Josiah has become quite the talker! It’s so cute. I just love hearing his little phrases. All this is since December, when we saw my family at Christmas and he only had a small handful of words.  Here are a few notable ones:

"Wha choo doin’?"

"Whassat?" (He asks this about EVERYTHING.)

"Wha matter?" (I came into the living room to find Analise engaged in
an intricate play set up with all her people and a little drama going
on. Right next to her, Josiah had 2 little Care Bears, playing on his
own, making one say this to another. So sweet! These parallel play
moments between the two of them have been rare, but they are becoming a
little more frequent.) Just tonight, Analise is spending the night at her grandparents, and I overheard Josiah playing with the little bears and people all lined up on the bookshelf. He said, "Wha matter, Do-a? Wha matter?" And then later, "Where’s Do-a?" When I brought Dora up to the party, he said, "There you are!" Which is so comical, because he says, "There you are!" to any where question. For example, Where’s Josiah? "There you are!" Maybe because we say, "There you are!" Or Where’s my belly button? "There you are!"

When a movie ends, like tonight in the car as we were picking up Brian, he’ll say, "Staht it!" I’m working on adding "please" to this phrase.

Tonight he came up to me with a stem from the grapes that had been on the counter. "Eh-ty!" (Empty! Who’d have thought to call it empty?0

"Yeaaah!" and "Oooooo yeaaahhh!" He’s so responsive with these, too.
Like, "Josiah, do you want some cheese!" "Yeah!" and he gets all
excited, and when he gets the cheese, he’ll say, "Oooooo yeahhhh".

"Oh, maaan" So funny.

And "Where going?"

Analise is doing a lot of letter recognition, so we’re often spelling things, talking about letters, pointing letters out. Josiah loves to spout out his letters, "S-T-M-A-A-A" (We hear a lot of A’s because that’s Analise’s favorite letter, of course because it’s the most important in her name.) He can very nearly spell her name, too, which goes something like this: "A-S-E-L-A!"

He’s also picking up counting very quickly. He prefers the even numbers, though. When I start counting something for Analise, like bites of food she’s to take until she’s done, I’ll say, "One…" and he’ll chime in, "Toooo". When we say 3, he’ll say, "Fo. Five, "Si", Seven, "Eh", Nine, "Te!"

I know there are more, but I’ve had this blog open all day, so I’d better post it before it gets saved and forgotten I’ll have to come back with some more.

Analise is such a chatterbox.  She’s always got something to say, and sometimes I just wonder where it all comes from! 

This morning, she hurt her finger playing and came crying to me.  I washed it off and suggested a band-aid.  The last time she had a band-aid was after 3-days of antibiotic shots for an ear infection last January.  It was traumatizing.  I think band-aids remind her of that, and to top it off, taking the band-aids off was painful enough that she doesn’t associate band-aids with any kind of feeling better.  So of course, when I suggested that a band-aid would keep her cut clean and make it feel better, she didn’t believe me and cried even harder.  She just preferred to hold her wound, keeping it covered with her hand.

As I put her in the car to take her to school, she told me she didn’t think she could play because she needed to hold her boo-boo.  I told her, "Miss Brenda is going to ask why your Mommy didn’t put a band-aid on it.  What are you going to tell her?"

"I’ll tell her the boo-boo didn’t want a band-aid." 

"But wait… I just heard the boo-boo say it needed a band-aid to keep it covered."

Analise in a high squeaky voice, making her hand talk, "No, no!  I don’t want a band-aid!  I’m fine!" 

Then when we got to school, the school "principal", Miss June, opened the door to get Analise out and said, "Good morning!"  Analise didn’t say anything.  Miss June said, "You’re not going to talk to me this morning?"  Analise said, "Shhh… my boo-boo is sleeping!" 

Miss June got her out of the car and said, "I hope your boo-boo feels better."  And as Analise sauntered in to school, I heard her say, "It’ll feel better when I grow up." 

You get an evening like tonight…

I had dinner all planned out.  Brian was going to be gone for a weekly training ride.  But as I was cleaning up the kitchen to start dinner, the drain started backing up on one side of the sink, and when I rain the disposal, it came up the other side.  ARG.  I tried to plunge it but splattered junk all over.  Brian came rushing in bc he’d had a bike problem he needed to fix and wanted to fill his water bottle.  I was looking for something in the cupboards under the bar area of the kitchen, and came up to CRACK my head really hard on the corner of the counter.  OUCH.  It was the final straw and I broke into tears.  Analise HATES to see me cry. 

I scrapped dinner plans, loaded A& J into the car for a $5 Little Caesar’s Hot & Ready Pizza and breadsticks.  We spread out a blanket in the driveway and had a picnic.   The kids played outside for an hour and a half until it got too chilly as the sun was setting, and I cleaned out the car.  Whew… am I glad the evening turned around! 

The house is still a mess as we’re unpacking from a whirlwind trip to Indiana for Easter with my family.  It was a nice visit, but way too short with family (um, 36 hours including sleeping) and way too long in the car (24 hours!!!).  Brian is amazing for driving nearly the whole trip, largely at night, and the kids were troopers to be tied into their seats for so long.  We’re so lucky to have such good travelers! 

I’ve made 2 more loaves of bread!  This is becoming a delicious, healthy new habit!  The current recipe of choice is a yummy honey wheat oatmeal bread.  Brian’s eating lots of PB&J sandwiches

Ok, enough rambling.  I’ve got to get the kitchen cleaned up so it’s ready for all that tomorrow has to offer. 

Courtesy of Martha Stewart… these cookies live up to their name!!

Humor me, as I watch my baby boy grow up   He’s so cute… I love his new haircut and all the soft neck I have to snuggle when we’re reading and I’m carrying him to bed. 

Analise and I colored eggs this afternoon, while Josiah played with a couple bowls of water and some plastic eggs.  Oh, and a granola bar.  That’s what he had the most fun with in the water.  He dissolved it into little grain pieces, and called, "Mo water!" 
We started out with a pretty swirly coloring kit, but it didn’t work well.  Analise was more than happy to use her watercolors and paint away.  So glad she doesn’t need much crafting extravagance to keep her happy!  She was so serious, she spared me one tiny smile as I tried to duly document the memories…  Oh, and you can see that her hair is quite a bit shorter (maybe 3 inches), but it’s kind of scraggly because this was right after naptime.