Joseph

I didn't think much of this picture when it was first taken, but I am in love with it now that I have stumbled on it almost a year later. I can see my sweet Joseph in that puffy newborn face and I love that he is looking into my eyes through his drowsy-looking eye slits.

Joseph doesn't get as much face-time on this blog as he ought to, so here is a post dedicated to getting to know 11-month old Joseph.

***

For the last several months Joseph's favorite activity has been shutting doors. Before he could crawl, he would roll over to the door, and laying on his back would push the door shut with his legs or arm. When he learned to crawl he would head-butt the door closed. That progressed to shutting the door by walking on his knees with his hands against the door. And now that he walks, Joseph likes to walk the door nearly closed, then swing it open again, then walk it closed, and over and over again. He has slammed his fingers enough times to know that he needs to be cautious -- when the door is nearly closed he'll squint his eyes shut and wince a little, as if preparing himself for the pain of getting his fingers smashed.

***
Joseph is very interested in doing 'big boy' things. He wants to drink from a cup (and not even a sippy cup, but a real, open-topped cup. It's a very messy endeavor.), and he also wants to scoop his own food with a spoon. He doesn't usually get much into his mouth, but likes to practice anyway.
***

Joseph can say "Uh-oh" (it sounds more like "Uh-uh", but with the inflection used in "Uh-oh") and he can say "Daddy". All beloved objects = "daddy". He gets really excited when he sees Ian's bunny unattended and within reach, and he exclaims "daddy!" with lots of affection as he moves towards it.

***

I tried to get Joseph to put his two words together one day, and said "Uh-oh, daddy!", hoping he would repeat it. Scott was at work at the time, but Joseph immediately turned toward the entrance to the room we were in, looking excited at first and then confused, probably because he was expecting to see that daddy had just walked in. It was really cute to see that Joseph understood what "uh-oh daddy" could have meant in that circumstance. (Now whenever Joseph drops something he says 'uh-oh daddy!').

***

I often say "uh-oh, Ian" when Ian "makes a bad choice", like, say, hitting his baby brother with a spatula. So when I tried to get Joseph to practice saying "uh-oh, Ian" Joseph quickly turned to face Ian while leaning away from him, with all the instinct that a younger brother possesses.

***

Joseph is getting steadier on his feet, and looks less like he is marching than he did at first. He still topples over frequently, and for some reason, all the bruises are on the left side of his head. Perhaps that side weighs more? At any rate, the bruises do little to blemish his irresistibly cute face. I hear regularly that he looks like the Gerber baby (even Ian asks to see 'Joseph' on the box of baby cereal) and twice in one week elementary age boys asked if they could "pet my baby's head". Like I said, he is irresistible!

***

Joseph is also starting to put on some weight. He has always had a lean build, but favoring the skinny side of lean. In the last two weeks he has starting drinking his bottles instead of just squirting the carpet. And without much coercion he now consumes near the recommended daily amount of formula. People have been commenting on his chubby cheeks and rolly thighs all week. And the chubbier Joseph gets the more I can see resemblance to Ian's baby pictures.

***

Joseph loves a blanket his Great Mama (my grandmother) made for him. His favorite is actually the one made for Ian (big surprise) but his own yellow version is also well loved. Just this week he has started wandering into his room to retrieve it from his crib and drag it around the house. It is so adorable how he lays his head on it immediately when I put over my shoulder, or how when he finds it on the floor, he lets out a gleeful noise and then flops his body down on it and lays there for a minute.
***

Joseph also loves binkies. It is not uncommon to see one in his mouth and one clipped to his shirt, for backup.

***

There recently was an incident that involved Joseph eating in his high chair and a very large pile of... feces... under his chair. So we did what anyone would do: Scott took him outside and hosed him and the chair off at the same time. Joseph loved it.

It's hard to believe Joseph is only a few weeks from his first birthday!

Ian's Latest

Not a safe place for such a small bunny. No idea how he got there in the first place, but luckily Daddy was willing to undo the deed.

***

Ian wouldn't eat his beans at dinnertime. He wanted cheese instead. The following conversation ensued:

Scott: "You can have some cheese if you eat your beans first."
Ian: "No fank you."
Scott: "If you don't eat your beans, then you don't get any cheese."
Ian: "That sounds worse."

He eventually ate the beans, but we had the same problem last night with ravioli and ice cream. He kept repeating "I want ice cream instead of meat pillows," like I was daft and didn't understand that it was better to skip the ravioli all together and go straight to ice cream.

***

Also, Ian had his first kiss today. Little Chloe Hales received two goodbye kisses before he sped away backwards in his Cozy Coupe. But to all the little girls who read this blog -- don't lose heart: a few minutes later he ran at her from across the yard and knocked her to the ground when she got too close to his spatula and Nerf football. I think it is safe to say that he isn't ready for love. Plus, Chloe can go potty in the toilet, so she is probably out of our league anyway.

BYU/Tulane Game

BYU played another game within driving distance, so guess who was there?

Scott said the stadium was so run down inside and out that he was surprised the NFL let the Saints play there. Who else hears SuperDome and thinks instantly of Hurricane Katrina?

I think the seating design is really clever -- multicolored seats give the impression that were more spectators than the actual pitiful attendance numbers. Because there was a sellout Saints game the next day, the AC was cranked up in preparation and Scott said it was freezing.

Go Cougars!

Flashback

Because tomorrow marks the 1 year anniversary of Hurricane Ike and the beginning of all the 'fun' that came with it, I thought I would finally post about a somewhat related event that happened this summer.

A month or so ago we experienced a string of really hot days, even by Houston standards. I found myself annoyed that our air conditioner just couldn't keep up as I felt the temperature rising in the house. I finally realized it wasn't just me when the boys woke up groggy and sweaty after napping for only 20 minutes. The thermostat registered around 90 degrees inside the house by then, and that confirmed that our AC was not functioning properly, if at all.

I started to panic as I remembered how miserable it had gotten when we were without our AC (or electricity) for two weeks last summer. I had to remind myself that it would be a totally different ballgame because at least we could still run the ceiling fans. I am positive that sounds melodramatic, but if you had witnessed Ian's heat rash or experienced the ordeal at full term pregnancy, perhaps you would also panic at the thought.

I decided to be grateful for the fans and we parked our sweaty little selves under a ceiling fan to wait as patiently as we could for an AC repair man. The temperature inside neared 100 degrees, but, I kept telling myself, at least we had those ceiling fans.

And then the power went out.

That changed everything. I quickly packed the boys in the car and we left for the children's museum within 5 minutes.

The happy ending to the story is that the power was on within a few hours, an AC repairman came out at 7 am the next day, and by dinner time we were back in business. Thank heavens.

But we did experience a night without the AC. Because it does not cool off at night here, we decided to all sleep downstairs where it would be cooler. So Scott disassembled a crib and set it up in the formal living room, Joseph slept in a pack n play near the bathroom, and we drug our mattress down and slept on it in the family room. It was incredible how, even at 10 pm, you could feel the heat hit your face as got about half way up the stairs.

Ian's crib actually looked kinda nice in the living room. That room is off-limits to the kids, so Ian woke up the next morning saying "Why am I in the grown-up room?"

Joseph didn't seem to mind that he was placed in the tightest quarters. He was actually very happy to be surrounded by doorknobs on three sides. Those favorite items were even within reach for once!

My favorite part of this whole event was this: We actually moved Joseph's crib down into the living room instead of Ian's. And though the cribs are identical, Ian refused to sleep in Joseph's. Until we convinced him that it actually was his. But then the next night when he was back in his own crib again, he refused to accept that it was really his. What a tangled web we'd weaved.

So the first morning after Ian had slept in his actual crib again, the first thing he said to me when I got him up was "Joseph slept in my bed. And I slept in Joseph's bed. That's so crap."

I tried not to laugh hysterically in front of him, but called Scott right away to tell him the story.