I Need...

What a funny little development! Until today, Josiah has made requests by stating the item with rising intonation and slightly widening eyes, e.g., "Animal crackers??" Unprompted, today he began asking for anything (and everything) as a statement of need. An incomplete list of exemplars from our day together: I need cereal. I need raisins. I need your hand, Mama. I need buckles. I need help. I need bubbles. I need string cheese. I need Thomas on the big TV. I need Teddies. I need paci. I need chocolate. I need more.

Beautiful illustration of an advance in language development...and human nature...

Trains and Fish and Pumpkins

We've had adventures today!

There is a rail yard behind campus, and although unfortunately no trains were moving when we were there, Josiah was excited to see these three "wagons full of tar" on a siding. (I have no idea what they really contained, but they looked just like the cars that James -- of Thomas and Friends -- crashes into in one of Josiah's books.)

After that, we headed across the street to my office...to...adopt a fish! Rojo, our beautiful new red betta, is an ex-lab animal who needed a new home. You can't quite see Rojo in the one shot we took here, but trust us, he's very handsome. We hope he makes it through his first 24 hours as a Casler, though. On top of the trauma of moving, within five minutes of being transferred to his new bowl, I managed to let Josiah dump about half a cup of fish food on him. (I didn't think Josiah would be able to get the cap off the container. Wrong!) Poor Rojo's gleaming new home went instantly murky, and although we strained out as much food as we could, we had to leave Rojo in that state most of the day until new water could come to room temperature and sit for a while.

Jesse took off the afternoon, and we went to a garden center to pick up some new perennials for the backyard. Josiah loved the pumpkins!

Birthday Boy!

Josiah turned two yesterday, and he's enjoyed two full and wonderful days of fun and gifts! It didn't go entirely as planned to start, though...

On Friday night, Jesse and I set up Josiah's train table with a bunch of new track and put new batteries into his two mechanical engines, which had been dead for a while. (All of his train gear is second-hand off Craigslist -- so wonderful!) We knew he'd LOVE it, so first thing Saturday morning, I kept Josiah hostage upstairs while Jesse had to attend a few sessions of a HOPE board meeting. We did breakfast up there, played games, read books, and opened his first present: Thomas books from Lisa and Jason. We had lots of fun blowing the tissue paper like confetti, and I wish I'd gotten a shot of Josiah's smurf face after he spent too much time with the blue tissue paper stuck on his slobbery visage. :)

Jesse's meeting went almost an hour longer than expected, and I was running out of tricks by the time he called saying he was finally leaving the office. Fifteen minutes later, Josiah and I were expectantly watching out of the upstairs windows when a second call came: Jesse was still at the office, and the car wouldn't start! So we went to get Daddy, and in the interest of not losing more of the day, we abandoned the dead vehicle for the weekend.

Josiah loved his trains when we got home...finally...at 11 a.m. He spent the first 5 minutes completely enraptured, just watching in awe, and then the next hour he was busy and delighted as he explored everything. Lucky boy! Later, after some tickle fights with Jesse (when his badly beaten up glasses finally broke for good, alas) and lunch, Josiah spent some quiet minutes watching "Pop Pop do 'vice'." A week ago Jesse's dad uploaded a special video to YouTube just for Josiah: Pop Pop playing guitar and singing Edelweiss, one of Josiah's favorite going-to-sleep songs. He LOVES it. :)

After nap, Josiah was introduced to his first ever M&M. He's more into savory than sweet, but he liked to suck them for a minute and then spit 'em out after the shell dissolved. We then headed off to a huge pet and fish shop where we looked at hundreds of tanks of fish, lots of reptiles, birds, and small rodent friends. Josiah's favorite part was the deep buckets of feeder crickets! It was a great free excursion.

Jesse's parents arrived just after Josiah went to bed, and so we enjoyed a gift-filled day with them today. I was a bit out of commission for some of it, managing to have one of my worst headaches so far this year (starting around 3 a.m. and not really abating until late afternoon). So, they all went to church without me for the morning while I flitted between devouring far more painkillers than advised on the bottles, feeling miserable in bed, making a big quiche and salad for lunch, and cutting my hair several inches because it felt so unbearably heavy. I'm dangerous with a migraine!




We had been spreading out the presents over these two days but picked up the pace this afternoon, still trying to take time to play with and appreciate most gifts as we went, though. Here he is with his new car rug and cars, opening a train with Pop Pop, and meeting Mr. Potato Head. Thomas and related train items certainly ruled the day -- sweaters, cards, books, engines, bath toys -- and Josiah was in heaven.

Keeping with the theme, I baked his cake in mini loaf pans in order to construct a simple train. He really enjoyed looking at it but wouldn't eat any!

It's hard to believe he's really and truly a toddler. We're very proud of our little boy, especially appreciating that at least for now, he's very kind and very gentle and has a real love for life with a constant twinkle in his eye. But rather than ending on a sentimental note, I'll leave you with a parting shot of Jesse in the gift Auntie Kara and Uncle Matt sent down. Am I a lucky lady or what?

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Perhaps last Thursday should inaugurate a new trend: Thursday posts. Year-round I stay home with Josiah on Thursdays, so although it's a stretch to "keep Jesse in the loop" on what Josiah and I do on our day off together while Jesse's at the office, well, do you think it works?

Frankly, I suppose today is barely even blog-worthy! We kept pretty quiet --- ran a few errands, played at home. Background for non-Jesse readers: Josiah's 24 hours into a course of antibiotics for another really nasty double ear infection, so he's been pretty sick. It's 90 degrees out today (i.e., still summer) and the child has ear tubes (i.e., should be all but infection proof), so this bodes very poorly for cold and flu season. Anyway, one of my favorite things that Josiah does right now is choose colors that match various Thomas and friends engines and then name his scribbles appropriately; a red scribble is James, a green one is Percy, and so on. I'm thinking I need to plan a "Thomas" birthday party for him when he turns 2 next week.

(Titled with apologies to James Joyce, whose alter ego shared few if any traits with the artist depicted here!)