Dear Josh,

Dear Josh,

You are 2 years, 9 months old. It’s been a while since I’ve posted on your blog…

You are really talking great these days. Daddy and I counted the number of words in your sentences today and most of your sentences contain four to six words. Daddy said he even counted one sentence today with seven words.

You like to put your own clothes on. You’re pretty good at shirts and you can mostly put your pants and underwear on by yourself, although you sometimes need a little help still.

You love to sing with Mommy – we usually sing songs together at bedtime. The usual songs are “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, “Rock-a-Bye Baby”, “ Jesus Loves Me”,” Itsy Bitsy Spider”, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, and “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart”. Nini also taught you “Deep and Wide”. Sometimes, you sing also a Johnny Cash song with Daddy.

You like to talk a lot. It’s like your favorite thing to do. You like to talk more than you like to play with toys!

You are getting really good at your LeapFrog computer game. You’re learning to use the mouse and you’re learning where the letters are on the keyboard.

You recently learned to climb up on the potty by yourself. You just came out into the living room one day and told Daddy that you had gone to the potty! You figured out how to climb up onto the toilet seat (on your knees) and either swing your leg around to sit down or to actually kneel on the toilet seat to pee! It was so funny the first time I saw you do it. I was afraid that you were going to fall into the toilet, but you’ve done it many times by now and I think you’ve only fallen in once so far! (If you read this someday, you might wonder why we don’t have a step stool for you to use to get onto the toilet. It’s because you and Audrey drag the step stools all over the house and use them to get into things you shouldn’t!)

You got a kid’s John Deere Gator (ride-on toy) for Christmas and you LOVE it! It goes 2 ¼ to 4 ½ miles per hour (in a low and high speed setting). You can shift between low, high, and reverse. You’re good a using the gas pedal and shifting, but steering is still kind of tricky!
When you want to do something by yourself and you think that we are going to want to help you, you sometimes say “I can do that. That’s EASY!!” I think it’s so cute when you say that instead of “I can do it by myself!”

You are a really good brother to Audrey. The two of you don’t always play together, but you definitely notice when she’s not around. When Daddy puts you down for a nap, you ask “Where’s Sissy?” You’re good at sharing with her, especially food and your milk (in a sippy cup). (It’s not that we don’t give you each your own cup – it’s just that the two of you tend to swap back and forth or one of you puts your cup down and the other one picks it up.) You’re not too bad about sharing toys, either. We have to remind both of you not to take toys from one another, though. You give Audrey hugs sometimes, but we have to remind you not to squeeze her around the neck too hard. Even though I’ve tried to teach you to hug her under her arms/around the tummy, you always want to hug her around her neck.

You know pretty much all of the letters in the alphabet and you can sing the whole alphabet song, although you do skip a few letters here and there. When you finish singing the alphabet song, you clap your hands and say “Yea!” and sometimes “Bravo!” and you want everyone else to clap and cheer with you. You can also spell your name (sometimes) and you can spell “hot”.

You like to talk on the phone. We don’t have a “land line” at home, so you’re only used to talking on cell phones, although you do talk on a cordless phone or a regular phone at Nini’s house sometimes. Sometimes, you ask to call someone – usually Nini, Aunt Shelly, Uncle Seth, or Aunt Millie. A couple of times you’ve also asked to call Tu or Grandpa Jerry or Uncle Juan. You sometimes have a hard time holding the phone to your ear and talking into the microphone, so you usually talk on speakerphone.

You’re going through the “Why?” phase right now – where you like to ask “Why?” ALL THE TIME! You ask why, we answer, you ask why again, we answer, you ask why AGAIN, over and over and over again. Sometimes, it’s really hard to come up with a good answer to the repeated “Why?” questions, so one time, just for fun, I started to answer your “Why?” questions with a number (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) just to see how many times in a row you would ask “Why?’ You finally stopped asking “Why?” after we got up to 55!

Josh - Daddy and I love you so much! You are such a great kid - it's hard to believe that you're not our little baby anymore and it won't be long before you grow from a toddler to a little boy right in front of our eyes! You bring so much joy to our lives. I can't imagine my life without you in it!

Love, Mommy