Great Falls

A few weeks ago Heather and I took Josh to great falls. It was a really beautiful day, and I wanted to get out of the house and do something. I figured that Heather and I would enjoy great falls, and Josh would just be along for the ride. I was not prepared for how much he LOVED looking at the falls. When we first got there he pointed to the C&O canal and was yelling wawa! Then when we started to cross the bridges over the falls he was very excitedly yelling "wawa" and pointing at the water. When we got to the end of the trail, there were some rocks to climb, which he also loved. I carried him in my tula, and it was a perfect way to let him see everything and not run off :-) I did let him walk a bit on the boardwalk, which he enjoyed, but put him back in the tula when we were near the unfenced C&O.  I can't wait to take him on the Billy Goat trail! :-)

"Wawa!!!"

Climbing!

Josh has officially reached the climbing phase. Our pediatrician warned us of this, and here we are. I was getting Josh's breakfast ready in the kitchen and looked out to find him sitting in a chair playing at the table. So he can officially climb into our chairs, or onto our couch. He also likes to climb on the chair and then stand up on it to climb onto the table... I'm beginning to wish we had more sturdy dining room chairs, because I'm very nervous about the climbing!

Caught in the act

Just chillin' at the table like a big boy

Open Door Policy

Somewhere we heard that every day with a toddler is like the scene in Jurassic Park where the velociraptors figure out how to open doors.  You just assumed they couldn't do that and you are safe but then they prove you wrong.  Well that is very true of a toddler, you assume they can't get into something and then boom you've got a huge mess.  Well today Josh officially achieved raptor ability.

Margaret got a video of it and I added some appropriate music:

If you are interested, here is the scene from the movie:

More Beach

While Josh loved playing at the beach, he also enjoyed many other parts of the trip.  We took him to Fun Land where he got to ride on a little boat (really the only ride for toddlers) and he got to play some skeeball. We brought our bikes and took him out a few times.  He got to try crabs for the first time.  Unfortunately there was too much Old Bay on them and he was not such a fan.  We'll have to try that again.

Recently Josh has become obsessed with balloons and when we took him to Grotto for pizza and he was far more interested in the balloons than eating.  Every time the he would hear the helium tank blow up a balloon he would spin around to see it.  Then when we were ready to leave he finally got his balloon and was a very happy toddler.

Last year at the beach one of the biggest problems was Josh get very upset whenever Margaret or I would leave the room.  That wasn't a problem this year as he was very happy to play with anyone around us.  He sat at the beach with my mom and sister while Margaret and I went for a walk.  He didn't mind being watched by anyone at the house.  There were other kids we stayed with and Josh loved playing with them.

This year we did a far better job of not bringing quite as much stuff (even though it was still a lot of stuff). We also did a better job of managing Josh so we each could do the things we wanted to do.  Josh being on a consistent nap schedule made planning the day much easier.

The beach was fun and we're glad Josh had such a good time.

Getting ready for crabs

Attack!

Getting the hang of it

Driving the boat

More!

Notice the several balls at once tactic

Walking away with his winnings

Having a snack on the beach

After getting his balloon

Thanking grandma for a new raincoat

Beach family picture!

Having a popsicle on the beach

Beach Bum

Last years trip to the beach was a little disappointing for Julian and I (the trip was fun, but Josh's enjoyment of the beach was not). He was not sure what to think of the sand, hated the water, and was displeased with the sun in his eyes but would not wear a hat. We had high hopes this year, because Josh loves water and dirt (and buckets and shovels!). We were not wrong, Josh LOVED his second trip to the beach.  It took him a few days to warm up to the idea of the waves and walking on sand, but by our last day he was running all around. We'll post more about our trip later, but here are a few cute pictures/videos of our beach bum :-)

Happy Joshie!

Elfa!

This post is a bit unrelated, but I'm really proud of how our Elfa turned out so I'm posting it anyway :-) I'm confident that most of our blog readers will appreciate awesome organization that is only marginally related. We wanted to make space in our guest room for the pack-and-play so that Josh's new cousin will nave a nice place to stay when he or she is born this fall. In order to make space, I decided to relocate all of my craft items to the basement. I already owned a lot of paper craft supplies for card making, and recently acquired a lot of sewing items. We decided that the best way to do this would be to put up shelving in the basement and move my desk down there. It took a lot of visits to the Container Store and Home Depot before we settled on what to do. We are still missing one part and need to go back to Container Store, but here is the almost finished product!

New craft area!

Mandatory cute photo :-)

18 Months

We can't believe it but our little guy is 18 months old! His doctors appointment is later this week so no stats to report yet but we are pretty sure he's grown a bit and gained some weight since his last appointment.  As we've said in a few posts already his increase in communication has been the biggest difference the last few months.  When I go to get him in the morning he says "hi" and sometimes "hi dada".  He now recognizes and says "mama" and "dada" when he wants one of us.  He says "wawa" when he wants something to drink.  Being able to tell us what he wants has been very useful.  He doesn't always understand why he can't have something but he does understand "all done" to mean something is over.  This past weekend he was playing outside and I said "all done" and he understood it was time to leave.  His newest word he says is "mine" although we are not 100% sure he understands what it means.  We estimate he says around 16 words in their proper context (including some partial words).  He understands far more than that.  We often ask him to get a bib or his shoes which he does.  He will also give us hugs when we ask for one.  Not much is better than a Josh hug :-)

He is still sleeping well at night although sometimes it takes him a while to fall asleep.  He will roll around in bed talking to himself but eventually he gets tired and falls asleep.  He will still eat almost any food but he really enjoys eating with dips.  Last week we went out for Mexican food and he used a spoon to eat salsa and then ate sour cream, guacamole and then reached over to eat the refried beans from Margaret's plate. He prefers to eat with a spoon or fork and has gotten pretty good at getting most of the food into his mouth.  He still makes some spectacular messes when eating but overall not so bad.

He loves to go to the park and run around outside.  We got him a water table that he loves to play with.  He moved up to the next level at daycare (Gumdrops IV) and has been taking naps in a cot.  He's been having some attachment issues when we go to drop him off but he then doesn't want to leave when we pick him up.  He walks into and out of daycare and loves pressing the handicap buttons to open the doors.

Stealing from mommy's plate

Fun playing outside