Terrific/Terrible Twos - Joshua 2 1/2 years old

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.

New Favorite Park take II

A few weeks after Mother's Day we went on another picnic to the same park. This time we came more prepared with food for the ducks, more food for ourselves, and a bike lock so we could wander a bit more without worrying about our bikes. Here are some pictures I took that time (5/26/13).

 This bird was just chilling by the play area. I got really close before it flew away. Some other kids got even closer to another one.

 My picnic buddies.

 Best way to eat a sandwich ever.

 Old, stale cheerios for the ducks. They weren't terribly hungry though.

 Dave climbing up the fire pole to go down the slide with Joshua. They had fun going down the slide then coming over to me to discharge their static on my knee. When it wouldn't work, Joshua would try touching my other knee to see if that one would work. :)

 Dave testing out more playground equipment.

 Joshua trying out the same equipment. He was not very amused.

There were some pretty wild irises (?) along the little stream that I took like 20 pictures of trying to get the focus right. The light was fading and there were a million things for the camera to focus on. Aren't they pretty though?

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day this year I got to choose that we go on a bike ride/picnic along the river trail. I figured we'd just pick one of the parks we'd pass to eat at. We chose this one that I hadn't been to before. It's now one of my favorite parks. It's tucked away over by the freeway. There are a tons of tall trees, picnic tables, open grass, a pond with ducks, a great play structure, swings, and even some pavilions.

 Goofing off while eating dinner on the picnic blanket. We had chicken salad on croissants. So yummy! We were all still hungry by the end though. Riding bikes sure works up an appetite.

 I love this face he's pulling. He could swing all day.

 Dave getting in on the swing fun. He was having a blast re-living his childhood. He was giggling the whole time because he had forgotten that you get the falling feeling every time you go back or forth.

Watching the ducks. I didn't bring anything to feed them this time because, well, I didn't know there would be ducks. Look at those eyelashes! I hope if we ever have girls, they get those lashes! 

Splash Pad Fun

There's a new splash pad in town and last Friday we went to check it out with our little play group:

Taking off to go check it out while it's off. Doesn't know the treat he's in for!

 It's really difficult to focus on little toddlers running around while there is water spraying up around them.

 Barely wet and already having a blast (and blasting out everyone's ear drums with one of his ear-piercing screams).

 Just look at that happy face! Do you think it was a hit?

Really getting into it. I'm really glad I got some water shoes this year for this and for the water park all summer. Hopefully it will save us from some slips and hot sidewalk burns. Now I just need to dig out the swimming suits to see if any fit so he doesn't have to keep wearing just normal shorts.

West 1 Bedroom Apartment Pictures

Ok, yesterday was the 2-bedroom apartment upstairs from us. Today is the West apartment in the house next door which is part of the 4plex. It's a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom with washer/dryer hookups. Let me tell you how much more I like the floors in these than in ours and the 2 bedroom upstairs from ours... A LOT! Whoever invented almost-black wood floors should be hung. They're horrid. They show every scratch and fleck of anything. With my cleaning habits, I need floors that show almost nothing. K, on to the pictures!

 From entry (see, aren't they lovely floors?!)

 Kitchen (don't you love the cabinets, too?)

 Front doorway (notice the nice view of the beautiful building across the street)

 Living room (yes, it's attached to the kitchen)

 Bedroom closet (unfortunately that big pipe is exhaust for all sorts of water heaters and furnaces in the basement and can't be moved.) Look! you can see our other house out the window!

 From the bedroom toward the kitchen and laundry/bathroom

 From the bedroom closet. There's another outside door in the bedroom. (it's open right now for more light)

 Door closed.

 Laundry room/hookups. 

 Bathroom from laundry room.

Laundry room from bathroom (I'm standing in the shower to take this hah!)

This unit and the one next to it have central heating and air conditioning. Super nice.

2 Bedroom Apartment Pictures

In case anyone wants to see what our other apartments look like, here's part 1 of a 2-part blog post. Here are some pictures I took of our 2-bedroom apartment upstairs from us:

 Entry-way: stairs up to the apartment.

 Looking back down the stairs at the front door.

 Bathroom (I had to sit on the toilet to take this picture lol! don't worry, I wasn't using it...)

 See, there it is. 

 Our cute claw-foot tub

 Annnnd...another bathroom picture. 

 Moving on to the kitchen. This is from the top of the stairs. 

 From over by the fridge, see the bathroom door open over there?

 From by the oven/sink, there's bedroom 1 door, stairs down, and bathroom door.

 Last kitchen picture: that's the "hallway" to the living room and bedroom 2.

 Bedroom 1 from doorway

 Other side of bedroom 1, including closet.

 Doorway back to kitchen.

 Living room. Gas fireplace (that I can't figure out how to open for the life of me to turn off the pilot light)

 Other side of living room with storage closet.

 Back toward bedroom 2 and kitchen.

 Storage closet close up.

 Last corner of living room.

 Bedroom 2 from doorway to living room.

 Other side of bedroom 2 including closet.

 Back toward the doorway to living room.

 Close-up of closet.

And the rest of bedroom 2.

And if you made it this far, here's a picture I took looking out bedroom 2 window to our backyard: