Category: Josiah

July 13th, 2008 Because every scurvy pirate needs a backpack…

to store his pirate booty in.

Aaarrrrrrr, Matey!!

July 9th, 2008 Listening to…

…beautiful music: my 9 year old playing the piano, my 6 year old accompanying her with the guitar, and the both of them plus my two year old all singing “Nothing But the Blood”.  Priceless!

June 11th, 2008 Mommy’s Little Helper + Deck Spruce-Up

Just so’s you all know: Josiah has a pretty sweet side to him too. When he’s not making messes and being ornery!! This morning I walked outside and found him doing this:

He was watering all the new little plants I put in last week!  No one told him to; but he’s seen me go turn on the garden hose and sprinkle all these tender plants each day, so I guess he figured he’d take care of that chore for me today. What a helpful boy!!

For a bit of history, when we bought the house, this was the place the previous owners let their dogs sleep. It was a real mess, full of dirty hay (for dog bedding??) and looked like this:

Early this year after the deck redo was complete, I finally got down to the business of cleaning out the hay and other debris.

We pulled brick after brick after brick out from underneath the hay.

I had lots of good help.

And some folks who just wanted to play in the dirt, but hey that’s cool too.

After our hard work, it was at least free of junk, and tidy-looking. But since January, it has sat feeling rather lonely and empty.

Until last week: I visited a local nursery and got some advice on what to plant here in hopes that we could keep it alive despite mostly shade and no sprinkler system feeding this area. I wanted as many evergreen perennials as would work so as to minimize effort/expense in the future. Among other things I planted a jasmine vine which I am hoping will happily climb and bloom all over this cute little birdy trellis I painted black (I love my trellis!):

And a Japanese Holly Fern, a Gardenia, Curly Red Coral Bells, and some Purple Shamrock.

I have yet to choose a plant for the corner, where I’d like something that will grow somewhat tall, yet narrow enough that it does not cover the kitchen window and block light from coming in. I definitely want to put something evergreen here. If any of my wonderful, green-thumbed readers have suggestions, please speak up! I need all the gardening help I can get.

Looks like Josiah knows that, and it’s a good thing he’s jumped in to help with the efforts to keep my little plants alive and thriving. Let’s hear it for Mommy’s Little Gardening Helper!

June 9th, 2008 A Picture is Worth….

…so much in this case that I don’t even know that this one needs a caption. But hey, captions are fun. So come on, everyone, give it your best shot.

April 27th, 2008 Brothers

Our neighbors who live behind us bequeathed to us this lovely little rocker that is perfect for our deck. Since it was just their size, the little boys had to try it out right away, and they looked so cute that I grabbed my camera and quickly snapped a couple of pics. Rarely do I take two out of two great shots, especially when wiggly little boys are the subjects, but here they are.

April 15th, 2008 Watchful Puppy

Today Josiah awoke with a bad stomach virus, and spent the day on an air mattress in the living room, alternately getting sick, crying because he felt so miserable, and falling asleep with the exhaustion of it all. We have had several sick wards in the living room already this year, but this was one was a little different, because today, in the middle of it all, was Dixie the pup, who lay near Josiah’s side through much of the day. And who even several times attempted to lie almost on top of Josiah on his air mattress, perhaps in an effort to help him know she really, really wanted to be as close to him as possible, and comfort him in his distress. Sweet doggie.

April 6th, 2008 Sunday on the Swing With Grandy

February 28th, 2008 Bigger and Bigger

It’s not been a bad week, but it’s been a hard one. Things don’t feel at all right with Sid gone, and the Mommy has had herself at least one good cry each and every day - sometimes more. In the midst of this sadness, we’ve experienced more illness - Jay felt left out since everyone else in the family had a round with the flu, so he succumbed too. On Monday, when Josiah spiked a 104+ fever we figured he’d caught it for the second time, but a trip to the pediatrician’s nixed that theory. We’ve had great help, and everyone is on the mend now, but I feel tired and somewhat melancholy.

In the past several weeks, amidst the various ailments, Josiah has shown very obvious signs of wanting to potty train. I have purposely ignored them, hoping he’d just hold off, and wait till things got calmer. As I said to my sister earlier today, “I am in no mood to potty train right now!” But when your child gets out of bed each night because he’s wet his diaper, and is immensely bothered by every “soak-ey” as they are called around here, then I guess it’s time to go along with his wish to be a big boy.

So this afternoon, out came the Diego Pullups I’d stashed in his closet last time they were on a super sale. Josiah was so pleased with his “Dalago Unnerwear” and strutted around all afternoon proudly. My potty-training ritual, which has worked pretty well for three children, just consists of putting the child in a pullup and setting the kitchen timer to beep at short intervals at first to help him learn the drill. Those little bladders are tiny so I start out by taking them every 10 minutes at first, then 15 minutes, then 20 minutes, you get the idea. Rewards are given for having dry pants when it’s time to visit the potty. The idea being that we don’t just give a treat for every drop of tinkle the child can squeeze out over ten minute intervals, and that ultimately I want the trainee to learn to keep those pants dry!!

Josiah really liked the potty thing today, and got the knack of it reasonably well. After two accidents, he stayed dry the rest of the afternoon and evening. At one point, a few hours into it, while I was busy with supper prep, he heard the kitchen timer beep and on his own dutifully derobed, leaving his dry “Dalago unnerwear” on the kitchen floor, scaled the too-tall-for-him-potty, and performed perfectly. So cute.

I have never doubted he is ready to train, I just wanted to wait for warmer weather, and maybe a sense of more normalcy. But really in a household like ours, what is normal, exactly?? Here is a picture from back in September - as you can see, he’s been enjoying trying out the potty thing for quite some time now!!

February 9th, 2008 My First Haircut

Daddy decided it was high time I stop looking so shaggedy around the ears, so a couple weekends ago he got out that scary Flobee toy (you must check out the pictures of the funny-looking grown-ups vaccuming off their hair on this site) of his and told me he was going to cut my hair. For my “before” shot he made me stand in front of this very red wall, so you can’t really see my sort of reddish hair all that well, but ok, well here is my “before” pic anyway:

Really, I don’t see what all the fuss about a few sweet curls at my neck is all about, but hey, he’s the big guy so I went along with it.

I sat nice and still during the entire procedure despite being scared for my life - here is a shot of me praying that the Flobee monster won’t eat me:

And here is what I looked like afterward:

Still cute, eh??

December 11th, 2007 Jailbreak

This should make life interesting…

December 7th, 2007 The Jo-Brella

Yesterday afternoon it was warm enough for me to finally turn my attentions to our neglected shrubbery, and I trimmed ‘em all up till they were looking pretty again. Jay got home from work early enough to take advantage of daylight and attack several larger plants in our yard which also needed some serious taming. The kids played nearby while we worked, but Josiah must have been watching us more closely than I’d thought. Because as I pulled stray leaves off of the large Elephant Ear in our front bed, he ran over to me, and started yelling something unintelligible all the while jumping up and down and waving a very large stalk from the plant.

“umbLella, umbLella!!” was what he was saying, and he insisted that I watch while he very carefully stood under the huge leaf looking as if he was ready for any rainstorm that might suddenly appear out of the sky. He reminded me of little Nicholas under the toadstool in one of his favorite board books: I am a Bunny:

What do you think?

December 5th, 2007 My Tiniest Knight in Shining Armor

Look how cute I am with this sword….

Watch out!! I am ready to do some serious damage with this thing!!

ATTACK!!!