1 1/2 Years Old!

Yesterday Josiah became an 18 month old. It doesn't seem like we've had him for a year and a half, but maybe that's because who he is is always changing. A few random things about him at this point in time:

• He loves vacuums and lawnmowers and calls them both vacuums. He pulls an imaginary string to start up his wagon and then pushes it around the yard.
• He really really loves the alphabet song.
• He loves raisin toast. And blueberry muffins.
• He loves slides. While we drive places, if he sees a slide or a park, I hear him say, "Slide! Weeee! Haha!" from the backseat. Today he went down an especially high and steep slide at the park but I definitely saw him hesitate before committing.
• He is currently very tan below the elbows and below the knees. His legs are full of bruises and scratches.
• He loves to try to say names and is generally able to remember the name the next time he sees the person. In the car I often hear him rehearsing the names of people he knows.
• He hasn't had a problem going to the nursery ever since we started telling him "you're gonna go play with toys, Mama's gonna say bye-bye, but then Mama will come back!"
• He loves animals. He got to feed a carrot to a guinea pig at a friend's house and was way more excited than the guinea pig. We found a frog out in the yard and he often goes back to the same spot looking for the frog. Squirrels and chipmunks that he sees in the yard are all monkeys as far as he is concerned.
• He likes to stir pots on the stove when I'm cooking, but since there is rarely a safe way to let him do that, I brought his desk into the kitchen to use as a stove. He seems to enjoy cooking with me. This has also led to a rediscovered love of banging on pots.