For Better and For Worse

We took Joey and his friend, Kori, to Monkey Joes last weekend. They had a blast.

It was so cute seeing them in line with big kids. Joey tackled Kori with a hug and they just giggled on the ground.

Joey and Kori climbed up so really high ladders to get to some of the slides. They were very brave.

Potty training went well. I can't take enough pictures of Joey in his big boy underwear. It's so cute!

He was trying to make his Daddy jealous by giving me all his kisses. He looks out of the corner of his eye when he's kissing me to make sure Earl is looking. Earl got a picture this time.

Joey is still taking pictures.

Unfortunately, all the fun at Monkey Joes turned into a sickness. I'm pretty sure he got it from there. Poor guy. Had a fever of 101 on one day. He coughs all night and barely sleeps. This is one of the only times in his whole life that he fell asleep on the couch watching TV. He NEVER falls asleep watching TV. Heck, he never lays down while watching TV, for more than a couple minutes. So we knew he was feeling bad when that happened. I have just a couple cute stories from before he got sick:

I did a high pitch gobble, screech sound (don't ask) while Joey was involved in his drawing on the table beside me. He didn't even flinch, just kept drawing. I said, "that didnt' scare you?" He calmly said, "yes, it scared me." I said, "oh you were just drawing so I thought you didn't hear me." Then he goes, "I did hear you. You were just working, so you didn't hear me."

I cracked up and said, "are you turning the tables on me, boy?" He said, "well...yes."

He says "well" a lot now, before everything and anything he says. It can be hilarious.

This morning, he let me take a picture of him laying on the back of the couch. He didn't stay there long. Just long enough for a pose. He's a little monkey, still climbing anything and everything. And he stands upright on the back of the couch and counts, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, JUMP!" and jumps down. He's fearless.

He still has a crazy imagination, too. We were playing balls in his bedroom floor and he said, "Get close, Mom. Get close like bees." Me: "Like bees? What are bees close to?" Joey: "Flowers. Beautiful, colorful flowers." Then later I asked why he's scared and makes Daddy sit with him at night. I told him there's no animals in the house and not to be afraid. He said there's a good monkey that talks to him and asks him questions. Me: "What questions?" Joey: "Do I have 1 dog?" Me: "What did you say?" Joey: "I said , I have 2 dogs."
Also, the day we went to Monkey Joes, Kori's mom showed me that she knows how to spell Mom and Dad, and Cat, and Kori (and maybe more, that's as far as we got). I was so impressed. So I've been working with Joey to teach him that. He's doing good. Sometimes he forgets and needs reminding, but once you say it once, he remembers and can spell it on his own for a little bit. Till he forgets again.
We are still waiting to find out where we are moving too. Things are looking better for us to get Georgia, but we still don't know. Maybe next week we'll find out something.

Potty Training!

(Beware: Lots of talk of poop and pee in this blog)


I finally got impatient enough to start potty training. I honestly wanted to wait until he showed more interest on his own, but when I got him to pee a few times on his own, I noticed how clever he is. He loved playing the potty flusher that made noise, so he'd sit down, pee a little, stop peeing, stand up to flush it, then sit back down and pee some more. He obviously had control over his bladder, so I figured he was ready enough. On the first day, I think he only had one pee accident. He didn't poop at all, though. On the second day (yesterday), I made sure he remembered that if he pooped, he'd get to go to the Chick Fil A playground. So that morning, he strained and got out one little drop of poop and was ready to go the playground. (I was excited enough to take pictures of him doing his first poop on the toilet.) I knew he had lots left in him so I took a change of clothes with us. He did pee in his pants at the playground, but it could have been worse, so I was relieved.


Of course, he wanted the camera from me to take his own pictures as he's sitting on the toilet doing his business. After that trip to Chick Fil A yesterday, I stopped offering fun trips as rewards. I stopped on the way home and grabbed a bag of toys from Dollar General that he picked out and and loved and told him he could have one everytime he pooped on the toilet. So, last night, after he was tucked into bed he decided he did have to go poop. I thought he was stalling, but he wasn't. He finally got it all out! He looked at it as I was wiping him and describing it. He was so proud. "Look Mom, it's like a big 1. It looks like a big 'I' too! I did a BIG poop!" He's hilarious.
So, this is the 3rd day of potty training. I let him help me throw away all the diapers yesterday so he could see we weren't going back. He was not happy about that. He hates underwear, he wants his diapers back badly. (I went and got them out when he wasn't looking because they were perfectly good diapers. LOL)

He got his big blue rubbery ball-thing after his first big poop last night (he got to sleep with it, it has a blinking light inside).He got a baseball bat and baseball for his poop from this morning. He has a couple books and some bottles of bubbles waiting for him that he doesn't know about for the next couple days.

So, at this point, he's only had 4 pee accidents in his pants since Monday. No poop accidents at all yet. We're doing great. I never have to catch him in the act and rush him to the toilet, not since the first day. He always tells me when he has to go. (Except for the few acccidents). And now he doesn't even care about the toilet noises--he never plays the sounds.

His porcupine balls are still among his favorite toys right now. He carries them around in his Cars tacklebox.

Joey is still enjoying taking pictures on his own.

He loves being on top of the kitchen table. He's such a monkey, climbing everywhere. Today, he asked me to take a picture of him squatting on the table.

At church one sunday, the teacher wrote a smiley face on his hand. Now he always wants us to draw one on him. Sometimes, he gets to the (washable) markers first and draws what he says are smiley faces all over his body. (He's having me draw them on his hands--palms and back--right now as I am trying to type.)

He took a picture of me when I first started updating the blog (that was hours and hours ago--it's an all day job sometimes).

Right now, he's writing and drawing. He said he's writing my name and then he wrote lines up and down and said, "A, C, K, E" which is apparently how you spell my name. Then he said he was drawing my other name and said, "H, I, J, K" so, maybe one is supposed to be Mommy and one is Gail, who knows. He's getting very creative and imaginative in his drawing and play. He's always talking about gorilla monkeys coming in his room scaring him (he calls them Gumbrella monkeys) and snakes talking to him, and all the funny things he writes and makes with playdough. He's so cute.

What's not so cute is his persistent waking up at night and asking for drinks and asking for me to stay and look at him sleep. He won't fall asleep with me standing there, but begs me to stay. Most nights I'm up about 2 hours in the middle of the night just standing over his bed and trying to slip away, or sitting beside him while he squeezes my hands. He claims to be scared, but he doesn't act scared, so I'm sure it's just an excuse. I blame Earl for spoiling him. :) I never stayed in his room till he fell asleep. Then one day Earl did it, and Joey expected me to, also and now he won't let Earl do it anymore, and insists it be me.

We still don't know where we're moving. Earl's in the field tonight. He's been trying to get ahold of the people that were supposed to call him back but no luck. So say some prayers for us that we'll get some answers soon and not have to wonder anymore. ;)

Quality Time

We went to Fayetteville to visit Angela last weekend and I'm just getting around to posting pictures. I have a few new stories to share, too!
This is Josiah (today, he wants me to call him Josiah--yesterday he picked Joey) throwing pine cones at a park near Angela's house.

I've been emailing myself little stories so I wouldn't forget to post them. I feel like I spend most of the day on the computer, so emailing to myself is faster than writing them down. Ha ha. The other day he was playing with playdough, and he said he was making an aligator. Then he said, "remember, I saw an aligator in my bed and it was talking to me?" I said that I didn't remember that and asked when. He said, "one day. three days." I said, oh okay, what did it say? He said, "It was talking to me and it said it loves me."

Angela tried to get Josiah to roll down the hill, but he wasn't having it. He'd scoot on his butt, but wouldn't try to roll for some reason. I missed the pictures of Angela trying to demonstrate.

I'm very excited to enroll Joey in a preschool when we move. He did so good learning so fast, the alphabet and numbers and colors and animals and everything. But now I have no idea what I'm supposed to be encouraging him to learn. I think he'd really benefit to go to a preschool a couple days a week that's an actual school, rather than a daycare. I'll check into that when we move I guess.

Right now, Josiah usually asks me to leave his door open when he goes to bed. For a couple nights he was trying to get me to leave the big light on, too, like he was afraid of the dark, but I don't think he is. We are all still adjusting to the time change. He rarely takes naps during the day anymore. He's using some more unique names when he names his toys and animals. Yesterday, he said an elephant in a book was named "Zoomy." Also, he named his "porcupine balls" (he gets them out of the vending machines at Food Lion, they have strings and are mushy balls with rubbery spikey things on them). He calls them things like "Mommy's friend" and "Bradley's friend."

Earl told me this story when he got home from the store with Josiah:

Earl turned the car too deep and it rubbed.
Josiah said, "You tooted."
Earl said, "No, buddy, I didn't. The car did."
Josiah thought, then said "The car don't have a butt."
Earl said, "No it doesn't, but the car made a noise."
Josiah said, "Your butt made a noise!"

I see he gets his maturity from Earl.

Angela wanted a picture beside the Pet Waste sign. She practically begged me.

Beware, if you're not around, Josiah may blame you for something. He found a paint stain on the garage floor the other day (it was here when we moved in).

He asked me, "Did you do that, Mom?"

Me: "No, Daddy must have did it."

"Daddy, did you do it?"

Earl: "No, I didnt do it."

Joey: "Probably it was Sandrina."

I cracked up. No clue why he decided to blame Sandrina, it was out of the blue.

Josiah likes the window down in the car so he can "taste the wind." He says it's yummy.

Lately, he's been calling us Mom and Dad more than Mommy or Daddy. He's growing up, I guess. He's doing better using the toilet. Everyday, he uses it at least once or twice. He likes to go a little in there, then stop it, then stand up and flush (his training toilet has noises and voices when you flush) then sit down and let some more flow, then stop, and get up and flush again. Then sit down and finish the job. He obviously has control of his bladded. Ha ha. Not sure why he hates underwear so much. I bought him Cars and Diego and plain white ones, and he still hates them. I have to bribe him to get him to wear them. He prefers diapers still.

Go Fly a Kite

Joey got some more Cars tattoos the other day, and wanted Daddy to put them on him. He likes having tattoos like Daddy.



The other day while riding in the car home from Angie's house in Fayetteville, Joey was playing with his toy snakes in the back seat. (You'll need some background to this first: since my laser eye surgery, my eyes are extra dry in the mornings, and I need eye drops. Joey sometimes hands them to me in the mornings when he's rushing me to get up.) Anyway, he said, "They're all asleep." I said, okay. He said, "They're moving, they're waking up." I said, good. He said, "They take their eye medicine." I laughed.

Another story about the snakes (same car ride). He has 2 kinds of toy snakes, the cobras with the extended necks, and just regular ones. All different colors. Anyhow, he pulled out a cobra and said, "This is a cobra." And I was impressed that he remembered that from when I taught him that a few days ago. Then he asked what kind the other snake was, without the big neck. I told him I didn't know. Knowning his uncle is a reptile genius, he replied, "I'll ask Uncle Bubba." I thought that was so cute.

Joey also got a Cars kite.

He flies a kite better than Earl. :)

We still don't know where we're moving yet. Hopefully we'll find out this week sometime. Right now it looks like Earl will go to his school beginning of May, for 2 weeks. Then he'll come back here and we'll move mid-May, or at least start the process of selling our house and then looking for a new one wherever we're going. That could change, but that's the plan for the moment. They tried to send Earl to Bahrain, in the Middle East, by himself for a year. But once they found out he was married, they agreed to find him another spot. So that's what we're waiting on.

Happy Birthday Wanda!

He's Still Taking Pictures

Joey still loves taking pictures. I actually enjoy picking up my camera to discover what new "treasures" are waiting for me to see. It's really neat to see the world from his eyes.

He caught me doing laundry one morning.
He had his first sleep over last weekend. Our nieghbors, the Roseberrys invited him over since they were moving. He was the only boy, with a group of girls :) He had a blast and didn't beg to come home. He stayed there all night. Me and Earl actually got a night out to dinner (thanks Louise, for the gift card!). It was nice. It was the first time Joey's stayed away overnight with friends--it's only been family up to this point. He had a blast.

At the moment, Joey's obsessed with posters! He has them all over his walls. First it was Madagascar 2 posters, then Cars posters, then Spider-Man. And of course, he's got a few motorcycle posters from Earl's magazines. Every once in a while, he'll wake up and first thing he'll do is run to my bed and say he wants more posters. They're actually out of stock in all our stores around here of any new ones that he's interested in. He's bought them all out. And that's his form of play, too: He'll come up and grab my hand and say, "Let's go look at my posters." And we do. He tells Earl exactly where he wants them on his wall. We're running out of wall space now. We're hoping our new house has a bigger bedroom for him when we move.

Joey took some pictures of his friends, the Roseberrys. (Who just moved away and we miss them very much!!) When he saw Zoey putting bunny ears over her mom, Joey said, "She's saying I'm 2!" He's never experienced bunny ears before.

This is Zoey and Joey

Joey decided to put green soap in his hair. Lots of it.

We had our last meal out with the Roseberry's and our other neighbor girls while Earl had his formal dinner at work. On the day they came to say goodbye to use because they were leaving town, Joey refused to tell them goodbye. He was almost in tears saying, "They can't leave!" I didn't think it would bother him, I didn't think he'd understand, but he did.

Joey got a biker jacket for Christmas, but didn't wear it till now.

He sometimes watches TV from the ground.

He took pictures of me getting ready for Church (I didn't know he was snapping photos of me) and of our bathroom:

I never remember to write down half the cute things he says and does, but I do remember one from this past week: We were talking about something, I don't even remember what, and I brought up one of his aunts (Sorry, can't remember which one) and he interrupted me to say, "I love all my aunts!" I told him that was great and I'd tell them all what he said.

And as far as updating on our moving: Right now it looks like we're supposed to find out tomorrow where we are moving to. As it stands now, Earl has most of April off to sell this house and buy another. Not sure if it will stay that way, or if he'll move his time off to after he finishes the security forces training school mid-may. I'll let you know when I know.