Posted 4:52 PM by Kathy
Josh has notoriously been known for being "freaked out" by the fire alarms. They go off at school without warning for practice drills. In previous months, Josh has cried during all of them. This month, however, he told me that he did not cry. I confirmed this with Mrs. Bourne and she added that he said he didn't cry because, "Jesus is with me and I don't need to be scared." It opened up a discussion about God and how big He is and if He eats, sleeps, etc. Mrs. Bourne kept saying to herself, "I'm gonna get fired." But, since the students started the discussion, she isn't supposed to stop it I think. I'm very proud of my big man.

Posted 8:06 PM by Kathy
I was dropping Josh off at school today and I was on my way out, when I saw a list on the wall. The title was, "If I was Santa I would give......" and the kids filled in the blank. I scanned a few that read, "My Dad a pool." or "My sister a horse." I finally got to Josh's. To backtrack a bit, in October we saw a commercial for baby toys. Mostly, we see Transformers, Hot Wheels etc and Josh is very interested in all of that. But this was for a Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Learning House. Now this was early in October so we weren't talking up Santa much yet. Josh saw the commercial and declared that he wanted one of those for Jensen so that he could play with him. You probably see where I'm going with this as Josh's Santa gift would be, "I would give my brother a toy house." When he was asked, he was thinking about his baby brother and that house that he really wants him to have. We've got Santa covered by the way, I ordered it from Amazon shortly after I saw this toy in EVERY parenting magazine as a good gift for Christmas this year. I knew it would be hard to find if I waited until now. I can't wait to see Josh play with Jensen.

Posted 5:57 PM by Kathy
We met Mickey Mouse today! He was at the mall to promote his new movie. Josh nearly tackled him with a bear hug. We've got some cute pictures of it. We didn't talk to Santa yet, the line was too long and I don't think that Josh has decided on what he wants for Christmas. We're trying to get him to narrow it down to two things, Santa has to make a lot of stuff after all.

Posted 2:47 PM by Kathy
Funny Halloween story...We went trick or treating with our friend Connor. We had a great time and the boys did great together. Connor was Spider-man and Josh was Obi-wan (or Luke Skywalker or Anakin..whatever) anyway, they went up to a house and got their treat. Connor looked in his bag and said, "I got some candy!" Josh says, "I got a rock!" For those of you that don't get this, we watched "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!" that week and Charlie Brown said this after every house. It was so funny that I about cried.

Posted 4:38 PM by Kathy
Josh got chosen for Student of the Month for his kindergarten class this month. We are so proud of him. His teacher said that he is "doing his job." so she felt like he deserved it. The school had an assembly on Friday to present the awards and also the kindergarten class sang a couple of songs. I got a little misty over the whole deal.

Posted 10:27 AM by Kathy
Josh is still doing so well at school. He doesn't enjoy the homework when he gets home though. He only has one assignment per week, but it's a fight every time. I think it's because he wants to do it on his own and we have to help him by reading it. I've told him that homework is something that he will have to do for the rest of his school career, (this brought on a fresh set of tears) but that once he can read, he can do it on his own. That will make him a big kid. I hope that helped.

Posted 10:32 PM by Kathy

I'm Josh, aka Spider-man and this is my weblog. All of my escapades are lovingly recorded by my Mama. 

Posted 10:04 PM by Kathy
Joshua is doing so well at school, it's like a dream. The school day is so structured since it's all day and I think that it's good for him. He'll be eating hot lunch in the cafeteria tomorrow, they are having ice cream sandwiches for a dessert. He's pretty excited about that.

Shawn said that this morning at church (I worked the nursery) that Josh couldn't see the drums. So Shawn told him to go down where he could see them. So Josh went down front to a closer seat and watched the drums during praise and worship. Shawn said that he did really well. He really had a great day today.

Posted 11:31 AM by Kathy
I picked Josh up from school on Thurs. and he told me that he wanted to take a trip by himself. I asked him why and where did he want to go. He told me that he wanted to go to the play ground so he could read his book that he got from school by himself. I mentioned that he was a little bit to young to go to the playground by himself, but he could go outside and sit in the swing. I would even pack him a snack. So he went outside, sat in the swing and read his new book, "2004 Student Handbook and Code of Ethics".

Posted 8:43 PM by Kathy
We had our first college football experience yesterday. We travelled to Stillwater for Alumni Band Day. Shawn participated with the Hackers (drumline - don't ask) Josh was completely convinced while we were discussing our trip that he would be marching on the field at halftime. I tried to explain that Daddy wouldn't even be on the field at halftime, but to no avail. "I will be marching at halftime, are you going to watch me?" When we were on our way over to the field, he saw a saxophone and asked, "Is that what I'm going to be?" Shawn told him that they could share his drum. Then we went into the room where the drumline was getting ready to go over to warm up. Josh went right in and started playing. He was trying on the drums, nearly fell over when he put on a bass drum and generally made his presence known as a future hacker. It was really fun to watch. The football game was a runaway and we left after the half. I carried Jensen in a front carrier the whole time and my back was killing me. We had a great time though.

Posted 2:54 PM by Kathy
Josh started kindergarten last Thursday. I think that he really likes it. He enjoys the extras that he didn't get to do last year like Music and gym. He loves to take his lunch. He has made a new friend, Daniel that "Speaks Fanish words" he's teaching Josh Spanish but Josh won't tell us what he's learning. He won't tell us much of what he does at school. I know he's not getting into trouble (yet) because I speak with his teacher every day. Maybe he feels like we ask him too many times or something. Every once in awhile, he'll sing a new song or ask if we can talk about our days. Then we get to hear some details. Otherwise, things seem good.

Posted 9:09 PM by Kathy
Some great things have happened in our world lately. Josh came through his shots with ease, at least for a five year old, and he put on a concert for us. Sunday, he had Daddy, Jensen and me attend a tin can concert in the backyard. It ended up being a variety show complete with musical numbers performed on a Christmas tin, vocal music, and pure silliness. It was a wonderful time and a great memory.

Posted 1:08 PM by Kathy
The Linfoot family had our eyes checked yesterday. Josh did great! He followed the doctor's directions and read his letters and numbers really well. Some of the letters look kind of weird, they are in that eye doctor font which is different than what he sees at school. He did great with them though and he is seeing just like he's supposed to be. Good news.

Friday he has to get some shots, I've promised a trip to Target for a toy if he doesn't flip out. We'll see.

Posted 9:01 PM by Kathy
Josh, Jensen and I went to the playground by his school this evening so Shawn could patch the ceiling.  Jensen slept in his car seat the whole time, so Josh and I walked around the "sand" box.  It has some wooden beams around the gravel that we like to balance on.  While we were doing that, the firemen came with their ladder truck and were working on drills I guess.  They were raising the ladder and shooting water from the top of it.  It was very cool looking.  So we got the bright idea to ask if we could run through it.  The fireman said that they would put the stream on "Fog" so it wouldn't blast us and sure we could run through it.  Well, that was GREAT!  We only ran through twice, but that's probably the only time I'll ever get to play in water from a ladder truck.  When we got home, Shawn asked how come we were wet, did the school have sprinklers?  I told Josh to tell Daddy what we did.  I think he was sad that he missed it.  I was sad that I didn't have a camera.

Posted 3:15 PM by Kathy
We had a big week last week.  Wil and Elizabeth were in town for a visit.  We saw them at least once every day that they were here.  On Thursday night, they spent the night with us.  Elizabeth and I played Barbies and Josh and Wil played a lot of everything.  We had a great time with all the Meades.  When we left them Monday morning after breakfast, Josh told me, "I'm going to miss them, right?" 
 
 

Posted 9:10 PM by Kathy
We went to Big Splash today and Josh rode the big slides! Not the scary straight down slides, but the curvy ones. It has taken us 3 summers to work up to this and it took us two tries today. We walked all the way up the first time just to walk back down. Then he decided that he wanted to "try it again" I told him that I was NOT going up those stairs again if he wasn't sliding down and he tried to chicken out on me the second time also. But I stood my ground and he went down. Then of course he wanted to do it again. So we went and got Daddy and Jensen. Jensen and I watched from the shade and Josh and Daddy went down twice. He is growing up too fast.

This morning as I was in the shower, Josh came in and told me wanted to show me something. As soon as I was able, I went in the living room. He had picked up all his toys and cleaned off his table. He told me that "I knew that you would like that surprise Mama." I love it when he does things that he knows we will like. The look on his face is priceless.

Posted 12:05 PM by Kathy
Josh has been taking swimming lessons this week. He was a little afraid on Monday the teacher said. But now she says that even if he is scared, he'll do what she asks anyway. We watched him today and can tell that he trusts her. More that he did us when WE tried to get him to do the same things.

Posted 10:17 AM by Kathy
We went to the Ringling Brothers circus on Sun afternoon. This was supposed to be our first outing without Jensen, you know, special Joshy time. We really enjoyed it. Josh liked the part "when the guy was fired" this translates to the human cannonball. I say supposed to be the first outing, because we had a spontaneous one on Friday. We attended a concert. It was "1964, The Tribute" Beatles impersonators. They were pretty dead on and Josh enjoyed his favorite song "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" a lot. It was the first one played, so that hooked him. He got a little bored towards the end, but we still had fun.

Posted 7:26 PM by Kathy
Josh officially has an imaginary friend, actually he has two. He started out with one friend that we didn't know he had for awhile. Finally Shawn caught him talking to someone and asked him who it was. Josh answered that it was his friend. Shawn asked his name.....Fongie, pronounced Fawn-gie. Where he got the name, I couldn't say. So as we got used to having Fongie around, Josh tells us that Fongie isn't here, it's my new friend. His name is June. Fongie and June. I hope they stay awhile.

Posted 7:54 PM by Kathy
We had Josh's school Spring Program this evening. His class sang You are my sunshine, Do Re Mi, and ABC Rock. Josh did a great job and was very cute. He is getting so big. I can't believe that he starts Kindergarten in the fall. He will be going all day and that's going to be weird. Stuff like this makes me miss the Meades, Wil and Elizabeth would have been up there singing with him if they were still here (and in their first Tulsa house).

We were at McDonald's this afternoon and Josh was showing some kids his baby. He brought 2 boys and their mom over to see Jensen and he said, "You want to pet him?" He's pretty proud of his brother.

Posted 7:43 AM by Kathy
Josh said something really sweet to me this morning. He asked me for another baby. I said, "Another one? Why do you want another one?" "So Jensen can be a big brother like me."

Posted 1:23 PM by Kathy
We had a great weekend. We went to Suzanne and Kevin's new house for Baby Sara's birthday party. Then we went to Purcell and saw Shawn's family. At Grannie Nanny's house (Shawn's mom) Josh wanted to play "news". I asked him how you play news, "You get behind a table and tell people about storms" We had some severe weather last week that required us to take shelter and it really freaked Josh out. But he got up in front of a "Map" which was a door and told the people that there were "No storms, no rain, no tornados, no snow, no problems." We thought it was hilarious.

Posted 3:05 PM by Kathy
We have a new baby in the house. He was born on St. Patrick's Day and Josh loves him. He is a big help and wishes that he could do more. He wants to pick him up and carry him. It's a little scary sometimes. I appreciate that he wants to be so involved. He frequently says, "I love Jensen." What a sweet boy.

Posted 8:17 AM by Kathy
I keep forgetting to post about Josh's latest interest....classical music. It all started about two weeks before Christmas when Josh started to watch Fantasia, the original. He would sit in his room and watch the entire thing. Then he would start recognizing the different pieces when he heard them on commercials. During Christmas, it was a lot of The Nutcracker. He would say, "That song is on my presentation." It took us awhile to figure out where presentation was comming from. I believe that the narrarator of Fantasia introduces some of the pieces by saying, "This is our presentation of....." Anyway, I got him a Leap Pad book called "Hit it Maestro!" for Christmas. It has a lot of great works by our favorite composers. Josh loves it! He will sit and play "Ode to Joy" or "Mars, from the Planets" and conduct to them. It is so much fun to watch AND he's almost always right on the beat. The other night we were talking about words and things that start with the letter "J" and Josh says, "J.S. Bach" I asked him what song on his Leap Pad did J.S. Bach write. He sang the first part of "Tocatta and Fugue" by Bach. Needless to say, Shawn and I were very impressed. I hope this love of music lasts forever.

Posted 9:16 AM by Kathy
Josh and I took an unexpected trip to Michigan this weekend to see my sister. My mother paid for it and we were delighted to go. Josh has been on a plane before, but it's been two years. He had a great time. He kept calling the planes, blaster planes and wondered why we were travelling so slowly. I kep trying to explain that we were actually going very fast, but the land below us wasn't flashing past, so I guess that was fruitless. He was such a good boy all the way up, in Michigan, and all the way back that I was concerned for his teachers on Monday. Again, I was shocked and he did very well. At home last evening, he wasn't so well behaved and needed some redirection. He and his 2 year old cousin Kamdyn got along pretty well, in fact Stacey ( my sister) wanted to keep Josh with her since he was so entertaining. He also gave Kamdyn a very lengthy diatribe on going poop in the potty and how it makes you a "big boy like me". He then told him that "Kamdyn, you are 2, then you will be 3, then you will be 4" all the way up to 20. All this from the bathroom.

Posted 7:19 AM by Kathy
Something that I love about pre-school age children is that they take everything so literally. For example, we were watching Clifford on PBS yesterday and Josh said, "Clifford is made of yogurt." I said, "What?" "Watch Mama, I show you." Then the tag right before Clifford comes on announces, "Clifford is made possible by Danimals yogurt." "See, Clifford is made of yogurt."