A Year and A Half

**Disclaimer: This post may contain too much information for some!**

And what a great year and a half it has been for our little branch of the Beardsley Family! For the 18 months (and 2 weeks ;-) Matt and I have been blessed to watch our little Josiah grow from a little barely kicking in the womb guy we didn't even know, to a smiling, mellow baby, to a toddler who is full of energy, spirit and independence. There are so many moments where I find myself saying "I just love this guy so much!" or "Matt look, look at Joey, isn't that cute!!??"

I've written his 18 month post for weeks in my head and rewritten and rewritten and.... I have taken a billion pictures and short (and long) video clips to show how much he is changing and how he has grown. I'm not sure how much I will actually post so beware that this could be dangerously long and (let's hope not, but-) boring, unless you are family or a really really REALLY good friend.

With that caution, please enjoy.... :-)



Food!
Joey is doing great with his foods! He is eating everything that we eat. I keep a few granola bars and fruit cups in the diaper bag to tide him over or for emergencies, but now even when we go out or to friend's houses, he eats what we eat. In the last week alone he had curry, rice, poppadom, and naan (not spicy and loved it!) and wontons, all the tofu from my hot and sour soup (ummm.. not that I don't eat tofu) and chinese beef and broccoli. He is working on using a spoon when he eats and getting good at it.



The hardest part about the spoon is that there isn't alot of independence for Joey eating. I have to stay with him because if my attention waivers for a second then he'll flip the bowl just to see what will happen or use the spoon to drop food on the floor. It's amazing though, how much just that little bit of independence in being able to feed himself things that I used to feed him, has encouraged him. He wasn't a big fan of rice or pasta before. He'd eat it, but sometimes there would be some coaxing. Now he'll just shovel it in. It's great to watch him grow up like this, hard too, but wonderful.

Language!
We're still working hard on our talking but Joey is a man of few words! Honestly, sometimes this is a relief to me. Having been around kids so long it's exhausting when they talk and talk and talk. Joey really enjoys talking to himself and babbling and doesn't seem discouraged by our lack of actually exchange of ideas. He can communicate enough to ask for what he wants, and say please. He understands us even more than I think he does and is able to follow all of our directions. Notice I say "is able" not necessarily "does".



Day-to-Day!
Some things that we are working on now are dressing and undressing. Putting on shoes, taking off shoes, and working the velcro straps. We are always working on cleaning up and especially (even harder, because then Mommy needs the motivation too) making sure that the toys go where they should and not in "random toy basket". We are also learning which toys will be devoured by the puppy, (most) and where to put them. It's a task finding a spot high enough to keep out Ziggy and low enough that Joey can get to it.

Once Upon a Potty!
We are in the beginning stages of Pre-potty-training. Again I say, PRE-potty training. We ARE NOT potty training. We aren't even thinking about it in the near future. A while ago while perusing Mckmama's blog I read a post about her potty training. There were some great ideas in it that I thought would be helpful to start now before we were ready to potty train. If you are potty training, planning on doing it again with another child, etc, I would definitely recommend reading this blog.
Since reading this we started doing a few intentional things (stop reading now if this doesn't interest you!)... when Joey is totally undressed (not every time, but usually once every day or every other day, I sit Joey on the toilet. No mini potty, no potty chair. Since the first few weeks he can now balance himself and stay there for a minute or so. He looks SO TEENY, but concentrates (on balancing ;-) and will stay there until I ask "all done?" and give me the all done sign as best he can with whichever hand he decides he can spare. I get him down and then give him an M&M. We flush, he claps (for himself) and we get on with it... He has yet to do anything in the potty, but that isn't really the point. The point right now is for him to learn to sit there, bare butt and all, by himself.

We also talk about what he is doing when we catch him going to the bathroom in his diaper (in really obvious manners). If we ask him, "are you going poop?" he usually points to his diaper and then trots off to his bedroom for a change. Several times he has come to us and pointed to his diaper in the back right before a poop, which is very exciting. I don't plan on taking him to the potty for it, for a while, I am just working on him being conscious of it right now. I would like him to be more willingly verbal before we drive down that road.

We both take him to the bathroom and talk about what is going on. He flushes the toilet and points to the M&Ms for us and we remind him that he can have one when he sits on the potty. He seems interested in what we are doing but not in going any further and that is fine for now.

Since we are currently potty-training a rather small and furry new member of the family we'll be waiting for anything else until after baby #2 unless there is an EXTREME increase of interest and speaking ability.
We did get some training pants though and are excited to try wearing them a few times just to see what "wet" and "dry" feel like and be able to learn what those words mean. We have yet to get them in the mail, but I'll be sure to post more eventually.



Time with Daddy!
Joey loves spending time with his daddy. They have a great time together and I love to watch them!! Joey loves to try to imitate Matt, and is always curious about what he is doing/working on/where he is going, etc.










Playing and Interests!
Joey is really interested in so many things! He really likes to play with his trains and can put the tracks together himself now and loves to run his trains along them!
He really seems to be interested in airplanes though! He loves to point them out in the sky and will hear them from inside the house, even if the sound is SO FAINT and drop everything to point them out to us. The other day I checked out an old old DVD video from the library about trains and planes and buses. It was seriously the first time I ever saw him pay attention to anything for more than 2 minutes. It was so cute. He kept on looking and pointing and going "OOoohhh!!" his little amazed sound.



Joey loves to play outside when we visit playgrounds and go for walks. This is a clip from Fairytale Town in Sacramento.

And of course, Joey with a train...


The Terrible One and a Halfs!
We are definitely noticing that we have a toddler on our hands in the last month or so. He tends to whine when he wants something before remembering that "please" is a better option. Some days I feel like all I say is "stop whining, stop whining, no whining, say please." We also had (and are still having) a bout of jealousy with the new puppy. When I call the puppy, pet the puppy or talk to it in a puppy voice he will run over and insert himself in between me and the puppy (or Matt and the puppy). He has been more fussy and demanding when the puppy is around, but his normal self when the puppy is in the crate (which is a pretty good amount of time also because he is such a baby and sleeps so much!). Actually I'm really glad that we are doing this now and we've noticed this because now we have an idea of what to expect with a baby and what to look for from Joey. We are also getting alot of practice with giving him attention and reassurance and teaching him patience at the same time. I think that a with a new baby or maybe even 2 kids, getting a dog would have been overwhelming and now that we have another 10 weeks to train Ziggy and help Joey adjust to sharing the spotlight, I'm really glad we got the dog at just this time!

The Lord has truly blessed us with our oldest son and I'm so glad to be able to share all of these exciting things about him. He is such a joyful and happy guy and we love him so much!!