Well, this is a little late for his 18 months, but better late than never! Josiah continues to grow each day. We are really enjoying these last few days with him before his sister arrives. As Chris has said many a times, "It won't be just the three of us for very much longer." As ready as I am to have Sophie here, I try to cherish each moment I have with just him.
Josiah is really learning leaps and bounds. Here are some of the latest Josiah things:
- His
newest things are recognizing shapes. He quickly learned circle,
triangle, square, star and heart. For Christmas he got a clock that
also has shapes. He can now recognize pentagon, hexagon, octagon, oval,
diamond, rectangle, parallelagram and a quatrefoil. For those of you
along with me who had NO idea what a quatrefoil was until we got this
clock--it's a clover shape. Chris picks on me because I continually use
the word quatrefoil when we play with the clock. He says I'm probably
one of five people in the world who knows what a quatrefoil is--now we
have six--seven if you count Chris!
- He continues to do well with his reading program. We have really started working with him to read the flashcards on his own now that we have been through all the videos. He is starting to show us the words that he has learned, but it's hard getting an active 18 month old to sit still long enough to go through all the cards. He is also doing a great job with his animal sounds. Our newest favorite animal sound is the camel. Some of you might be wondering, "What sound does a camel make?" Well, we have taught him to chew like a camel and then "spit." For those of you who have a Facebook account, feel free to go look under my video section to see Josiah showing us his animal sounds.
- We also bought him some great Melissa and Doug toys with some of his Christmas money. We have some wooden cards that have words on them and then there are some wooden letters to spell the words. Well, he is doing a great job picking out the letters he needs to use to spell the words and placing them in the appropriate spot.
- His knowledge of words is just astounding. We can put a pile of pictures on the floor (around 15 different pictures) and ask him to find a certain picture and he does.
- He is also doing a great job with his body parts. He knows his head, hair, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, tongue, teeth, feet, toes, hands and fingers.
- As a family we have started doing a devotional together in the morning before we get our day started. He loves coming into our bed to "talk" about his night. So we listen to him for a few minutes and then we start our devotional. We tried to get a devotional that was kind friendly, but at the same time had some depth to it. We got one that has some colorful photographs to it in hopes to keep his attention. Well, he is more interested in my Bible that we read the scripture from than the devotional. It does my heart great joy to "struggle" with our 18 month old son to get the Bible so I can read the passage for the day. Chris and I took some more of his Christmas money and bought him his own Bible. He will sit there a flip through the pages. We just pray that as he gets older, he will still have this passion to read his Bible as he does now.
- He is doing a better job eating. He is
starting to expand his taste buds and eating more of the food that we
eat. It's amazing what he will eat with a little mashed potato mixed
with it!
- He continues to be a very social child. I have a feeling that I will have many conversations with him about NOT talking ot strangers. When we are at church, he has no problem walking around saying hi to people. Maybe we need to get
- We have also discovered how "messy" we
truly are. Josiah will find all kinds of little pieces of lint or
crumbs and tell me "trash." One night we were eating dinner and all the
little pieces of crumbs on his plate, Chris' plate and my plate were
all "trash." I guess in a way it's our fault because when he was
smaller anything that he would pick up and try to put in his mouth, we
would tell him "trash."
- The other day we were saying our blessing for our meal. Sometimes, Josiah is a little hungry so he will start to whine while we are praying. Chris will say, "Shhh..." and then continue with the prayer. Well, this particular day, Josiah decided he was going to "Shhh..." Chris while he was praying. The best part was he started laughing after he did it. I think this child knows comedy already--I think I should be very scared has his mom and future teacher--I think I will have a class clown on my hands!
Well, that is about all that is going on with Josiah. We are so truly blessed to be his parents and each night during our bed time prayers, we make sure to thank God for blessing us with such a wonderful little boy.
