Dear Joshua,
Today you are twenty-six months old. It's hard to believe that this is going to be your 3rd Christmas. I can remember very vividly dressing you in a red velour sleeper with a reindeer on the butt and laying you down asleep on your belly on the edge of the couch to take your picture with Julianna for the Christmas card.
As Christmas approaches this week I'm totally looking forward to relaxing and spending some quality time with you. Mostly I'm looking forward to being able to slow down and appreciate the moments of joy you continue to bring us like when you climb up in my lap on the couch and say, "I want sit with you, Mommy." It's a phrase I hope to never forget.
Other things I love to hear you say include: Julianna, bottom, and radio. You pronounce Julianna so uniquely I don't think I'll be able to capture it right with typing, but it comes out something like Ju-nanna. Bottom comes out bah-min and radio is said more like red-yo. In addition, I am so proud of the way that you politely say thank you without prompting all the time around the house. You don't do it so much out in public, but I know that will come with time. You have the sweetest little heart and the cutest vocabulary.
You don't know it yet, but you're getting Big Boy underwear for Christmas. I hope that inspires some progress in the potty training department. So far you've peed and pooped on the potty a few times each but all incidences were parent initiated and certainly not because you told us you needed to go. I fear you have a bit of your Mama's stubbornness.
Joshua, I don't know why, but you're still pretty terrified by strangers. You just have a shy spirit and prefer to only talk to people you know. This made
the visit with Santa pretty entertaining and I still find myself explaining that you're "bashful" to people in the grocery store, at the gymnastics place, and at various restaurants around town.
On the other hand, when you find sometime you like, you grin from ear to ear and really turn the charm on for them. You especially like one of your toddler class teachers. One day when I picked you up after school I headed out to the two year old's playground to get you. You can see your old playground and your old teachers from it and both classes are usually out there at the same time. Well, this one particular day I headed across the playground and I saw you climbing the chain link fence. I was still about ten yards away from you when you fell off backwards rolling down on the mulch onto your behind and back. When I asked you what you were doing climbing the fence you told me that you were "trying to get to Ms. Beff!"
It also still warms my heart to see how much you adore your sister. You follow her around like a puppy and whenever I'm too busy for you any given moment you will take things to Julianna and have her open them for you or you bring her your shoes and ask her to help you put them on. You even wait patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) outside of the bathroom door for her.
Up until today I would have said that you have made the transition to Big Boy Bed pretty seamlessly and even after our nap-time
battle experience today, I would still say that I'm impressed with how well you've done. You go to bed around 8:30 and wake up around 7 each morning. You take two hour naps all in your big twin bed. You say that you're ready to give the crib away to another little baby. I think I'm ready for that too.
You can count to ten almost correctly every single time and you know all your colors. You can take your clothes on and off by yourself and you can throw a tantrum with the best of them. You are simply and wonderfully, twenty-six month old you. And I love you.
Love,
Mama
