I won't say he's a perfectionist, but he definitely likes things to be right and in order. He likes to line things up in a straight line, especially his toys. Andrew got him a plastic train set, and when it turns the one wheel lifts off the ground and doesn't turn - he got quite upset that the wheel wasn't working. Our bathroom tap lever must be lined up with the tap. And if he walks past the kitchen drawers and one is not pushed in, he will stop and push it properly in. I hope this doesn't turn into any kind of OCD, and I'm still waiting for it to spill over into having a clean house... It will come...
I have to say that he gets this from me, although I'm by no means OCD either... Those who have seen my desk at work will understand. And while I've been on leave and didn't have that ordered space in my life my home has never been as tidy! Of course with kids it can't be tidy all the time, but when it gets too much for me I do a complete tidy of every room, and it's amazing how much better I feel. I have to have some part of my life ordered, otherwise I tend to feel like I'm spinning out of control.
Josh loves looking around while we're driving. To the point that if we want him to go to sleep in the car we have to block out his window, otherwise he'll just be talking about what he's seeing the whole time, and won't sleep. Some of his favourite things are bridges and tunnels (just going under a bridge counts as a tunnel for him) Every time we go over or under a bridge he's sure to comment. I wanted to find a tunnel which was a bit more substantial for him, and I finally thought of a road that goes under the full 5 or 6 lanes of the N1, so we took him through, and it got just the reaction I was hoping for!
And talk about a back seat driver! Andrew just had one hand on the steering wheel one day, and he pipes up in a commanding voice, "Daddy, use three hands to drive!" (He's getting it right now, but for a while anything more than 1 was 3...)
With the warmer weather we've been spending more time outside. He really enjoys playing with 2 girls who live a few houses down from us. They're much bigger than him though, and so they love to climb trees. Joshua wanted to join in, but this was as high as I was willing to let him go.
He's started with great imaginary play. Whatever mundane things he has can now become something fun, which is so fun to watch. He likes to pretend he's cooking something in the oven - he'll put something in whatever is his oven for the day, wait patiently for a few seconds, and then take it out, usually to say it's too hot to eat and we have to wait a bit longer. He loves to pretend he's working and earphones are Granny's stethoscope to listen to his tummy. The possibilities are becoming endless!
While I've been on leave I've tried to have something ready for Josh to do at home when I fetch him each day from Aunty Wendy. His standard thing now is "What's happ-ning at home?"
Some of the things we've done:
We had a picnic - Joshua wasn't interested in eating any of the apple I cut up, but bring out the chips... But the pull of the sand ended up being stronger than anything else...
We've painted a few times with finger paint, and play dough is a common request. But I tried him out with water colours as well.
He really enjoyed driving his train around, but it also degenerated... The train cars then started falling around, and then Josh was falling like them. Boys...
He doesn't always finish his bread or toast that he has for lunch, and he's started asking to give the left-overs to the birds before he gets into the car at Aunty Wendy.
Any arrow that he says will be "pointing number 12", and of course all the clock hands he sees as well.
We've explained to him that often things work with batteries, and he's seen how a torch that has flat batteries doesn't work as well. He's now started saying that anything that isn't working right has "batteries not working". Like a drawer that was stuck and wouldn't close and an umbrella that was also stuck.
One day Joshua accidentally dropped something off the table, and asked Andrew to get it for him, but then he got down off his chair and got it himself before Andrew could get there. And then it became a game. He'd wait for Andrew to go away a bit and then drop something and race to get it before Daddy could.
My wedding/engagement rings are a set of three and I had them off one day and Joshua was putting them on his fingers, and they dropped on the table, and he said "Rings go triangle" He could somehow connect the dots and see the triangle between the 3 points, which were probably all about 30cm apart. I was quite impressed, and then of course he wanted to do it over and over again...
He's started using words like "and" properly, saying he wants to get his bike and car etc. But his plurals are still sometimes funny. Like he'll talk about "teddy's bears".
He was helping me get the post out of the post box and kept on saying "Post, where are you?" in a real sing-song voice. And one day we were on my bed and he wanted us both to lie on our tummies and then he decided "Let's share" whatever it was we had. I'm so glad he's learning lessons like that! And he actually generally is quite good at sharing.
Uncle Andrew found a cool website with pictures that can be printed to colour in. They've got every cartoon character imaginable! So he printed out a few pictures and brought them home for Joshua to colour in with him. Then we stuck them all up on his cupboard afterwards.
We decided to try eating out... McDonald's works quite well, but Spur is still a bit much for Joshua at this stage... But he had fun painting his chips with tomato sauce, and then he wanted to sit in Hannah's chair...
One of Joshua's favourite books is "Stick Man" by Julia Donaldson (yes, we really love her writing, and we have just about every one of her books...) He started looking for a stick man every time we went outside, and this stick man gets to do some exciting things like going down slides and jumping in the air ;o)
Joshua making a castle with some builder's sand, and then he put a flag on top!
All of the Cape Town cousins apart from Hannah, and little Luke who'll be born next month.
His imitation of us adults is still going strong. Andrew and I both wear contact lenses (our poor kids are sure to have eye problems...) and Josh has obviously been watching us putting our lenses in. He has asked regularly now for the bottle of lens liquid, and he'll put a bit on his finger and then try and touch his eye with his wet finger. Of course his eye always closes, but he feels very grown up, I'm sure!
Andrew's been encouraging Joshua to help set the table. So he'll put a plastic cup in each of our places and put our knives and forks somewhere in the vicinity of where we each sit. But he's very eager to help out!
Helping with the pool - "driving" the baracuda, and then helping with the broom.
His latest thing if he wants to delay something is he'll spot Hannah and say "I hello Hannah" and then he'll go and touch her and talk to her a bit. But he never manages to avoid things completely. But he's found a use for his little sister ;o)
For a few days he was copying everything that Andrew and I said. We'd be having a normal conversation between ourselves, and every line we say Joshua would try and copy word for word. Most of it he did pretty well too!
His "Please" and "Thank you" are coming along well. Sometimes we don't have to remind him to say either one, but if we do remind him there isn't any fight anymore like there used to be. His Please is this high pitched, drawn out "Pweeese!" and his Thank you is a quiet "Ank you". And sometimes he'll even put his Please in the middle of a sentence so that you almost don't catch it.
He's started saying "I love you". Sometimes unbidden, sometimes we have to coax it out of him. But for this Daddy is definitely more in favour than me (although from his actions there's no doubt he loves me, so I'm not feeling too hard done by). He'll often say (even if Andrew's not there) "I love you, Daddy". I say, "What about Mommy?" and he'll come back with "What about Daddy?". And he very stubbornly won't admit to loving me. Sometimes he'll tell me though.
At church one day some one was asking me Hannah's name, and I said "Hannah Herbert". Joshua then piped up with "Hannah Herbert", and when I asked what all of our names are he said (all on his own) "Joshua Herbert", "Hannah Herbert", "Shelly Herbert" and "Andrew Herbert". But of course he then decided that everyone's surnames should be Herbert and sometimes Andrew is "Daddy Herbert" if I ask him again, but he knows he's part of something bigger!
Who can resist this face?!?
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