Josh is a Fox that Wants to Talk

As if there aren't already enough opinions around here already, Josh is chiming in to register his at a young age. He started saying the usual "Mama", "Dada" and "Bye" about a month or so ago, making noises that could have accidentally coincided with the appropriate use of these words on an occasional basis.

But last week he had a vocabulary explosion. At first, I wasn't sure if my claims of his talking could be substantiated. In addition to NOT hearing things that ARE being said, my whacked out ears have been known to HEAR things that AREN'T being said. But I am pleased to announce that I have received independent confirmations from Aaron, my friend Julie, our beloved babysitter Ninny, and both Cade and Drew that Josh is really talking!

In addition to more pedestrian baby terms such as "Uh oh", here's a sampling of Joshie's musings last week:

• Both please and thank you, unprompted (finally, I have succeeded in raising a kid with manners!)
• Cracker
• I like it
• Want it
• Chugga-chugga (as in choo, choo)

And my personal favorite:

• Big Chicken (in honor of Marietta's famous landmark, which we now pass every day on the way to Cade's school)

Also, upon witnessing uncouth behavior on the part of Cade this weekend, Josh registered his displeasure by shaking his head "no" and leaning towards Cade growling, scowling, and shaking his little raised fist.

Yes, I think he'll do just fine here.

Open Mic Night at the Foxes

Cade starts kindergarten on Wednesday, so I've been using the bedtime/tuck-in time these past few weeks as an opportunity to really talk up kindergarten. Cade likes to ask lots of questions about what he will do there, how the day will go, who will be there, etc., etc.

Apparently, tonight Drew finally had it with the kindergarten talk. He informed us that we would no longer be discussing kindergarten and tonight's topic would be "Dinosaurs". To that end, he submitted the following questions:

• Why is a Stegosaurus so small compared to the other dinosaurs?
• Why is an Allosaurus so big?
  
• Why does a Brontosaurus have such a long neck but such a small head?
• Do plant eaters have teeth?
• Why do Troodons live on the other side of the sea from the other dinosaurs?

He also surmised that a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth is about the size of a banana, in case you were wondering.

Take THAT, kindergarten!

Enough Baby Talk Already, Kiddo!

I've talked before about Cade's periodic insistence that our family is not complete. Today at the pool, he suddenly busted out with, "I really think we need a sister, don't you?"

Ummm....no, sweetie, actually I don't.

Lately, I've been feeling more and more comfortable with that "done" feeling - like all of the Foxes are here. For his part, Aaron informed me that he has publicly announced that any future Fox babies would be both unplanned and available to the highest bidder. In case you missed his press conference, consider yourself informed by virtue of this post.

While I'm pretty sure that Cade's recent fascination with babies and siblings is age-appropriate, I find it slightly bizarre in his case since he has basically done nothing but get siblings since the day he was born. You'd think he would be sick to death of new babies, not hungry for more!

Hopefully he's not one of those Damien/Bad Seed kids that can make things happen with his mind. Or if he is, hopefully he will just settle for starting fires or something. Otherwise, bidders get your paddles ready!

And He's Off!

I started a post three weeks ago to commemorate the fact that Joshie FINALLY decided to get up off his rear and start crawling, but I never finished it or posted it. Such is life for a third child's milestones.

Now that post is sadly outdated because as of this weekend, he has mastered stairs. The "up" part he got pretty quickly after just one assisted trip up the stairs. It only took one almost-fall for him to realize that he needed to turn around to do the "down" part, but he had a hard time figuring out how to get turned around to come down backwards. Two straight days of practice and 100 supervised assists in the launch down the stairs and he's got it!

Just in the nick of time, too, because before he figured out how to get down, he figured out how to scale the baby gate. In their frequent trips up and down the stairs, the Bigs often knocked the gate over to about a 70 degree angle instead of it's fully upright position. Josh could handle getting over that no big deal, but on more than one occasion we found him halfway over the fully upright baby gate, clinging for dear life like a little monkey scaling a tree.

The caboose has officially mastered stairs and the baby gates are on their way out the door - hallelujah!

Reliving My Childhood

Yesterday I was coloring/drawing with the boys when Drew shoved a blank piece of paper at me and instructed me to "write my childhood". Huh?

"What does that mean?", I asked him.

"You know, your childhood. Write it. Here's mine." (shows me a rather large piece of paper filled with his signature rows and row and rows of neatly scrawled letters and numbers, frankly a little reminiscent of "A Beautiful Mind")

"Look! Here's Daddy's - I already wrote it! His goes "A-M-A-N.", Drew announced.

"Uh, ok. Umm. Mommy's not sure what you mean by 'writing my childhood'. Cade? What does that mean? Did you write your childhood?", I asked Cade. To which he responded,

"No. I can't remember mine."

Joshie's First Word!

Joshie's been babbling non-stop in an effort to make his voice be heard among the chaos for months. He and I have long conversations where he knows exactly what he's talking about, but I'm totally in the dark. He also frequently shouts and gestures and issues non-sensical edicts to his brothers.

I've been trying to encourage his verbal skills by providing some coaching and teaching him to "Say Mama!", but the little bugger just grins at me and says, "DADA!" Since he's never actually used this word in connection with Aaron, I've decided it doesn't count as his first word and it's just his super special way of saying, "Mama" to keep me entertained.

But today he decided to start speaking our language!

In case you were wondering, his first word was "bye", and not "shut up, you jackasses", as I predicted it would be.

Cade's Family Planning

Fairly certain (completely certain, from Aaron's perspective) that our family is complete, we have been on a baby gear purging rampage this week. We've made everal trips to Goodwill and bid adieu to the high chair, Jumperoo, and a big bag of maternity clothes. The Exersaucer is waiting its turn for dropoff tomorrow, and Cade noticed it in the van this morning.

Cade: Mommy, what's the Exersaucer doing in here?

Me: Well, Cade, Joshie is done with it so we're going to take it some place where other children can use it.

Cade: Why don't you just put it back in the closet?

Me: Well, because we're not having any more babies in our family so we don't need it.

Cade: Why?

Me: Well, because Mommy and Daddy feel so lucky and blessed to have our three, beautiful healthy boys. We think our family is just the right size and we don't need any more babies.

Cade (outraged): MOMMY! How can you even wish that! Every day is a chance for a new baby!

Me (taken aback by his reaction and actually alarmed at the legitimacy of his claims): Uh, well Cade, um, we're out of room for new babies in our house. We can't just keep having more babies - we don't have anywhere for them to sleep.

Cade: Well, Joshie can move onto the air mattress and the new baby can sleep in his crib.

Me (laughing): Oh, really? And where would the new baby after that sleep?

Cade: There won't be any more new babies after that. There's only one more.

Eerily, this conversation reminded me of when Aaron and I were in college and he gave me a trip to the psychic one year for my birthday. I think that was the year after he gave me a WonderBra - he's an awesome gift giver like that.

Anyway, the psychic assured us that we would get married and we would both live long, happy lives, with one point of concern - I would have 2 children and he would have 4. I've spent all these years wondering where the hell those other two kids are that he fathered before he met me. But now that I've got 3 kids, I'm wondering if her vision was a little cloudy...

God help us all.