What a beautiful age!

Joshua is at such a cute stage right now. He is so full of character and every day brings something new for us to be amused at. Most of these can't be captured on camera, and they're too spontaneous and quick anyway, even if I tried. But I want to capture these "Joshua-ism's" (to steal Dianne and Jenny's term)

Bathing is one of his favourite things to do these days. He's discovered just about every way there is to splash with the toys and tools he has available. But what he's also started doing is showing when he's had enough and then asking to get out. One thing that is very evident with Joshua's personality is that he is very strong-willed and independent, and he knows what he wants when... Fun for us in the time to come!

One of my favourite times of day is first thing in the morning (well, its first thing for me) Andrew always wakes up early, and so when Joshua wakes up Andrew is the one to get him out of bed, and then he brings him to me in our bed, and that's when I wake up. And then we'll normally spend about half an hour having some family time with the three of us in our bed. During this time we do our family prayers and scripture reading, Joshua will drink his milk bottle and then just cuddle. And I get lots of kisses this time of morning too! One morning Joshua lay with his head on my chest, then turned his head and gave me a kiss, then he sat up and leaned towards Andrew and gave him a kiss, and then back to me for another kiss, and this carried on for a while!

A few weeks ago I was busy changing Joshua in his room, and then I thought I heard Andrew's car arrive home, so I said to Josh "Go see if Daddy is home". I then went through to the lounge, and actually forgot that I'd said that, but when Joshua didn't follow me, I went to find him looking out the little windows next to the front door (which are conveniently at his eye level) to see if Daddy's car was home. He wasn't, but he was certainly going to make sure before he followed me...

In the afternoon when I fetch him from Debbie we often spend time in the lounge, with me sitting on the couch and then Joshua fetching books off the shelf and bringing them to me, and then he sits on my lap while I read them to him. Some days its a quick 10 second peruse of the book, and then he's off to get another one, but other days we'll sit for ages on one book. He pages through it, and I'll read the line or two I have time to read before he turns onto another page, and then he'll go backwards and forwards like this for ages. And then another thing he does every now and again is if I ask him to take a book back to the shelf before he gets his next one he'll go and put the old book in the pile that develops just in front of the shelf. And seeing him doing this fetching and carrying is so cute, because his walk really can only be described as a trundle at the moment. So he's carrying this big book in both hands and then trundles from side to side while he walks. So cute!

But don't think that his trundling is slowing him down at all! He's not really running, per se, but he walks so fast! His small little legs more than keep up with me walking at my normal pace. And then sometimes he also does this nearly run thing where his arms are spread out behind him, and he looks just like a penguin running... Just picture those penguins in Mary Poppins, and you'll have our Josh ;o)

His love for music is still very prevalent. And his dancing has now progressed too. For a while he would bop up and down while he was standing, and now he's started stamping one foot to the music. He can't stamp both feet yet, but that'll be the next thing.

His vocabulary is still pretty limited in terms of what he says (although this morning when Andrew went to make his bottle, he looked at me very seriously and said "Ma, whe Da?"), but his understanding is fantastic. He understands just about everything that we say to him, and although we do use gestures, there's a lot that we just say, and he still understands. And he knows everyone's names in our close circle. Including some of the pets! When our cockatiel, Bertie, starts shouting he'll go into the study and say "Ber" and point to Bertie.

Without much encouragement from us up to this point Joshua is a huge Barney fan. We were given a big Barney by someone who was emigrating, and lately Joshua likes to go to Barney and give him a big kiss! Our neighbours also have a little boy, and his bedroom window which looks onto our driveway has Barney curtains. For a while every time we arrived home Joshua would point at the curtains and say "Bar" - also with us never showing him... But the coolest was when I showed Josh the green spots on Barney's back the one day, and asked him a few times where the spots were, and he'd point to them. And then later on I was asking him about some other spots, and he went and pulled Barney off the couch, turned him around and pointed at his green spots! And even after being away for a week, if I ask him where the spots are he still points to them!

Another hectic development is Joshua's strong desire to start feeding himself. I don't handle mess very well! One of the first times I really let him have a spoon he swished it around in his bowl (which only had the dregs of him meal left). Then I told him to put it in his mouth - and he did! But from that day he now always wants a spoon. So at first I'd take turns with him. He'd get the spoon for a bit, and then I'd take the spoon for a mouthful - and he knew it was his turn as soon as the food was in his mouth, and those little hands were grabbing for it again! But now I've started just giving him his own spoon and bowl. I put a small bit of food in the bowl, otherwise he knows he's being fooled and he's not satisfied. And so he has fun with his bowl and I get to get food into him. And then just every now and again he puts the spoon into his own mouth. But that will come...

His other cute food thing is that he's started being very careful with his bottle. If the bottle is warm, when it gets tipped over to go into his mouth the milk all squirts out. But Joshua got wise to this, and now he's started tipping it very slowly into his mouth - and no more mess!

One of his very cute things at the moment is his fascination with planes. I showed him how to use his hand as a plane, and make those deep throated gurgling that sounds a bit like a plane from a distance, and now he's started being a plane fairly regularly. And not only that, but if he hears a plane in the sky he looks up and points to it.

So there are just some of the things that I'm getting to enjoy these days... Life is fun right now with Joshua