The Life of Marye, Ben, and Levi

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Levi used to be pretty picky about his food choices.  For many months, I mixed plain yogurt with a variety of fruits and a more limited number of vegetables.  These days, he is much more willing to try new things and he eats pretty much whatever we eat.  I credit his daycare – they eat great food, prepared on site, with a variety of vegetables and grains.  Of course, he’ll eat things at daycare that he doesn’t eat at home.  In particular, he chows down on raisins when they are the snack choice at daycare, but hates them at home.  He’ll go so far as to pick all of them out of a cinnamon-raisin bagel.  But we have made great progress.

A case in point was our dinner last week.  Ben decided to make falafel from scratch and Levi was excited to help.  They prepared the falafel patties and, while they were baking in the oven, they made the cucumber sauce and couscous.  It was all delicious.  Levi enjoyed it too.  He stuffed his whole wheat pita with falafel and cucumber, and had two servings of couscous.  Awesome!

I am still having trouble with pictures on this site, but I just posted a couple of great shots of my two boys cooking dinner on Levi’s site.

I enjoy hearing other people’s proclamation of the arrival of spring.  I like seeing everyone else’s pictures of warm sunshine and brightly colored bulbs.  But, here in Minnesota it is still winter.  It is getting a little old, but at least the daytime highs are mainly in the 30s and it has been sunny.  Levi is making the best of it, although he has been asking for his sandbox and he got really excited today when he saw some brown glass poking through the snow.

**I wrote this post about 10 days ago, but didn’t publish it because I am having trouble with pictures on this site.  Well, as of 4/6, I am happy to report that the snow is all but melted and I have spotted a few early bulbs poking up through the dirt.  Levi was able to get into his sandbox this week!  I can’t post pictures on the blog, but you can see them on Levi’s site.

Ben was asking Levi about a small blood blister that appeared on his finger the other day after daycare.  We’re still not exactly sure how it happened, but here is Levi’s explanation:

Ben: Levi, do you have an owie?

Levi: Yah (looking at his finger with a very worried look on his face)

Ben: How did you get the owie?

Levi: From the gato (gato = cat)

Ben: Where was the gato?

Levi: Afuera, at daycare (afuera = outside)

Ben: Oh!  What color was the gato?

Levi: Red!

Ben: A red gato?

Levi: Nnnnoooo, it was blue!

I should add that one of Levi’s daycare friends, Lucy, showed up with a legitimate cat scratch one day, quite a while ago, and received a very cool bandaid from one of their teachers.  Since that day, all of the kids in Levi’s room have attributed their various injuries to a gato in an attempt to get a cool bandaid

Oliver and Levi could almost be twins.  They are in the same room at daycare and spend quite a bit of time playing together, as far as I can tel from Levi’s stories.  They have the same boots (Oliver even wore two left boots home one day), the same hats and mittens, similar coats.  They are both tall-ish, skinny, with very light blond hair.  They are both quite talkative.  And they had a great time playing together at our house today.  We made pancakes and they played with pretty much every toy that we have.  We look forward to getting together again with Oliver (and his parents!) sometime soon.

The Boys

The Aftermath

Ben and Levi disappeared downstairs the other night after dinner.  I wasn’t exactly sure what they were up to, but Levi mentioned something about playing soccer and it sounded like they were having a blast.  Fortunately for me, Ben took a few pictures.  I have no doubt that the farmer cap is going to be very hip this summer.

(For those wondering about the gap-tooth smile, I forgot to mention on this blog that Levi had to have one of his front teeth pulled.  He banged his front teeth onto some metal rungs at the playground last summer.  We saw the dentist right after it happened and he said that there were no immediate concerns, but that he wanted us to come back in six months.  During that time, one of his front teeth died, leaving an abscess in his gum.  So, Levi lost his first baby tooth at age 2.5.  He did really well during the extraction and was rewarded with a big bowl of ice cream, a mini muffin, and multiple episodes of D.ora when he got home.)

I’ll close with two more pictures from boys’ hour in the basement.

Levi and I were outside shoveling snow after work/daycare.   There wasn’t actually any snow left on the sidewalks, but there were lots of puddles.  And shoveling water is just as fun as shoveling snow.

Mama: “Levi, should mama go and get the mail from the mailbox?”

Levi: “No, mama, wildman will get it.”

Mama: “Who is wildman?”

Levi: “A monster.”

And this just a bit ago while I was laying him down in bed.

Mama: “Good night, Levi, I love you.”

Levi: “No Swiper, mama?”  (The Swiper is a character from Dora.  Follow the link for a more detailed explanation.  You know you want to!)

Mama: “No, the Swiper is not here, Levi.”

Levi: “He no have a key for my house, mama?”

Mama: “That’s right, Levi!  The Swiper can’t get into your house.”

Birthday Cake:

Birthday Presents:

Birthday Fun Times:

Happy Birthday, Ben!

And one more quick post because these facial expressions are just too good not to share.

These are from our recent Cabin in the City weekend (read: sleepover with lots of food) with our friends, Tim, Elizabeth and Megan.

One unfortunate consequence of the long winters in Minnesota is that you don’t see your neighbors very often.  In the summertime, it is a party every day, especially between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. at the Cooper Elementary School playground, just a block and a half from our house.  With the slightly warmer temperatures recently, we have been spending more time outside.  Levi has discovered that he loves to shovel snow – I think he’ll be able to handle the sidewalks on his own next winter – and we ventured over to the playground last week.  The snow is still very deep, especially if you have short toddler legs.

My point is that we ran into our across-the-alley neighbors outside and Levi remembered how much he loves Greta.  Greta is 5 and she plays so well with Levi.  She has a younger brother, Arlo (who is 1), and an older brother, Noah (who is 7).  Greta must have remembered how much she likes Levi too because she knocked on our back door that same afternoon. They played L.egos and trains, we read stories, and they played pretend with Levi’s kitchen and stuffed animals.  Their favorite part was probably snack time.  They had bunny crackers and water, in matching cups and bowls.