thirty five months

Dear Joshua,
Right now you are upstairs talking yourself through nap time.  A very common occurrence these days.  You can talk more than anyone I know.  And that includes your grandfather which will amaze anyone who knows him.

I will look back on this month and remember it as the month you learned to pick your nose.  And Announce. It. To. Us.  Ugh!  Not sure what we can do to stop this behavior, but stop it already! It's so disgusting to be driving down the road and hear you say, "Mom, I like to get boogers out of my nose!" You also have started talking a lot about poop and pee and we've had to discuss "potty talk" and discourage use of these kinds of words so frequently that we've even talked about making you go stand in the bathroom when you say them.  It hasn't gotten to that point yet, but if something doesn't change soon then we may not see you much of your thirty-fifth month because you'll be spending it in the bathroom!

not napping makes it hard to stay awake at Target

Starting back to school this month was a little more rough than I anticipated.  Of course, you're fine now but for some reason at first you cried a lot at drop off.  We talked to you on many different occasions about being a big boy and not crying because we always come back to get you.  Then it became incredibly impressive to watch you recognize your sadness about leaving us and even pooch out your bottom lip a bit but then calmly walk on and tell us goodbye normally.  You are growing up so fast.

You've learned the Pledge of Allegiance, the days of the week and most of the months of the year.  You've started "pretend reading" books and actually telling the stories that are in the pictures.

We took you camping last month and you got to pee in the bushes.  This was intriguing to you and because we've never really encouraged you to use the bathroom outside you had a great deal of stage fright about it at first.  Eventually you got it and you've mentioned it a couple of times since.  Then this week your preschool teacher had you in the carpool line waiting to pick up the girls and you had to pee so apparently she let you go right in the bushes outside of the car because the school hadn't dismissed yet and the car was trapped in line.  When I picked you up that afternoon you exclaimed, "Mama, I got to pee in the bushes!"  I know you're going to read this years from now and wonder why it was such a big deal to me that you can pee outside, but I've never wanted one of those little boys that will pull down his fly and just pee off the side of the deck so I've tried not to expose you to that possibility. But then when you're finally the parent of a two year old and you experience a visit to every restroom in every retail outlet in your town at every inopportune moment possible you'll understand why it's nice to have a boy.

You've gone through a little bit of a growth spurt recently. You grew 3/8ths of an inch in a month and your 24 month pants are finally too short.

You're still a picky eater and of course you love sweets.  You like to steal your sister's gummy vitamin in the morning while she's not looking despite the fact that you've already inhaled your own.

We're getting ready for the big party next month and we've asked you what you want on your cake.  You've told us Blue's Clues, including Steve and Joe, Spiderman, and pirates all in the span of fifteen minutes.  Such is a conversation with you these days.  We'll figure it out.  Until then, happy thirty-five months, Buddy. I love you!

Love,
Mama