Adjusting to School

Well Josh is liking school. I hear he plays well with the other kids and he is getting adjusted to the school setting and participation more. He looks like such a small guy compared to those in his class. I guess it is because most of them are 4 and Josh isn't even 3 yet. After school he used to bolt for the exits and ask for the park ten times so it was hard to talk to his teacher. I guess his attention span was all used up. Now after school, he wants to go to the music room or the gym. He points to them and says, this way. I told him we couldn't and we needed to go home and he told me no. He gave up and said it was ok to go to the store though so we went to the store instead.

I Wasn't Going To Be That Mom

I was so excited for Josh to start school today. We packed his backpack last night, we got up early this morning, and we were ready to go. You would think it was my first day of school I was so excited. So after we got there, we walked to his new classroom with his teacher and hung up his bag and picked out a toy. I told him goodbye and he said bye bye and was going to leave with me so of course there was that "separation upset." No big deal right...he does it a Jazzercise and church nursery and he is fine in less then 2 minutes, but then it hit me he is going to school and getting so big. Yes I got a little teary eyed. This is the first time I'm leaving him with someone unrelated to him where I won't be in the same building. Big steps for mom. I didn't think I was "that type of mom" that gets all emotional about things like this. Maybe I will blame it on hormones. Anyway I'm fine now. After dropping him off, I went to babysit Jazzercise today and it really felt like I forgot him at home... Although today was definitely the day where, he was better off at school than in that Jazzercise room. There was a newer kid/baby that cried half the time. After Jazzercise babysitting, I came home to a nice message from Josh's teacher, that he was doing great and he was fine a few minutes after I left. Well I better go get something done before it is time to pick him up.

A Jewel of Thought

So I must not have too many Jewels of Thought since I haven't been writing. Life is pretty normal at the moment. As far as my job goes, I'm back on cruise mode of regular payroll stuff. Every now and again I get weird W2 questions or requests to resend it, but those are not hard to deal with and should stop by the 15th. In September I get an increase in work load since a coworker is going to be having a baby. I'm excited that I get to do some of my old jobs like bank reconciliation. Ok so I'm weird, I really enjoy doing that. There is just a joy I get when everything matches up or you solve the problem of why they don't match up. I will probably do some new things too that she will train me before she leaves. I will probably go into the office more just to get things done quicker so I will have to figure out what to do with Josh. Most of the time, I'm sure GM will take him, but depending on how often I need/want to go in I might have someone in either Gardner or Lawrence look after him. My boss said I could do most at home, but then I feel bad for Josh if I'm not giving him time.

In Josh news, he will be graduating infant toddlers when he turns 3. We will miss the weekly visits of Mrs. Nadene. He has made so much progress and I have learned a lot on techniques I can use to help him. He communicates his wants and needs very well now. We are working on expanding his vocab now. His articulation could be better, but that will come as he learns more words and I understand him and that is all the counts at the moment. In May, Josh will be going to Madison elementary 2 times a week to work on his speech and he may qualify later for more of a preschool environment. He is growing up so quickly. I am so proud of him.

In Jen news, I just had a Bday. Celebrated by eating Chipotle and making a cake with Josh. Both were yummy. I got an IPod case and I don't know the name of it, but a media center type hard drive device so that we can digitally put our movies on it and scroll to the one we want to watch. I'm excited. It will be so nice, especially with Josh's shows. They are getting so scratched up that some of them we can't watch any more. I had a nice relaxing Bday. Things I'm looking forward to...fence, vacation in Aug to UT, family reunion at my brother's new house, 4th of July, Josh going to school, Josh's 3rd Bday, 3rd book in Hunger Games Series

Josh Points of interest

• Josh went through mom's diaper bag, had fun with desitine, came upstairs to ask me to open some candy he found in my bag. He got in trouble and I kept asking him do we go through mom's bag? He kept answering yes. I then realized I was asking him the wrong question and he was just telling the truth...yes we went through mom's bag...so I changed my question into 2...Did you go through mom's bag? YES. Are you suppose to go through mom's bag? NO. What a smart kid.
• Loves Elmo now. He is starting to drag the elmo doll around
• Lives off of CoCo Milk, Gogurt, white cheese (string cheese), and bread (he won't eat PB&J, he just wants the bread)
• Helps himself to things in the fridge, but has to open the freezer first in order to open the fridge.
• Everytime he sees the pilsbury dough boy he makes the hehe sound.
• Loves to bake with mom
• Sees a public bathroom and grabs his diaper and says ew, pee popo in toliet. Sometimes he pees but most of the time he just wants to sit on it and flush.
• Prayer time- closes his eyes and says mama where are you?
• Prayer time- Daddy saying prayer, Josh starts playing with daddy's head, I tell Josh to fold his arms, he tells me to close my eyes.
• Plays world of warcraft...asks to play by saying more ooze (one of the things in the game). He has his own character. He is pretty good now at turning his guy around once he runs into a wall.
• Computer Genius: knows when the mouse is turned off & will flip it over & turn it on. Can exit programs by moving the mouse and clicking on the X in the corner
• Loves to take Orange baths
• Still pushes people if they are in his playing space. The other day, he tried pushing a bigger kid...didn't work so much.
• Goes to Jazzercise with mom and has to have his dance time afterwards. I have now trained him to dance one song and then we leave without a tantrum.

Growing Up

My Cutie Pie

Josh's New Room

More new Room!

Well in the past couple of months a lot has happened. In Josh news he is talking a lot more. I probably say that in every post though. He knows his alphabet and his letters pretty well. Sometimes he amazes me and counts all the way to 20. He likes pointing at everyone license plates to tell me the letters and numbers. At Target or Walmart he will count out the numbers of the check outs or when leaving stops on the curb to say the letters printed there such as no parking or fire lane. Even though he is a slow talker the speech therapist said that it is advanced for him to know his letters already so I feel good about that. As far as words go right now my favorites are library and jazzercise. They just sound cute when he says them. The phrase "ride rides" is a bad word in our home. It something Josh does with GM at the mall and he asks for it at least once a day. It just gets annoying because the answer is always no unless GM is coming to take him there. At the end of September I finished painting his new bedroom...I did it all by myself I would like to add... and we got Josh his new toddler bed. The migration was pretty easy. The next day he even put himself down for his own nap. I was amazed. I am still yet amazed that he does not come out of his room until I come and get him or I yell where are you and then he comes out. I have the perfect child. In other family news, Jason is almost done with his thesis...professor says this will be his last semester. It will be nice to say we are finally out of college! and no longer have to pay tuition! As far as my life goes I jazzercise pretty regularly and work is going alright (not stressing about the end of the year yet). I finished my new room for Josh project, but now have to clean up the pile of junk that came from closets that I moved to the unused dining room. I am the queen of clutter and junk. It just seems to appear around me. Lately I have gotten into reading and/or listening to books. Finished Austenland (corny cute & predictable), Hunger Games (loved) , Catching Fire (loved), Twilight series (again-still loved), and 3 books in a series that Suzanne Collins wrote (its more of probably Junior high level book but I like her style of writing). Some of my other hobbies have suffered. I haven't done scrapbooking or cross stitching or played games on the computer (I play WorldOfWarcraft) in awhile.

The Nightly Check

I have started a check list for myself for each day of the week. It lists what room I will focus on cleaning that day and personal goals like going to Jazzercise or reading my scriptures. There is also a check box each day for the nightly check (the downstairs is free of clutter before bed). My goodness. It works. My house has been clean since Saturday. It is such a nice feeling to wake up to a clean house. Josh does try hard to make it dirty for me, but if you stay on top of things its not that hard. Today was the day for the kitchen. It was already pretty clean. I swept and wiped off counters so then I had time to tackle the refrigerator and the left over experiments that were growing in there from dinners past. I gave it a good wipe down and I feel very accomplished for the day. The rest of they day I watched Cars (Josh's new favorite movie), colored, read The Big Hungry Bear several times, bounced a bouncy ball around the house, and during nap time started working (payroll). It was hard to sit down and get to work, but if I want fun money then I guess I must.

Anyway new things in Josh's life: We leave our shoes by the door. He likes to try them on and walk around in them saying shoe. My favorite shoe he tries on are my sandal like high heals. My new favorite word of the day from Josh is cocoa. I started calling chocolate milk...cocoa milk. I thought it would be easier to say (he doesn't try saying chocolate). Well he says cocoa. It just comes out sounding very demonic because he can't quite get the "Co" sound..it gets caught in his throat. So if you want a laugh and he is around make sure you ask him to say cocoa milk.

NO!

So Josh is progressing rather well. He babbles a lot now. He loves counting steps (sometimes he will wait and cry if necessary in order for me to hold his hand & count the stairs with him...two is usually the only one I can make out him saying) and picking out letters(sounds) in the alphabet. He is really good at trying to repeat words you say. My favorite phrases are "Where are you?" & "What's that?" My favorite words are (because he says them so cute) Jesus & Papa. The one word I am beginning to hate is the word No. He has mastered that one this week. It began as a cute game with matching shapes. He would try to match the star with the circle & then would say no because they didn't match. That progressed into telling mom what he won't do. Mama says Yes! The other night I was trying to get him to eat manicotti. He only had to take one bite to try it. I took a bite & said Mmmm Mommy likes manicotti. Dad took a bite and I said Mmmmm daddy likes manicotti. Does Joshua like manicotti...without taking a bite he firmly said No! I then proceeded to shove it down his throat. No just joking. I cracked up laughing and he didn't get a treat after dinner because he didn't eat any manicotti. Another common use of the word no. He will come up to me and say poopoo. I will ask did you poop? He promply says no and walks away. I thought communication was suppose to make things easier. One more cute thing about Josh. We are a family that likes to have some fun traditions just to make life a little more enjoyable. When we used to go to church in Ottawa, we had the tradition of every time we cross this one bike trail we would make the sound thud thud. (my dad did it when he was drawing us the map on how to get to the church). When we changed to the Paola building, we had to come up with a new tradition so we came up with saying weee as we go around the one roundabout on the way to church. Josh has caught on so every time we go in a roundabout (not just on the way to church) he goes weee. It's the little things in life which make you smile that makes all the hard things in life worth it.