Buddies

Joseph's friend Matthew got a new baby sister this week, so Matthew came over to play one morning. Matthew is pretty patient with Joseph, who struggles with sharing since he usually has all of his toys to himself. But Joseph was apparently happy to share his motorcycle:


This motorcycle was a birthday gift from Joseph's Goodsell cousins. He loves it!

At one point, Matthew hit his hand with a golf club and started crying. Joseph, who was across the room, started crying too. Todd was comforting Matthew and told Joseph that Joseph hadn't hurt himself and didn't need to be crying. Joseph promptly (and intentionally) hit himself on the head with a golf club, and started crying even harder. Good times!

Unabashed Bragging

Warning: this post does not contain pictures. I do not have time. To those (three of you) upset with our lack of blogging, I say: blogging falls by the wayside when one (i.e. me) is working 10-14 hour days every day. Blech. Anyway, ten tidbits about some awesome tricks Joseph has.

(1) When asked who the President is, Joseph usually responds "Barack Obama." Occasionally he responds "Gramma White," for reasons that remain to be determined.

(2) Joseph is into planets and the solar system lately. This trick is hit-and-miss, but frequently he will identify "the tiniest planet" as "Mercury," the next planet as "Venus" (his favorite), the "planet we live on" as "Earth" (or sometimes, "San Diego"), the red planet as "Mars," and the "big planet" as "Jupiter." We're working on the last couple. He really likes looking at pictures and videos about planets lately, though.

(3) Joseph can now identify a few letters, especially "W", and likes to say, "One, Two, Three" for no particular reason.

(4) Joseph is a great singer. We listen to kid's songs in the car and he will sing the main phrases that repeat a lot. He also gets very demanding about which songs he wants to listen to, so we have to skip around a lot. He can sing most of Old McDonald with a little prompting.

(5) Joseph has started to pretend to make things out of play-dough. The other day, he pounded it for a while and then announced that he had made "Tiger Woods." He likes to make "robots" and "tunnels" to put trains through, and pretend food (like french fries and pizza, two favorites) and pretend to eat them.

(6) Speaking of Tiger Woods, the other day he was practicing his swing outside with his dad, and, upon making a good shot, exclaimed, "Tiger Woods!"

(7) He also attempted to hit the moon during said-golf outing. He'd hit the ball as far as he could, look at the moon, and say, "Almost."

(8) Joseph loves hummus. So whatever they say about nature v. nurture: this kid is with his dad an awful lot but sides with mom on the hummus debate.

(9) Joseph has discovered that saying, "Daddy snuggle!" is a great way to get what he wants. "Daddy snuggle! Cupcake! Daddy snuggle! Paci!"

(10) Joseph is still not into giving kisses (but gives great hugs). I circumvent this by tricking him into pretending to "eat" my cheeks.

He is really a joy.

Printer!; Fix it!

Today, Joseph removed the paper from the printer. This is nothing new.
The only reason Joseph does not remove paper from the printer is:

a.) he does not see the printer; or
b.) I have not replaced the paper back since he last removed it.

While making a phone call this morning, Joseph happily entertained himself near the printer. After I put him down for a nap, I found the following in the trays and crevices of the printer:


I have this dream that one day I'm going to get a printer with a hidden paper tray. Aesthetically, I think printers look better with the paper hidden, but now I have even more motivation to get one.

At some point a couple months back, I forgot to recover one of our electrical outlets with our plastic safety covers. The next morning, I stumbled across the following scene:



Joseph also loves to "fix it!"--which is his name for picking up my tools and getting into mischief.

It may be unclear from the picture, but this is how one properly uses a socket wrench to repair a pear.

Ever since he's been mobile, Joseph has enjoyed being my helper. We've assembled (or re-assembled since we moved) a lot of things together including: his crib, garage storage shelves, bar stools, a china hutch, closet shelves, curtain rods, and the porch swing.

Building stuff together usually takes a lot longer--especially since he still really doesn't like the sound of a power drill, so I have to use it on the sly--and I never quite know where the hex keys will end up, but I think we both enjoy our bonding time.

(April 09)

I also have the advantage of knowing that everything is sturdy and secure, because my helper stands on each part as it's being unwrapped or put together.

Pet Ant, or Why we don't need a dog

Joseph found a new friend.

Joseph was standing by the door giggling and saying "hand! arm!" so I went to find out what he was up to. When I saw the ant, I thought Joseph would get creeped out by something crawling on him, but he just kept talking and laughing

By the time I got the camera out, he had moved on to "poking. poking." I like at the end where he thinks about sharing a ball and then a book with the ant, but then decides he can't reach around that far.

Later, Joseph brought a dead ant to Erin. We're not sure if it was his pet or one of its cousins, but Joseph didn't seem to traumatized by the experience.

A Very Merry Joint Un-Birthday

Joseph's cousin Elena turned five last week and Joseph turns two at the end of the month, so we had a little birthday party for them yesterday.

Joseph was really excited for his party and was talking about "cake" and "Lena and Jonah" and "cars" (the theme of the party) for several days beforehand.

We had presents first (which wasn't really the plan, but as soon as Joseph saw them, he yelled "open!" and he started ripping into one -- luckily it was for him). He wasn't sure what to make of the fact that Elena also got presents and she was a real sweetheart and let him play with her new present (a guitar, which Joseph preferred to use as a golf club).

Elena got Joseph a magnadoodle, which he loves. My sister and her husband are both very artistic and Noah drew a picture for Joseph on the magnadoodle. After they left, Joseph asked for Noah all day; I finally figured out he wanted Noah to draw more pictures.


The cutest thing was that we also got some cars for Elena and Joseph and his other cousin Jonah so that Jonah wouldn't feel left out. When I handed Jonah a wrapped box, his eyes--which are already huge--got the size of moons and he said, "For me????" He was so happy! (We have some video of this but I will have to have Todd put it up.)

After presents, we ate and played a bit. Corndogs, which we also had on Joseph's first birthday, seem to be becoming a bit of a tradition.



Then we had cake. I made Joseph and Elena a car cake. I wanted to make it red since that is Elena's favorite color, and I had to use an entire package of red food coloring to make sure that it was red and not pink. Todd never would have forgiven me for making my son a pink birthday cake (especially after the Valentine's day fiasco.) I think it turned out pretty cute, especially for the first cake I've ever decorated (note the stop-light cupcakes); unfortunately it did not taste very good, and Joseph, who had been asking for cake all week, ate about one bite. I think next time I will stick with a boxed-mix instead of trying from scratch!


But Joseph did love the song "Happy Birthday" and has been requesting that we sing it ever since then. Tonight he even said to me, "Happy Birthday to Joseph," which I think might be the longest sentence/phrase/number of syllables that he has put together so far. Nevermind that when he says "Joseph" it sounds an awful lot like "Spaceship."


The cousins also enjoyed playing in Joseph's favorite little hiding spot.



Luckily for Joseph, the festivities will continue. Next weekend we are going to be in Utah to meet baby Asher and we'll have a little party there; the weekend after that we plan to visit Nana and Grandpa to celebrate Joseph and Grandpa's birthday; and then after that it will finally be his *real* birthday. So I guess Joseph will have 4 birthdays this year (to beat our 3 Christmases last year). Should be fun!

Happy Teething

We have about a million things to post about, but I've been busy at work and Todd has been busy at home getting things ready for painting and new windows and organizing and shelving everything in our garage.

So for now, I present the interweb with this cute picture of our little guy:



No, he did not spill water all over himself and no, he is not sweaty. Joseph has been teething and this saliva-drenched shirt is a casualty of that unpleasant process. I love how happy is in this picture despite the fact that he's soaking in spit (not something I'd particularly enjoy). He has been a little sick and grumpy with the teething but this time around seemed better than a few weeks ago.

You might also notice a handsome new haircut. We had to go to no fewer than 3 places before we found someone we thought was competent enough with children to cut Joseph's hair. You might recall from past posts that Joseph is absolutely terrified of getting his hair cut. It's really bizarre because he's generally pretty mellow, but the second we walked into any place, he'd flip out and thrash around. So it took two different stylists, and Todd, to get the job done. Todd left a 100% tip. Let's hope he doesn't need a haircut again any time soon.

I'm not looking forward to taking this one to the dentist when it comes time.

Going places

Joseph’s new thing is to take things with him when we go places in the car. He doesn’t have a favorite toy or stuffed animal, but it seems like every time we tell him we’re going someplace, he runs off to grab something to bring along for the ride.

Today, he decided to take three stuffed animals with him. The only problem was that he couldn’t carry all three at once and negotiate the stairs at the same time, so he just handed them all to me to take down the stairs for him.



Kicking the Pacifier Habit
Every few weeks, I get it into my head that Joseph’s done with his pacifier. It seems like we get him pretty much weaned (excluding when he goes to sleep), but then something comes up where it becomes too easy to give it back to him, and he’s hooked again. I’m not too worried, because I figure by the time he gets to junior high he’ll want to cave to social pressure and stop using one.

Today, we were about to get out of the car to do some grocery shopping—car rides are always a time when he hits us up for his “pacie”—and in the parking space next to us was a woman getting her baby back into the car.

The baby started to cry and fuss, so Joseph pulled out his pacifier and stretched his hand towards the crying baby on the other side of the car window and said “Baby. Cry. Pacie.”

Joseph has his fair share of power struggles over toys with other kids, but there are times like this where he just does things that are kind. He came to earth with his sweet nature, and we love him a lot.