Short Stories with Shannon 2

1. Tuesday is trash day. And we live on a corner. So every Tuesday morning there's a slew of trucks that go past at least one side of our house, and often the same truck goes past several times. There are multiple trash companies, a different truck for yard waste, and then the recycling truck. Josiah knows the sound of a truck very well, so all morning he tells me when he hears a truck ("cu-ck") and often runs to a window to try to see it. The best is when we watch one of the trucks pick up our cans in the front driveway. This morning we watched the garbage truck dump our trash can and drive away. Josiah looked up at me and "more." I think he could watch the big trucks all day long.

2. In an effort to have a quick, easy, cheap, and nutritious snack/meal for Josiah, I make large batches of banana oatmeal bars. There's only 1/2 cup brown sugar, lots of oatmeal, banana, yogurt instead of butter, and then I dump in a bunch of flax seed. He loves them, and I love the fact that he loves them. Josiah also loves grapes. But until recently, he would suck the flesh out of a grape cut in half and then hand the skin back to me. So instead of getting handfuls of spitty grape skin, I got really good at peeling grapes. Thankfully, though, he seems to have turned a corner and now all I have to do is cut the grapes in half. Oh, the little things in life.

3. Josiah loves his pacifier. We call it a paci. And he calls it a sas. We try to contain the pacifier to the crib and car. So when he does see one, in a very excited high-pitched little voice he exclaims, "sas!" It's super cute.