I’ve written a lot about Joshua’s milestones & his birthday celebrations but realize that it’s been awhile since I’ve mentioned much about the little things that make him the cute, silly kid he is.  Joshua is definitely a unique little boy & his little quirks make me laugh (at least most of them do).  So I thought I would share a little about what makes Joshua Joshua.  Now, where do I start???

Since most of you know that Joshua is doing great in his speech therapy, I’ll start with his latest sayings.  Joshua’s vocabulary has expanded & he’s talking more often, which is nice.  If we try to get him to say a word he’s not ready to say yet, he’ll say “knee” which is apparently his default word.  Josh still loves making animal sounds, & he’ll ask me to draw pictures of the respective animals with his new magnetic doodle toy.  Sometimes he’ll also ask me to draw certain colors which doesn’t work so well since the toy is just black on white!  He enjoys pointing out different colors he sees, saying “boo,” “pur-pul,” & “lellow” all over the place.  Even though he’s still a little delayed in expressive communication (although not delayed anymore according to one of the speech therapists—yeah!), Joshua is learning to read.  He can identify & say the letters A-E, O, P, T, & Z, & the number 2, & can point to several other letters when we say them.  It’s funny how he will focus on & point out different letters when we’re out, like on an aisle marker at the grocery store or on a building when we’re stopped at a red light.  My favorite frequently-used Josh-isms are “mi-mi” (monkey), “uh-gen” (again), “bye-e” (potty), “goot” (scoot), “ka-kul” (cuddle), “nack” (snack), “weet!” (wait), “wah-wul” (waffle), & “bo-bo” (boo-boo).  This fall, Joshua & I are going to start a weekly language program which is sort of like a pre-preschool through the county.  I’m curious as to how that’s going to go & am optimistic it will be a great experience to prepare him for a traditional school program down the line.

Joshua still hates having his diaper changed more than anything in the world, but we’re in the beginning stages of potty-training so hopefully we won’t have too much longer to deal with that.  Josh will sit on his little potty chair in the living room & on his Elmo potty seat on the toilet.  We’ll sit in the bathroom & read his books over & over again until he goes or gets bored.  Sometimes he’ll actually let me know he has to go but other times his potty successes are just a matter of coincidence that he’s sitting on the pot when he goes.  But being that he just turned 2, we’re still way ahead of the game so I’m not rushing him on this.  Joshua’s favorite motivator for going potty is getting to tear up a square of toilet paper & putting it in the toilet.  He gets one when he first asks after sitting on the toilet but doesn’t get another unless he is productive.  Weird, but that’s what he likes so we’re going with it.  I never wanted to be one of those parents who rewards their kid with candy or other food so if it’s toilet paper he likes, that’s what we’re going to use.  Josh also loves the potty song that I downloaded online—anything with his name in it is appealing.

Another interesting thing about Joshua is his weird relationship with shoes.  Since we don’t wear shoes in our house, we leave them near the front door.  Whenever someone comes over, he’ll grab a pair of my shoes & offer them to whomever is coming in.  We have no clue why he does this but it’s really funny because he does it pretty much every time.  He’s gotten better at not pulling his shoes off in the car so now we’ll put them on when we leave the house rather than when we arrive at our destination (although inevitably, we’ll have to put them back on if we’re running late because that’s when he decides to take them off en route).  Josh has 2 regular pairs of shoes that he wears.  One day he was refusing for me to put his shoes on & kept asking for his stuffed turtle.  I told him that the shoes were his turtle shoes, & he let me put them on.  Now, he calls that pair his turtle shoes.  His other pair are his puppy shoes.  So Joshua gets to choose if he wants to wear his turtle shoes or puppy shoes when we go out.  Whatever works.  Joshua still loves wearing grown-ups’ shoes & will put on Erick’s or my shoes frequently.  At a toddler size 8 1/2 wide, he’ll be fitting into our shoes before too long!

Joshua just loves to play & dance.  If he hears music, his face perks up & he’ll move his arms up & down or spin around in circles.  When we drive Erick’s car, Joshua gets to listen to his toddler music pretty much non-stop (he’s got a built-in iPod set-up which we keep on a shuffle of Joshua’s playing music).  When we were in California, Adam’s girlfriend taught Joshua how to shake his moneymaker.  Now he likes to wiggle & smack his butt to be silly.  Thanks, Adriana.   My silly little boy will also do anything to be tickled.  Sometimes that’s the only thing that helps make diaper changes (somewhat) tolerable.  Once we stop tickling him, he’ll take a deep breath & ask for more.  Now he’ll even tickle his animals or pictures in his books, which gives him the giggles almost as much as when he’s being tickled.

From one emotional extreme to the other, Joshua has the cutest little temper tantrums.  Sometimes these tantrums start at the drop of a hat for often no apparent reason other than the fact that he’s 2 years old.  He’ll get this look of betrayal as if he’s being wronged in a major way, with crocodile-sized tears & a bright red face.  If it’s a big fit, Joshua will bang his head on the floor, a wall, or whatever’s nearby.  And sometimes just as quickly as a tantrum starts, it’s over & all is right with the world again.

Josh is quite the meticulous player at times, almost like a little OCD kid.  When he’s stacking his blocks or legos, he knows exactly which block he wants to put on top of which block.  If it’s not quite right, he’ll take them off & rearrange things until it’s just so.  He gets this cute, concentrated look on his face when he’s in the zone.  It’s almost zen-like he’s so focused.  Other times, he plays very haphazardly & knocking things over so he still likes to have fun.  When he’s not stacking blocks, he’s lining up his books, blocks, stuffed animals, or other toys into straight lines.  Josh loves to read & will spend the toddler equivalent of hours flipping through book after book, pointing to the pictures & commenting on what he sees.  He still likes to read to his stuffed animals and will often sit one next to him with the book on its lap rather than on his own.  He’s getting better at not destroying books, for which I’m very relieved.  He got his first set of non-board books for his birthday & so far they’re all completely intact.  The last few months, when he rips a page from a book, it’s usually because he gets too engrossed into his reading that he goes too fast & turns the page too quickly from the middle rather from than the corner so it’s an accident.  Once a small tear develops, it’s all over–the page is just too tempting to pull.  So we’ll be reading board books for awhile longer.

Two of the best motivators for Joshua to pick up his toys (other than watching his little movies) are coloring and stickers.  He has fun coloring with his crayons & Crayola Color Wonder markers (they’re cool, clear markers that show up as colors on the special paper).  He’ll make a little scribble then go “uuuuuu” as if it’s the neatest thing ever.  I picked up several books of animal stickers from the craft store & they’re a big hit.  He’ll point to or say the name of the animal (or its sound) & I’ll peel back the sticker for him to pick off.  Josh likes to arrange the tigers with the tigers, the cows with the cows, & so forth most of the time.  If the stickers don’t get all the way down on the paper, he’ll go “bat bat” & pat them down with a loud smack.  Fortunately, I’ve managed to avoid having stickers stuck all over the house, but I’m sure that’s going to happen eventually.

Another interesting thing for Joshua is mealtime.  Whenever Joshua washes his hands (no matter when it is), he thinks he’s going to eat since we try to regularly wash his hands before mealtimes.  As soon as I’m drying his hands off, he’ll go “nack, nack” (snack—all meals are snacks to him) & get down from his stepstool as quickly as he can & run to the highchair.  He’s able to climb into the highchair by himself (& sometimes will then stand up & climb over the back of the couch to flop on the cushions, since we keep the highchair in the back of our couch between the dining & living rooms).  If it’s not mealtime & I don’t fasten him in & get food ready for him, he’ll start trying to fasten the straps, as if that’s going to bring him the food he wants.  Joshua’s favorite foods are mainly snacks (albeit relatively healthy snacks).  He can never get enough string cheese, crackers, Puffins, Teddies (an organic teddy bear-shaped Cheerio-like cereal), avocado, yogurt, pasta, peas, applesauce, oatmeal, & cookies.  He’s pretty good at feeding himself with his fork & spoon unless it’s pretty slippery or too liquidy.  Or if he doesn’t like it—then it’s intentionally all over the place.  Joshua used to refuse drinking milk at all from his sippy cup, until we were at my brothers & I decided to see if he’d drink it with a little Ovaltine in a regular cup with a straw.  After a few times, he no longer needed any chocolate but the straw thing stuck & he’s loved milk ever since!  There are a lot of foods that Joshua likes but he’s a toddler so he’s got to decide each time if it’s something he wants to eat at that particular moment—& often, he just doesn’t want to eat it at all.  But there’s always something he likes to eat everyday & he’s growing & taking his multi-vitamins so I’m not concerned.  I just hope this pickiness gets over with soon.

Well, that’s Joshua in a nutshell.  He’s a very special boy, usually very happy & good-natured.  He still loves to flirt & can charm pretty much anyone with his smile & head tilt.  Even though he gets bashful at times, he enjoys being the center of attention (unless it’s at the doctor’s office).  I wouldn’t trade him for anything & can’t believe he’s been in our lives for 2 years already!