Josiah Dodge: 2 Years Old

I've had most of this post written for months, but I just took this rocking chair picture.  

We love this boy!

Josiah Dodge turned two years old on March 11!  I made him a "Little Blue Truck" cake since since that's his favorite book.  He can recite the second half of every single line in the book.

We gave Josiah a trike for his birthday, though Emma likes to ride it just as much as he does!  He loves having a "bike" like his siblings. 

And, since books are his very favorite, I also bought him this beautiful old book from the 50's called "The Boats on the River" at the homeschool convention as a gift.

I've never done one of my birthday interviews on one of my children at 2 years old, but Emma and I did one with Josiah since he is always talking/discussing/narrating/asking questions.  
1.  What is your favorite color?  blue

2.  What is your favorite toy?  to have a bath

3.  What is your favorite fruit?  --

4.  What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  hot dogs

5.  What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? oranges 

6.  What is your favorite thing to eat for supper?  --

7.  What is your favorite thing to drink?  chocolate milk

8.  What is your favorite snack?  eat

9.  What is your favorite show?  Donald Duck

10.  What are your favorite clothes to wear?  dump trucks (dump truck shirt) 

11. What is your favorite animal?  --

12.  What is your favorite song? "always" (He sings "Al-ways" using sol-mi pitches from the song "The Lord is My Shepherd, I'll Walk with Him Always"--he often walks up to make and asks, "Sing 'Always'?")

13.  What is your favorite book?  In the Jungle (This is what he calls "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" as there's a lion on the front cover.)

14. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy?  do his office

15.  What is your favorite thing to do with Mommy?  eat (probably because I am always cooking/baking/feeding snacks and meals!) 

16.  What is your favorite thing to do outside? dump trucks 

17.  What is your favorite holiday?  --

18.  What is your favorite thing to take to bed with you each night? --

19.  Where is your favorite place to go?  downtown (Everytime we drive on 35W, my kids yell, "There's downtown!") 

20.  What do you want to be when you grow up? --

I want to remember everything about Josiah at this busy, delightful stage. Josiah wears size 4 diapers, size 2T bottoms and size 3T shirts.  His head is big and it's hard to get 2T tops over his head!  He's in a size 8 shoe.  At his second birthday, Josiah weighed 26 pounds, 4 ounces (28th percentile) and was 34 1/2 inches tall (62nd percentile).  He still nurses for a few minutes at bedtime.  Josiah falls asleep around 8:30 or 9 each night and sleeps until 7:38 or 8.  He is so proud to share bunk beds with Isaac!  He naps each afternoon around 2 to 2 1/2 hours.  

He nearly always sleeps on his back with his arms up toward his head.  Josiah is very particular about everything.  For example, the patterned pillow on his bed must always be exactly straight against the slats before he will lay down on it.  He doesn't like anything being out of place--he will put anyone's shoes, books, toys away if they're out.  But, what bothers him the most is toys floating in the pool.  Josiah cries if there are any toys floating in the pool (at swimming lessons or my parents) until someone puts them back in the basket at the side of the pool.  At swimming lessons today, he cleaned up all the pool toys on the deck and then started crying about one toy floating in the middle of the pool.

Josiah loves to sit in Dave's truck when he comes home from work. 

We are always surprised at how many words Josiah knows, and the kids have made a game out of it by asking him to repeat difficult words and phrases. A few weeks ago, Josiah told me something was "challenging."  He also said, "I saw a raccoon in the zoo, but not in the forest!"  As we walked out of swimming lessons, he noticed a helicopter and said, "See that tiny helicopter flying in the sky?"

When Dave reads the Bible after supper each night, Josiah parrots different words from the passage (last night, it was "Bilhah" and "Dothan").  I think he picks up on so many words from listening to Isaac's homeschooling during the day.  One day, when I was teaching math, he kept saying, "vertical, horizontal!"  Another day while I was teaching math, I asked Isaac, "What's 5 1/2 plus 1 1/2?" but Josiah responded first and said, "45!"  We all laughed so hard.  Josiah can count to 19 and we often hear him humming pieces of the Classical Conversations timeline song.  (At lunch today, he was singing "Byzantine Empire.")  Josiah can sing "Jesus Loves Me" in entirety.  

He loves asking us, "You know what?"  

When we answer, "What?" he says, "I love you!"  It absolutely melts your heart. 

I'm ending with this photo because it shows Josiah's big, happy smile!  He loves his family, and we all love him so much!