Our Josiah Boy

Here is another lovely picture of Josiah playing in the leaves. We have this huge tree in the backyard that deposits many a leaf this time of year all over the grass.

A short post about this sweet boy in that we are still working with him on various things, one of which is to learn how to interact with other kiddos a little better. What I see at Awana is that he gets so obsessed about some toy or whatever and then has a complete meltdown when another kid wants to play with the toys he has chosen or has "claimed" as his. I am trying to recreate situations like this at home, so that he can understand that he doesn't always get everything he wants. For instance, today he wanted me to play with the cars with him and said, "You pick a car Momma." So I picked Ferrari from the "Cars" movie (as this seems to be the car I am usually given when we play). Right as I chose Ferrari, he said, "That is the car that I picked," and tried to take it away from me. I told him that I had chosen that one and if he wanted me to play with him then he needed to let me choose the car I wanted. He had a bit of a meltdown and then decided he didn't want to play cars afterall and started kicking me while he was laying on the floor. I told him them to go back to his room and sit in his rocking chair. He was then crying out for me over and over and I went back and we had a heart to heart about why sharing was important and how we need to treat other people. He can verbalize to me that he has options as to what to do instead of hit, kick, or push, but many times he still does these things when he gets mad anyway. It is a challenging thing we are dealing with and it takes much patience as he doesn't seem to grasp this concept very well yet. I know he is just 3 1/2, but it is still important to work with him anyway on this.

As I type this, for now the 3rd time today he has had another "accident" with peeing his pants again. I am convinced this has more to do with getting my attention then him actually not being able to control himself because whenever we are out in public he has always been able to "hold it" and has never had an accident away from home. It always seems to occur when he is rebelling against something I have told him to do such as: stay in his room until it is time to wake up, go to his room when it is nap/quiet play time, or something similar to these situations. I am getting rather tired of dealing with this behavior and my solution for now has been to make him take his wet clothes off and deal with the mess himself and I hope that this will be uncomfortable enough for him to actually stop doing this. If anyone has any suggestions, I would welcome them.

Josiah's First "REAL" Lego Set

We decided that though the packaging says this Lego set is for "4+" that our little builder boy was ready for his first Lego set now. Daddy got out his Lego Star Wars collectors edition "Tie Interceptor" set and was getting ready to rebuild it and Josiah was fascinated with all the pieces and kept asking him, "Can we build it NOW?" and David said, "No, not right now. We will build it tomorrow." Josiah then replied, "Oh" rather dejectedly and then right away, "Can we build it NOW?" Rinse and repeat this conversation a few more times. This gave us the not so subtle clue that a Lego set of his own was in order.

The starter set we bought makes quite a few different building machines such as a dump truck, front loader, and roller. Josiah puts in requests for the other machines in the pictures that don't have directions, so Mommy has to use some ingenuity of her own to try and build these puppies from scratch with just a side shot to go on. Mr. Impatience doesn't like to wait for Mommy to actually build the more difficult machines and she often gets interrupted and has to start over when the Lego creation falls apart over and over.

The Legos have kept Josiah very occupied though I must say, even though he hasn't really built much of his own per se. He plays with the creations that David and I make though and insisted on bringing them to bed with him as well. Today he took a long flat Lego and then filled it up with colorful blocks and brought it over to me and said, "Can we bring this to the fair Momma?" When we went to the Puyallup Fair this last year, he saw all the Lego entries at the fair. It was so cute that he wanted to enter his first little creation!

A few more lovelies from him this week are as follows:

I wasn't feeling well one day and told him, "Oh Josiah please pray for Mommy, she feels really bad." He said, "OK...Dear Jesus, thank you for the world...and pray Mommy feels better."

His Thomas the Train bed was falling apart and we decided to take up my mom's offer to take their extra twin bed for Josiah's room. We had to rearrange his room to make it fit properly. We could tell that he wasn't too keen on seeing his room rearranged. A couple days later, he started pointing around the room and told me where everything used to be. IE: Table goes there, dresser goes there, etc. I asked him, "Do you like your new room?" And he promptly responded, "NO!" Hey at least he is honest, right? Such a sweet little loving-routine pumpkinhead!

Happy & Sad Leaves

Here is Josiah enjoying being buried in the leaves. He kept screaming, "Bury me, bury me!!" He was jumping in the leaves and having a blast.

We brought the babies out to check out the leaves and apparently this was right out for them! Caleb first sat in them and then slowly fell backward and then looked at the sky and started to cry. Daniel pretty much immediately looked like this when he was placed on the leaves. He is our sensitive little dude!

Neonatal Clinic Visit

Yesterday, we went back to the neonatal clinic at the hospital to have the boys checked for their development and general health. They both had slight colds, but despite that they performed well for the specialists there. They looked at the boys based on the 8 month old scale since they were born early and compared them to other 8 month olds when they talked with us about things. As you can see here, they didn't waste any time to fight over the toys they had there. Captain Determined (AKA Caleb) has the tongue action going there and Daniel is leaning over attempting to steal Caleb's toy. And so it begins!

Here is sweet little Caleb boy giving a nice smile for the camera. He weighed in at 19 pounds, 6.8 (50th percentile) ounces and was 28.03 inches long (just above 50th percentile) and head size of 18.5 inches (95th percentile). As you can see he has lots of brains like his Daddy!

Daniel weighed in at 19 pounds 12.4 ounces (50th percentile), was 28.39 inches long (75th percentile) and his head size was 18.23 inches (almost 90th percentile). He also has a big head filled with brains like his Daddy.

I thought I would add these cute shots of the boys in the bathtub too on this post. Now that they can both sit up really well it is MUCH easier to bathe them! Daniel really hates all the transitions getting into the bath and cries a lot, but once he got in the bath and started to splash the water around, he was as happy as a clam (where did that expression come from anyway--rather odd). I have a lot of fun shots of him splashing water all over himself. Of course, when it was time to get out of the bath, he started crying again. He is our sensitive little Daniel!

Here is Caleb boy at home in the water. When I first put him in, he tried to grab the water and hold onto it and we could tell he was puzzling why that wasn't working. Then David threw in two little bath time fishies and he was reaching for those very vigorously! He absolutely LOVED the water and I think of all our boys, he will be the swimmer. We always joke that when we are changing him or he is irritated that he gets "swimmer's feet" where he just started kicking and kicking like he is in the water. It is really cute! Even from a young age, this boy is showing his risk-taking personality! While I am writing this, I have had to move him back to his spot (he army crawls everywhere now) in the living room at least 5 times, make that 6 now because he keeps trying to come out into the kitchen to chew on the computer cords or climb over the pillow that blocks the lamp cord. What is it with young kiddos and cords? They aren't that appealing looking, are they? Anyway, it is a mystery to me, but I do know that little ones have to "taste" everything to explore it.

Pumpkin Patch Fun

We have started a tradition now (a whole whopping 2 years in a row) where we to to the "Pairs at the Patch" event for the Tacoma Parents of Multiples group to which I belong. We went to the Peninsula Gardens in Gig Harbor this year and it was nice because they have the activities in a greenhouse area that isn't freezing cold, and so it is nicer for little babies and for the poor adults who hate the cold (me). This year many of the folks were out with their little cuties. It was funny because most all the infants happened to be dressed as some type of animal. Perhaps that is all that is available out there? Anyway, it was cute that we all were in theme and didn't intend to be. My mom found these Dalmatian costumes and said they were too cute to pass up. I have to agree on that one as I see them in them now! David had a Dalmatian named Sabrina before we were married and so it is appropriate that the little boys resemble his beloved doggie. Caleb's face in this one reminds me of a picture of Josiah at his first Christmas when we dressed him up as a little Santa and put a bow on his head. He appears to be saying here, "WHY are you subjecting me to the humility of being dressed in this silly costume?" And as usual our Daniel boy is smiling away!

I had to put this one in too because Caleb with his tongue out makes him look like a little doggie panting and it was just too cute! I have more pictures on facebook if you want to see them and I also have a link to snapfish if you are interested. David discovered when Daniel was smiling away again here that he has two teeth coming in the top now. It is no wonder he has been so cantankerous lately! Poor little guy!

Here is Josiah giving a nice, fake smile! This was the only posed shot that I got his face, so I guess I will have to go with it! Josiah enjoyed running around the hay maze, playing in the mini-pirate ship, and riding on the trailer for the hayride. At the end, we let him pick any pumpkin he could carry to take home with him. He picked a small one (similar to the one on his left pictured here) and when we got home he made the pumpkin his "buddy" and played cars with it, rolled it around, drew on it, and then had a nap with it. Yes, his pumpkin sat on his bed with him for his nap. He wanted to sleep with it at night too, but I decided against that one. I have been watching him roll it off the chair in the living room and am afraid that one of these times he will get a little too forceful and we will end up with pumpkin guts everywhere. Well, I guess this is my lot in life with three boys...messes, messes, messes!

Recent Josiah-isms

I have no picture for the moment as I already posted the most recent one of Josiah in his fireman hat holding "Red" the firetruck a few posts ago. However, I thought I would jot these lovely exchanges down for posterity before I forgot and/or lost the little piece of paper I wrote them on!

Tonight, we were praying together and I prayed for him and then asked him to pray. I kindly "suggested" that he should ask Jesus to help him be a good boy. He actually did it! Then he went into the following story: "Jesus came into my eye and told me I couldn't play with the tractor and that I should play with 'nother toy." Translation = Mommy has been trying to help Josiah with "other options" to cope with a situation when he gets angry or frustrated and he was including Jesus in on helping him too. I am hoping He will have better luck...and since He knows Josiah better than I do, I know He will! :)

A new fun activity is heading into "Daddy's room" AKA "Mommy & Daddy's room" and jumping on the bed (which as a side note always seems to change my number on the sleep number bed, so I have to do a number check every night before bed after a jumping session). Daddy can also get Josiah to dance around, but only if the circumstances are just right. Here is an example:

Daddy: Josiah, what kind of music do you want?
Josiah: I want fast, fast music (or sometimes it's "woud, woud" --that's loud for those of you unfamiliar with 3-year old terminology).
Daddy puts on some "slow" music instead.
Josiah: That's sleeping music Daddy, I want WOUD music!
Daddy: Don't you want to dance to some sleeping music?
Josiah: No, that makes me bored. (Here there is a difference of opinion as to what he said. I seem to recall him saying, "That makes me boring." But either way, I still think it is funny.)

Another fun one was Josiah hollered at me the other day, "Wook (look) Momma, I'm doing exercises! (He was bending over and touching his toes.) I am bending my part!" He also used to say and sometimes still says when he hurts himself somewhere, "I hurt my body, Momma!"

Lastly, this is one I truly cherish. When he is feeling particularly lovey, dovey with me he says, "I love you Momma, you're my best friend." That is a sure fire winner for a smile from grumpy, tired Momma!

Runny Nose X Two

So we are back in the sicky mode again around here. Daniel has had a cold since two Fridays ago and if he still has it by the end of this week, I will likely take him in to the doctor. I am hoping he is on the tail end of his now though as I only hear him coughing mostly in the morning and not much at all during the day. As you can see though he is running at the nose quite a bit still though! Caleb has manifested the cold in a little different way. He wakes up with nose junk encrusted all in his nose (he sleeps on his tummy) and his eyes are glued shut from the gunk as well. Other than that though and the fact that he sleeps a little more, he seems to be perfectly fine. He is still as active as ever, but periodically you will see this very tired look in his eyes and so I have been putting him down for naps more often this last week than usual. Thankfully, I seem to have already had this "version" of the cold, so I am healthy for the time being and David had a quick day of feeling sick and then was fine again. Josiah is healthy too and so hopefully he won't get it!

Cute Boys Update

Recently, my mom got Josiah a fire hat and I managed to get him to pose with "Red" from the Cars movie for a fun photo. It just so happened he was wearing red too, so he matches!

Here is a shot of the babies sitting up and playing together today. They are both very adept at sitting up and can play well with things and not fall over. Caleb however, usually spies something off in the distance and purposely falls to one side so that he can army crawl over to it to inspect. Daniel is content to rock back and forth and play with whatever is in front of him for long periods of time.

The boys are really into feeding themselves now and Caleb especially digs this! When I spoon feed him the mushy stuff he isn't so interested, but put a graham cracker on his tray and oh man look out! He just devours graham crackers. Here pictured though he is eating some Zwieback toast, the first real finger food I gave them.

Here is Daniel giving a sly smile while he eats his toast. He enjoys the graham crackers too, but he usually likes Mommy to spoon feed him the mushy stuff even more. I will soon have updates on the boys measurements as we have a Monday doctor's appointment scheduled and then another trip to the Neonatal Clinic the very next day. I accidentally forgot to schedule their 9 month check-up, so really it will be there 10 month check-up.

"Cars" Awana Class

Last night was Josiah's first Awana class. For those of you who aren't familiar with this program, it is a special program for kids that encourages Bible verse memorization as well as familiarity with Bible stories and includes fun social interactions as well. In light of recent behaviors, David and I opted to be table leaders in Josiah's class in order to monitor him a little more closely. It was a good thing that we did too because he had a melt down last night when we went to pick up the cars and sit for story time! I almost had to take him out of the room, but he was able to stop hollering and sit with me and so all was well. He participated really well and especially liked the game time where they played with a parachute. The goal was to listen carefully to the instructor and when he said, "1" they would move the parachute very slowly, "2" a little faster, and "3" very fast! You might guess which one Josiah liked the best? What is funny is that one time the instructor said "4" for them to go EVEN faster and when we did ask him in the car if he liked 1, 2, or 3 better he said...4!

Today, I went over the story in his Cubbies book with him and we practiced the first memory verse. They typically take key words from longer verses and break them down for the 3-4 year olds in this class. So this week's verse to work on is: "...all...He had made...was very good." (Gen. 1:31) He has learned it already and my trick to make him do it was to teach all his cars the verse! As pictured here we lined them all up and Mater was the teacher and he taught them the verse. He was really into this and I even got it on video to share later when we finish recording on the disk and get it finalized.

As a side note, I really enjoyed helping in the 3-4 year old class. There are some real characters in there! There is a set of identical girl twins also that I found really fun as well. They were shy at first, but warmed up to me quickly and were very chatty and fun! In some down time waiting for the next activity, I even got to lead them in a few songs. It was a lot of fun! Poor hubby is getting sick though and it was miserably hot in the room and he was suffering. He isn't feeling well again today either, but it sticking it out at work. Please pray for him!