Hubris

Joshua and I were reading a book together this morning--he loves to play the "matching" game with his books. And we do "I spy..." as well. He was getting a lot of questions correct and I was telling him, "Excellent!" and "Good Job!" And then he added, "I'm a genius!" I asked him "Who told you that?" And he replied, "God."

Veteran's Day Parade

We took Joshua to watch his first parade on Veteran's Day. He got a flag and enthusiastically waved to the marchers: "Hi Soldiers!" When we got home, he wanted to reenact the parade, especially the drummers section and wanted Samuel to participate as a parade watcher:

Santa photo

We went to the Burlington Mall today to experience the Rainforest Cafe. Joshua said he didn't like the animals--a bit scary and loud. But the mall did have Santa available to take wish lists and photos. Voila:

Milk in a sippee cup

We had hoped to wean Joshua off his sippee cup now that he's three. But for some strange reason, he will only drink milk from a sippee cup. Even at school, he prefers water over milk. So for the sake of him getting more calcium, we are going back to the sippee cup for 1 or 2 cups of milk a day. Hmm.

Analytical

At the Science Museum today, Joshua was looking at the big Rube Goldberg contraption and pronounced, "This is like the one in the airport." "But the one at the airport has 2 cymbals." I find it remarkable he associates the two machines, and then is able to remind specific features and can compare them. I think he's going to be an engineer.

He also successfully built a Tumble Tree Timbers roof on his own, which really surprised me.

Joshua's diapers training has been going well. 2 nites ago, while brushing his teeth, he said he wanted to go poop, so as he was sitting down and I thought this was going to take a while like usual, he suddenly pushed out a big adult size one into the toilet. Impressive. I immediately ordered him another toy train to celebrate. In the daytime, he stays pretty dry in his pullups. We used up the last of his diapers this week, and we bought about 200 new pullups for home and school use. Joshua is becoming a big boy.

At the museum, he was carrying a large stool around so he could climb up and get a better look at the trains. He explained, "I'm three now and very strong."

Happy Birthday Joshua!

When I wished Joshua a "Happy Birthday" this morning, he said, "Am I three now?" I told him that the mailman had brought him presents from momma, dadda, and Samuel--and he added: "and from Barak Obama!"

Joshua enjoyed getting an Acela train for this birthday!

Annette made another beautiful train birthday cake for Joshua.


A labor of love.

That was well appreciated!

Election Day

After Joshua's birthday party, we took him to participate in the electoral process. Listen to what he says:




Annette made sure we brought the camera along to record this historic day in US presidential elections.

We were prepared to wait hours in line to vote, as we had heard many had needed to do. Fortunately, we showed up at a good time and cast and ballots in no time at all.

Fall Splendor

The New England fall is really something special. This year, because of all the summer rainstorms, the trees are particularly beautiful. This one is just right outside Joshua's preschool.

This shot is from outside Samuel's room.

Trick or Treat

This year, we decided to go trick or treating in the Cambridge neighborhood instead of trekking out to Brookline, the closed-off-to-cars area in Boston that we went to last year. We met a lot of really nice neighbors and were impressed with how many families were out on the street enjoying the festivities. There were a lot of Obama pumpkins around:


Joshua got the hang of trick or treating this year. He would get so excited seeing the decorated houses and getting candy, he would do a celebratory shuffle/stomp dance every once in awhile. It was so cute, and funny, because once he got so excited while doing his dance that he fell and all his candy spilled out.


Joshua meets his match here.

His favorite candy of the night came from a lady who threw a "ghost lollilop" to him. (Joshua is holding it in his hand here)

At the end, we asked Joshua want he wanted to dress up as next year and he said, "a butterfly." We'll see.