First Train Ride

Today, my parents and I took Josiah on his first train ride! They live near the town of Elbe, where they run some old trains up to Mineral Lake and back as a tourist attraction. It was the kind of train that makes you sea-sick, rocking back and forth. By the end of the ride, I was thankful for the shocks in my car!

Josiah was pretty bored at first while we were waiting for the train to start moving. Then he heard the whistle! This face you see is his "uncertain about this situaiton" face. I was holding him once when the whistle tooted again and could feel his body tense up. He settled in pretty well once we started moving. Before it started though, I let him walk up and down the aisles to get his wiggles out. He stopped at every young child to look at them and sometimes said, "UH" to get their attention. Everyone thought he was very cute as he toddled up and down the aisle a few times.

During the trip, Josiah did his usual ritual with Grandpa in taking on and off his hat. They also play peek-a-boo with the hat as well. Josiah can say hat, but it sounds more like "AAAATUH" with a very pronounced "T" at the end.

Grandma & Grandpa bought Josiah a little toy train that was tight in his grip nearly the entire journey. He seems to treat toy cars/trains like they are his security blanket these days. I have a tractor that remains in the the car that he holds on to and chews on during every car ride we take. At the end of the car ride, he throws the tractor on the seat when he realizes I am coming to get him out of the car.

The train runs to Mineral Lake as I mentioned earlier, and we had about 15 minutes to wander around the area before re-boarding the train. They had a Blues Band playing live music there near the lake and some old engines and historical paraphernalia around to view. Josiah liked looking at the water pumps (that were displayed running as they would be normally though of course not pumping water) and the steam engine as well as the myriad of rocks all over the ground.

On the way back, it was obvious that Josiah was getting pretty sleepy. Grandma was holding him in such a way that he was able to sleep, but Grandma wasn't in the most comfortable position and decided to stay that way so that he wouldn't wake up. Later she commented, "Man he is sure a ton of bricks when he is asleep!" She took him off the train asleep and I got this sweet picture of them. It was a fun trip, but we had a very tuckered baby on our hands afterward. He woke up when we put him in his car seat and of course didn't fall back asleep on the way home, but I got these excited "AHH" sounds off and on and he played quietly with some toys.

Doggie Dilemma

I came outside to play with Echo today and I found her in this state. She found these cones in the backyard and decided they were doggie toys. She carried it around like this for some time but of course when I got the camera out she dropped it. I managed to get her to pick it up again for the picture though.

Echo has a funny habit too. Whenever there are two toys in her line of vision at once she can't decide which one to play with. She will try desperately to bring BOTH toys back to you. She has this one rag doll toy with a ball on the end and she will shove that one back far in her mouth and also retrieve the ball in the front of her mouth and bring them both back to me. She is a multi-tasking doggie I guess!

Fair Frenzy!!

Today we took Josiah to the fair. Along for the ride were Grandma and Grandpa Walker, Uncle Brent and Aunt Katie, and 2nd Cousin Suzie as well as Momma of course. Daddy stayed home to do some work and have some alone time while we were out.

It was REALLY crowded, so much so that it was hard to enjoy much of anything at the fair. Usually, I like to look around at things and have the ability to peruse various stands where things are sold and also to see the dogs in the 4H building. However, this year it was all we could do just to walk through the buildings with the booths and in the dog area we had to move with the crowd and couldn't really stop to look at the dogs. I hope to go again this coming Friday, and maybe then I can see more at the fair.

Some of the highlights of the trip though were as follows: showing Josiah the firetruck where he immediately ran to the big "TAR" (tire) of the truck and touched and looked at it quite a bit; going to the petting zoo where he got to pet a goat, a sheep, and a little baby bunny. He also got to see some little chicks as well and he particularly liked looking at the geese. I made sure to take a picture of my little pumpkin head near the huge pumpkins again this year (look back at the blog in October of 2005 for a shot of him at 3 months). And we also took him on the Carousel! I took him on one at the mall a while back and he was scared of it then, but this time he seemed to enjoy it. Grandma and Grandpa waved at him everytime he came around to where they were sitting and he smiled really big at them each time around as well.

For most of the time, he rode in the stroller, confined by the straps. But when that became too much for him, he tried walking a bit and Grandma and I held his hands as he walked. I have found that if only one hand is held that he tries to sit down to avoid going in the direction you want him to go. So the two-handed trick works because we can keep him from sitting down! Towards the end of the fair trip he was getting pretty tired and do you know what entertained him for almost an hour? Grandpa got a free sample of a Go-Tart that he chewed on the outside wrapper (with the product inside) until he chewed a hole in the top and then began to squeeze the Go-Tart out little by little. And you buy all these expensive toys, right? Well, not really...around here the toys are given to us or we get them at a great discount. :)

Lastly, we all went to dinner (away from the crowded fair) at Famous Dave's, a really yummy BBQ place nearby. In his usual style, Josiah wanted to check out the lemons that everyone had in their waters. Suzie, Brent and I had our hand at trying to get Josiah's best lemon face. My favorite is pictured below. If you would like to see more fair pictures, let me know and I will send you the link to the album.

Reorganizing the Pantry

I went to the gym to workout a little earlier than usual today for logistical reasons and so David watched the little pumpkin head for me while I was gone. Baby J took an interest in the "usually restricted" pantry and showed Daddy how to stack the cans. As you can see this was a popular activity for Josiah. David said that he kept trying to call them "blocks" or "BLAH" as Josiah calls them. He is definitely trying out new words each day. He doesn't always use the words he knows, but many times I have caught him repeating a word I have said. He loves to accomplish something new and is very proud of himself when he does.

Baby Visits Daddy's Work

Today we went to visit Daddy at work and our first stop was to meet his "foreign exchange sister, " Jee, (her quote). Josiah went around adjusting all the name tags on the cubicles and tried to rearrange some paper as well. Jee got a big kick out of Josiah's funny stutter laugh that he did when he was visiting some more of Daddy's co-workers upstairs.

Our next stop was to visit Jeff & Kathryn, the people that work right near Daddy everyday. Josiah took the liberty of inspecting their work areas as well.

Then we went to visit Corrine and attempted to reorganize her folders and such. When we went to see Valerie, she gave Josiah two matchbox cars, which was VERY popular! Valerie decided she was the winner for being the best baby entertainer! However, Stuart also gave Josiah a car as well, so he took a close second. :) Right across from Valerie, we chatted with Sylvia. Sylvia attempted to one up Vivian by offering a ball as a toy to play with, but Josiah had a death grip on the cars and told us by his actions that cars are more interesting than balls. Then we went over and saw Sandra. Sandra has a 17-month old and was happy to see another baby at work. She loved his blonde hair and blue eyes and gave him big hugs.


Lastly, we visited with Steve. Steve was popular because he gave Josiah a ride on his desk. He has this desk that can adjust from a sitting position to a standing position and so put Josiah on the desk and made it go up. Josiah had the funniest look on his face as he ascended (as you can see in the picture).

And for those of you who are very astute, you may notice a nice bruiser on his cheek. That is a boy war wound that came from when he fell on the leg of the piano. He was trying to get to me as I was teaching piano and missed. Whoops!!

Bedtime Routine

I found out pretty quickly that Josiah needs to “wind down” like his Papa at night, and so like other mothers do, I established a more regimented routine for him at night so that he knew we were getting him ready for bed. And now we have a fun routine that I think he really looks forward to. I sing, “Bath time for babies, bather bather time….” And he runs over to the bathroom door and sometimes the closet door (they look the same when closed) and waits for me to come open it. He plays in his little tub inside the bathtub (although now he has graduated to the big tub) with his Ernie, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, & Elmo floating toys as well as his bath tub letters and numbers set. He will pick up a letter and say, “Say” to me and I will sound out the letter and make it hop on the ledge of the tub and give some examples of words that start with that letter. For the numbers, I count them out on my fingers and he watches very intently. He can find his four friends (mentioned above) at any time during the bath tub play and is very delighted with himself that he can find them. He has just learned how to use the bucket for himself and likes to fill it up and dump the water out. A couple of times he got himself in the face and was surprised. For a while there, he thought it was funny to “drink” the bath water, but I quickly put a stop to that practice! Ick! Yesterday, he stood up in the bath for some reason and I said, “standing up” and he got a smile and sat down and I said, “sitting down.” Following this discovery that Mommy says things when he stood up and sat down he proceeded to do it over and over. He almost slipped though a few times and so I had to help steady him. Luckily with the plastic tub in the tub, he didn’t bonk his head or get hurt from slipping down!

After the bath, I go and get him dressed in his pajamas and then I set him down and sing, “Story time, it’s story time, story, story time!” and then he clods off down the hall to find the story books. He will sometimes get some books himself and put them on the chair where we read and he makes this cute little noise (like he does when he is hungry) to let me know that he is ready to read (like a stuttering sound…hu, hu, hu, hu, hu). I will read the books to him, but many times he won’t let me finish them and grabs for another book when I am only halfway through. He especially likes the book with lots of different shapes, objects, people, and things in it and just wants me to go through naming them over and over. If I close this one too soon, he will find it again and want to point things out to me. He finds all the balls, cats (he says “meow” to them), and cars on all the pages that have them. Our last book is always the “Goodnight Blessings” book that has little flaps to open and shut. If he is really tired, I read the first words, “It’s time for bed. It’s time to say Goodnight!” and he flips the book out of my hands and turns over to sleep. Other times, he takes all the books and throws them on the floor and then wants to read them himself down there.

When it is time to sleep, we go and visit Daddy and he gives Josiah a kiss and a goodnight cuddle, and then either Daddy or Mommy sings, “Sleeper time, Sleepy, sleeper time” very softly as we bring him to bed. Sometimes he fusses a little when going to sleep, but mostly he just cuddles up with blankie bear and blanket and nods off to dream land.