Just some stuff I want to remember...

• Daddy walked into the office deep in thought, he walked right by Joshua with out a hello. Joshua walked up to him, put his hands out and said,"Daddy? Where oh where is Joshua's big hug?"
• Jamison was unbelievably kind and patient with his little brother when we tagged along to get his football gear. Surrounded by all his buddies, Jamison just laughed when Joshua insisted on wearing Jay's football helmet and trying on his pads. So proud of my boys!
• I apologized to Jamison because I had an errand to run and could not walk with him to his first football practice. My kind son just grinned at me. His grin said it all and I quickly realized how "gay" it would be for his mommy to walk him to football practice at middle school. Thanks Jamison for being so patient and having such a great sense of humor. We are both still making fun of me!
• Joshua has discovered that he, Jay, and Daddy all have the same name! He LOVES it that all my boys are "Chad D." He has decided that I am "Momma Chad D."
• Joshua is a hunter NOT an animal lover at heart. When we play with his farm set he pretends to cut the chickens head off, then he sticks it on a stick and feeds it to momma. (With a warning to blow it because it is hot!) He does a similar thing with toy fish, but first he whacks them hard. "Just like daddy!" And then he pretends to fillet them.
• For months the only thing Joshua really loved at the park was to "drive." If there was not a steering wheel at a playground he would ask to go home! If there was a steering wheel, he would ask me for the keys. I would throw him pretend keys through the air, he would catch them, ask if I was buckled, wait for me to pretend to buckle up, and then he would start "driving." He has an absolutely wonderful and very detailed imagination.
• He would also play "Momma's Baby is Crying" constantly! He would stop whatever he was doing and say, "Momma's baby is crying!" I would drop everything and run to him, pick him up, and whisper how he was OK and momma loved him and momma would take care of him. He would giggle and cuddle in. Usually he would get down and play right away, only to repeat this game again in 5 min. or so. It has been a fascinating game. As he has become more confident in me, we play it less and less. It drove the older kids crazy! They thought it was totally annoying because although he said he was crying he clearly just was testing/goofing around/needing me - depending on the moment. I kept reminding them that I picked them up every time they cried when they were babies and he needs that too. This game is becoming rare. It is amazing to me how he has found some really good ways to have his formerly unmet needs met.
• Since I never leave Joshua (except with daddy) he attended the open house at the middle school with Krissy and I. He insisted on going down the steps in the very busy school by himself. We were absolutely causing a minor traffic jam between him being slow because he is little and him being distracted, but Krissy was so so patient. She calmly reminded him to keep moving, but never got upset or embarrassed a bit.
• Joshua, our little motor-head, knows the name to each and every car in his bag. He has a dumpy truck, a payloader, a backhoe, daddy's jeep, daddy's truck, a bus, a garbage truck, an airplane, a helicopter, krissy's yellow car, etc... He brings his bag almost everywhere and loves to name off his collection.
• Joshua has struggled with people asking him questions like "How old are you? What is your name? How are you?" He likes to have me practice them with him. I will point to Krissy and say "What is your name?" She will answer and then it will be Joshua's turn. He will prompt us to do this more! He really wants to figure this out.
• On a similar note... Joshua is 10! Yep, he wants to be 10 just like Sierra. At first when we would practice how old are you he would respond,"2! No how old Sierra?" I didn't catch on right away and would tell him Sierra is 10. He would proudly say, "Joshua 10!" Now he just claims to be 10... but Momma can be 2!
• We continue to be totally amazed at Joshua's intelligence. He is seriously smart. He found an alphabet toy. You can push the buttons and the toy says the name of the letter you push. He was so excited when he heard it say his name..."W" (yep "W" sounds a lot like Gebeyehu) He soon discovered that it also said Jay's name, "J". He would ask me about momma's name. I pushed the "M" and told him M is for momma. We went through all the names in our household and then got busy for the day. Several days later he pulled out the same toy and ON HIS OWN pushed all the letters and told me which letter was for which name with incredible accuracy - even "d" for daddy and "b" for brenna. I was totally amazed. And to make it even more shocking... the toy has all lower case letters which are much more difficult for beginning readers to identify one from the other. Since he does not seem to recognize letters other than the ones I told him go with family names, I do not think he has worked with letters much. But even if he had, I think recognizing lower case letters with family names so quickly is quite a feat.
• Last one...(remember this is Joshua's baby book and our family's memory book so you have to humor me!) Joshua really struggles when called Gebeyehu right now. When I say his name Joshua Gebeyehu Chad D. He says "NO Gebeyehu! Joshua Chad D." When he is just called Gebeyehu he usually shuts down, sometimes even burying his face into my shoulder and sucking his thumb. Other times he just ignores it - but there is certainly evidence that his name, who he is, who he belongs to, etc... is something he is striving to work through. Being both Joshua and Gebeyehu will be a lifelong journey I do believe. We all have to figure out who we are, I just see it more and so much earlier in Joshua Gebeyehu.