and pointed to his nipple. “This is milk”, he announced, proudly!

Lewis got his first haircut on Saturday, March 5^th. He was excited to have his hair cut, as we had been talking to him about it with him. But, once Mommy started to spray down his hair and pulled out the scissors, he got very worried. He was very insistent – no hair cut, no. Put it down. No. We chatted about it a bit, offered a lollipop as a treat after the haircut, and had Mommy cut a piece of her own hair to show him. All of a sudden, he calmed down and let Mommy cut it. And boy is he handsome! Today at lunch, after finishing his veggies, I asked him what else he wanted. He told me he wanted a treat. I offered strawberries. He asked for a hair cut! Something tells me he's going to remember that lollipop!

Lewis loves talking to people on the phone. He’ll pace all around the room telling whoever he’s talking to about his buses and trucks and train track and whatever else!

Lewis is very happy to spend time in his crib. Whether or not naps in there is somewhat hit or miss. He spends a whole lot of time singing to himself, and he also loves jumping in his crib. He knows a whole slew of songs now that he chirps at the top of his lungs. He seems to be more and more imaginative too and we can hear him chatting away about different things to do with Mommy and Daddy and trucks and buses, etc.

Lewis likes to pray. He’ll sort of mutter a lot of things that don’t mean too much, and then ask to bless many of the different people in his life, as well as his truck and bus and train, etc. He also likes to offer suggestions to Mommy’s prayers. He’ll tell me to pray for people I’ve forgotten to pray for, and he often tells me to “bless Jesus” and “bless Noah”.

This last week, Lewis woke up in a bit of a state. I told him that after Mommy finished feeding Beau, we could go for a walk in the big, big stroller and go see the train. We have a freight train that comes through Pennington, by the old train station, and I thought that surely we could catch it going by. So, we headed that direction. Lewis was very excited to see the train station and the train tracks. I jogged up and down the street near the tracks, hoping we’d get lucky and see a train go by. No train. We did another lap or two up and down the street. No train. We walked around the train station. No train. Finally, I told him that I thought we weren’t going to get lucky today and we might not see a train. Just then, chugga chugga chugga chugga. A long freight train came by. We were standing right by the tracks, and Lewis was mesmerized. When we got home, he was so excited to tell Gogo that he saw a train!

A couple weeks ago, our Saturday activity was to go into Princeton and ride the Dinky – the train that connects downtown Princeton with the main train station at Princeton Junction. It’s just a few cars, and a short ride. And, typical Princeton prices, it cost $5.50 per adult to ride it round trip, so we definitely wont’ be doing that every week. But, Lewis was SO excited. He loved seeing the conductor. He loved looking out the window and announcing all the trucks and trees and houses he was seeing. He just loved it!

He sometimes finds it funny now to substitute words to songs. So, tonight I asked him if we could sing “Oh Hush Thee, My Baby” before bed – one of his favorites. He promptly sang, “Oh hush thee, my truck, a truck, a truck.” He thought he was very cute!

Lewis just loves songs so much. When he hears one he likes, he’ll announce, “Oh, that’s a great song!”

I think Lewis is a rather cautious boy – not a risk taker. For example, now that he has processed that he can fall down stairs (unfortunately, he’s learned by experience!), he is very careful on them. He holds on tight, and goes more slowly. When Gogo and Zeez were leaving the other day, he stood at the front door and told them, “Be careful. Don’t slip.” So sweet!

• Lewis loves jumping! He’s very good at jumping when we’re dancing to music. And, he loves jumping on the trampolines when we go to playtime at gymnastics. He also loves running. He says, “One, two, fwee”, and then takes off running down the track!
• Lewis has a great memory for where things are. When we go for walks, he knows exactly which way he wants me to go to get to the slides at the playground or to go see the train, etc.
• Last week, we went to a local farm that had baby goats and lambs and yummy homemade cheese. Lewis loved seeing the animals. We also went running down the gravel road that led up to the farm. It had been rainy, and Mommy had forgotten to bring Lewis’s rain boots with, so he was just in sneakers. He made sure to run through every puddle along the way – the bigger the better. Splashing is very fun!

I don't have great pictures of him splashing at that particular farm. But, here are some pictures of him on our sleigh ride at Howell Living History Farm, plus one of him after wiping out while running excitedly through the mud!

• Lewis also loves running the loop in our house between the living room, dining room, and kitchen.
• Lewis is very orderly. He’s great at clean up and loves singing the clean up song at the top of his lungs while we put things away. Once he knows where something goes, he totally gets the pattern and likes following it. This past weekend we were at the playground behind one of the local churches. They have a shed full of trucks and toys. Lewis pulled out every single truck (12 of them, I believe) and lined them all up in a perfect line. It looked like a big, truck traffic jam out by the sandbox! So telling of how his little mind works!
• Lewis loves belly buttons. He has a great book about belly buttons, and he now loves pushing everyone’s belly button. Make sure you laugh when he does this! And, if you ask to see his belly button, he’ll definitely oblige!

• I also must mention that after spending a wonderful 6 weeks with his Gogo, Lewis now has a cute little accent! It’s true! I’m all of a sudden hearing all of these words in a Zim accent! How fabulous!
• Lewis loves his family and his extended family. He got to have a visit with his Great Auntie Dawn in February, and he loved spending time with her. “Hey Dawn, I wanna play trucks. Hey Dawn, I wanna play train tracks.”

And, Lewis does love his baby brother Beau. He’s very good at rocking him, throwing away his diapers, singing to him, reading him books, and even sharing things with him. In fact, just the other day, Lewis ran upstairs to get his special blankie and brought it down to Beau. He insisted on putting HIS blankie over Beau’s car seat. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he went up and got Mr. Bear Man (his prized lovey that he sleeps with and chews to death). He also insisted on giving Beau Mr. Bear Man to snuggle with while he slept. How sweet is that!

And what about our precious Beau?

Don't worry! We haven't forgotten about him for a second. We are totally in love with our little baby Beau! He is a sweetheart. He has already given us lots of smiles and even little laughs and coos. Mommy can't get enough of his gurgles. He seems like a very happy, social little guy.

What else is going on in Beau's world? Well, lots of eating and sleeping and pooping, really! He eats well. He sleeps pretty well, although some days he seems to have a hard time getting himself to sleep. He doesn't sleep as deeply during the day as we remember Lewis sleeping. But, overall, good! Better at night that Lewis was. And, he hasn't pooped overnight for about 3 weeks now, which seems rather odd and amazing for such a little baby. But, Mommy's loving not having to worry about diaper changes overnight! He does poop plenty though, but has yet to do a blow out. Yay! His brother did those at least once a day.

We wonder if he'll surpass his brother in weight and height! At his 4 week appointment, he weighed 10lbs 7oz...4 more ounces than Lewis weighed at the same time. So, he's well on his way to becoming a very chunky little baby. The rolls on the thighs are growing! The pediatrician affirmed that Mommy seems to have very high cream milk! :-)

Beau seems to like the bath. He hates his vitamins and usually spits out at least half of them. He has big, bright eyes with long lashes and soft baby skin. And, he's very cuddable! He sleeps either with someone or in bed much more easily than Lewis did. No matter how hard I tried, I could never get Lewis to sleep in bed with me, even when he was tiny. He just wasn't really a snuggler. But, Beau seems happy to oblige. Actually, I now try to wake myself up so that I don't fall asleep with Beau next to me at night because he's quite the little grunter. I don't get very good sleep with him grunting away next to me!

At 6.5 weeks, he's still pretty go with the flow. So he comes along for the ride to all our story hours and other outings. So long as he's rocked and fed, he seems to be happy!