Out of Joshua's long long life, the past 6 months or so have been my favorite so far. I love that Joshua talks well enough that he can explain to me what he wants, when he wants it. Or if he isn't feeling well he can tell me what hurts, usually. It's fun to be able to tell him something and he understands more than I think.
He has a great sense of humor and is such a silly kid. He goofs around and says the funniest things. He is currently rolling a back massager thing on my belly. "Mom, roll you! On your belly! See?"
He has become a cuddly kid, which is great, because I love cuddling. Up til now he has hated being hugged or cuddled, or anything inbetween, which was fun when I would try to get him to go to sleep at church as a baby.
We go on at LEAST 2 walks a day at his begging request. Going on a walk is up there with watching TV and eating cake and ice cream. He'll come in first thing in the morning and say, "I want to go for a walk and watch TV, k?" or "I want to eat cake and ice cream and go for a walk, k?" On our walk, usually just round the block, he insists on bringing our small, cheepo umbrella stroller so he can push it. We go up every "ramp" along the way.
He loves people (as he has his whole life) and points to people anywhere we go and asks, "Who's thAAaat?" On the same note, he is very curious about everything and will point to almost everything wherever we are and say, "What's thAAAaat?" until he learns the name of it.
A couple of weeks ago he learned how to give raspberries. So now, when he pretends to go to work he'll say, "I'll be right back. I'm going to work. Bye!" Then he will come up to me and give me a hug, a kiss, a raspberry, and butterfly kisses, always in that order, and then will be on his way. For some reason this week he is also on a licking kick, which is just gross.
He still loves cars and trucks and trains. He'll talk about each car we pass and tell me the color and whether it's a car, truck, semi, garbage truck, bus, etc. If there's a UPS truck within a mile, he'll spot it and point to it and exclaim, "UPS TRUCK!!!!" He actually gets UPS and BYU mixed up so sometime it's, "BYU TRUCK!!!" Or once Grandma mentioned that his chair was "BYU Blue" and he said, "No, BYU is brown."
Joshua is potty trained! YAY! He only wears a diaper at night, but usually keeps it dry. We'll try doing underpants at night one of these days when I feel up to doing laundry every day if he wets the bed.
I had to have Joshua in with me in the bathroom when I showered today and first he sat on the potty (so he was completely bare bum for the rest of this), filled the sink up with water and splashed in it, took off the little drain thing in the sink, put it back on, took the last roll of tp (in the room, we have more in storage) and rinsed it off in the sink so it was all soggy. Then he decided he actually needed to go potty, so he sat on it again and pooped. So by the time I was out of the shower I had a poopy bummed toddler with no toilet paper to wipe him. Oh the learning process of toddlers.
Just an update: Right now he's opening our mail for us while sitting on my lap as I type this.
Now, with all the cute stuff, there's also the stuff that makes me want to just shut him in his room all day.
He bites. No warning, no reason, and really hard. Luckily it's usually just Dave or me, and not other people. (knock on wood)
Like I said earlier, he's obsessed with licking, so I constantly have toddler spit drying on me.
He hits. This one is every
He gets sooooooo whiney!
He absolutely cannot play by himself. The only way he'll play with his toys, which are all in his room, is if someone is in there sitting with him. Is there a way to teach a child to do independent play? Do I just shut him in his room til he plays by himself? I think he insists on having someone there because he narrates everything he does the whole time.
He has a VERY short attention span, even for a toddler. I can't use the big square babysitter like Chelsea because he'll watch for like 5 minutes and then lose interest, even if it's his favorite movie (Cars). If you sit with him to watch something it's more like 15 to 20 minutes, but that defeats the purpose a little bit, unless you're trying to sleep a little bit more on those early mornings.
He's really good at not listening. Sometimes I think his ears are painted on.
Mealtimes are like pulling teeth from a hippo. (see above biting) My finger is still aching from the latest lunchtime bite. The only thing he will eat on his own, without me feeding it to him is yogurt. Everything else he'll take one or two bites and then just stand up in his chair, get down and run away, hit the table with his fork, etc. I used to make him eat everything I served him, but then the last few bites were just agonizing and I realized he gets extra frustrating to feed when he's full (makes sense, right?) so I only make him take one more bite at that point.
Most of the obnoxious things are normal developmental things for a toddler though, so I try not to get too frustrated and just focus on all the fun stuff we do instead.
