thirty four months

Dear Joshua,

Yesterday you turned thirty four months old. I just read the letter I wrote to your sister when she turned thirty four months and the similarities are eerie.  It seems we're always saying, "Julianna didn't do this!" or "Julianna did ______ instead" so it surprises me a little bit to read how much you act like she did at this age.

You are all Spiderman all the time.  You have Spiderman pajamas and Spiderman underwear and you saw a little boy on his Spiderman bike the other day and you about flipped out.  You almost climbed out of the stroller just to make sure that I saw the bicycle he was riding.  I wish I had your enthusiasm sometimes.

Your desire to be independent is also very strong.  You can go to the bathroom all by yourself and you INSIST that the door be closed and no one in the bathroom with you.  I worry that you're sticking things in the toilet and playing where you shouldn't be but thankfully this hasn't happened yet and you just do your business and then come out grinning with pride.  The cute thing is that usually your shorts are pulled up halfway and twisted round so that your underwear is sticking half out of your pants, but you did it!



Over the last month you've really started to resist napping.  In fact, you skip nap altogether at least one or two days a week.  This week at the sitter's house you haven't napped at all and I'm hoping it's just because we're all adjusting to a new routine and that when Julianna goes back to school on Monday you'll find naps more appealing.  If you do sleep during the day though, you'll usually sleep about two hours.  (At this point Jules was only sleeping about an hour and a half for nap.)

You like to sing loudly just like Jules did at this age.  You soak up new words to songs so quickly.  If a song comes on that you don't know however, you often demand that we turn the radio off.  Sometimes you can be quite bossy and I have no idea where that personality trait came from (wink, wink).

Your sister said "sine" for "fine" and couldn't say French fries hardly at all.  You say your "Fs" well but you struggle sometimes with "Ss".  When you spell your name it sounds like J-O-etch-H.

Your daddy pointed out to me the other night that you're quite the collector and he's right.  You like to gather up as many Squinkies in your hands as you can and carry them around.  You also ask for any and every stuffed animal to be placed in your bed and if one is missing you act very sad.  You treasure certain Lego's on certain days and you'll hoard all of the little Lego swords one day and then the wheels the next.  You don't like that we won't let you take them out of sister's room.

Speaking of which, you've gotten a little temper this month and often you'll look at us and scream, "NO!" when we even suggest that you do something or don't do something that you don't like.  You wrinkle up your nose and scowl at us like we said the most absurd thing you'd ever heard.  You even stomp your little foot and jump up and down in anger.  It's quite amusing.

This summer you've taken a liking to using scissors.  You will cut an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper into a gazillion pieces and then you'll beg to do your worksheets.  I love that you still love learning new things.

I'm going to miss spending so much time with you this school year, but it's also going to be nice to see you grow and thrive without so much dependence on me.  Happy thirty four months, Buddy.  In just two short months we'll be singing "Happy Birthday" to you and marveling over the fact that three years have flown by in the blink of an eye. 

Love,
Mama