Joshua's "great" Christmas present

Joshua really had a blast with his 3 firetruck Christmas truck presents!

Dear God

"I love Samuel, Daddy, and Mommy. Amen" Joshua's bedtime prayers tonight.

Joshua at school

We met with Joshua's teacher at preschool and had a chance to watch him at work and play. He is definitely one of the big boys now. It's nice to see him playing, talking with the other kids.  Basically just being social.

Is Santa Chinese?

I told Joshua yesterday that we were going to see Santa in two days at my office party.  And Santa was going to bring him a present.  We were going to Hei La Moon, where we usually go for dim sum. Joshua asked in all earnest, "Is Santa Chinese?"

Joshua First Chopstick Use

Felt like a proud Chinese daddy today to watch Joshua picking up rice with (modified) chopsticks!

Trying to get a Christmas Photo

We took A LOT of pictures trying to get a good Christmas photo of the boys together. Most of them of them were out of focus, only one boy looking, Joshua trying to hang on to Samuel as he tried to escape. I thought I'd post some of those to give a flavor of the effort and fun.

 

 

 

 

Sam and Joshua sleeping together

Joshua and Sam are sharing a bedroom for the first time tonight.  Very sweet. The brothers.

Sleeping position

Joshua continues to sleep on the floor of our bedroom. His pediatrician suggested we start off with him in his own room, and then let him move over later if he wanted. Joshua wasn't too crazy for that idea. It has been really nice for them (and us) to go to bed so easily.  Like Sam went down at 6:55 and Joshua at 7:30 tonight. The only problem is at 6am when Samuel wakes up and I have to run into his room and get him before he wakes up Joshua.

Fundraising

Joshua's idea of what fundraising means: "when you are having fun, raise your hands!"

Joshua's first map

After dinner tonight, Joshua drew a map, and what astonished me was how accurate it was, showing where he went to school, the firestation down the street, mommy's office at MIT, our home, and Chinatown. It wasn't to scale, but the relative positions of all the places were correct. I guess he has been taking in all the locations during our walks to and from schol and around town!

 

Map Key:

 

Halloween Firetruck

This year, Joshua asked specifically to be a "firetruck", not a "firefighter" for Halloween, so Joshua and Annette worked together and created a firetruck out of a diaper box, some paint, and random household objects. Joshua is lucky his mom is an artist!

 

That hurt

Joshua went to his 4yr old checkup today, and really impressed me again with his bravery. Two nurses came in tandem to deliver 4 shots to his arms, and he didn't flinch or cry. Afterwards, they gave him a lollipop and he said, "That hurt."

Here he is doing his hearing exam. He didn't pass the eye exam, so we are going to see the eye doctor.

Joshua's Birthday Cake

Annette continued her tradition of making Joshua a beautiful birthday cake. This year, of course Joshua asked for a firetruck!

 

 

 

Joshua's Birthday Duck Tour ride

We were the only ones of the boat initially. Then just a couple from Germany joined us.

 

 

 

Dancing boys

Fall with Momma

 

Your butt is singing

Joshua says all types of funny things to me:
"Your butt is singing!" when I fart
"Sleep quieter daddy!" when he hears me snore
But I love the most: "I love you daddy!--You're my best friend!" "And momma and Samuel too!"
I've been teaching him simple words to read: "CAT", "CAP", "POOP", "HAT", "PEOPLE" (OK--that's a little long), "FOOT", "HAND", "CLAP"

Sleeping on the floor

 

For the past 2 months or so, Joshua has been sleeping on a mattress on the floor of our bedroom. He was getting so freaked out sleeping in his own room, he would wake up throughout the night because of sounds, nightmares and all our efforts to console, ignore, train him were failing. He wasn't getting enough sleep and it was affecting his behavior/mood--his teachers were mentioning how sleepy he was in school--taking up to 3 hr naps.

So when our friend Dottie told us that she let her kids come into her bedroom and sleep on the floor, we finally gave ourselves permission to let Joshua sleep in our room--on the floor. And he loves it. He's sleeping like a superstar these days.

Our hope is that in the next months, he'll transition to sleeping in the same room as his brother. It'll be nice to have the boys keep each other company at night. Hopefully.

I need one more parent

Annette was telling Joshua tonight that he needs to help me take of Samuel the next few days because she is traveling to Wash DC for a conference. He responded, "I need one more parent."

My friend-girls?

We went to a reunion meeting with the other families that attended the marriage retreat this past summer, and when I told Joshua about it, he asked, "Will the girls be there?"
I asked, "Which girls?"
He said, "My friend-girls."
"You mean, girlfriends?"
He smiled yes.

At Samuel's party

Joshua had a great time at his little brother's 1st birthday party.

 

 

 

 

Making a picture frame for dad

For my birthday, Joshua picked out, painted, and decorated a picture frame for me. I love it.

Flume Gorge

 

 

Glen, NH

 

First Drive

Joshua was on school break this week, so we took a quick trip up to the White Mountains for the first time. We hiked Flume Gorge and went to Storyland the next day. Joshua is still too young to like most of the rides--his favorite was going on the train and the carousel. Here he is driving his frist car.

 

He's musical

Joshua is full of spontaneous song and dance.

Go Away Daddy

Joshua had a huge milestone tonight in conflict resolution. It is so difficult for him to face conflict (much like his dad). We've been trying to teach him what to say when people hurt him or do things to him that he doesn't like. Usually, he'll just shut down, and give a fake grin because he's not sure what to do. He's very nonconfrontational.

So tonite, when we were playing and he bit my face. I immediately told him to say sorry, and that got him really upset--I think because he felt hurt that I was admonishing him for something he didn't mean any harm in.

He was crying and started to say, "Go away daddy!" It was really heartbreaking to hear how anguished he felt. He's very sensitive and get's very ashamed/confused/crushed when someone tells him he did something wrong when he didn't mean to be disobedient/misbehaving.

But Annette was really great. She tried to coach him on what to say, explaining the misunderstanding and how we could make up with one another. And then he did it--he came out of his shell and talked to me. We both said sorry and made up. I was really proud of him.

Sleeping

has not been so fun for Joshua this past month. He has been besieged with fears--of the dark, of thunder/lightning, and many others which keep him hopping out of bed and screaming for us to lie with him, or the many other excuses: "Daddy, I need you to wipe by butt!" "I need to go poop" "Change my diaper!" "Sit on the red chair!" "Is anybody out there?" "Please, I need you daddy/mommy" Sometimes, because he finally sleeps so late (11pm-midnite) and awakens so much through the night, while still waking up at 6:30am--he acts out at school. Which is what we heard he did again today at school. So we are reattempting sleep training for him again.

Happy Birthday Mommy

Toah Nipi

Joshua had a great time at the Toah Nipi camp. He become really good friends with one of the camp director's kids: Manny.

 

 

One of Joshua's favorite activities was running around the 2nd flood with his buddies. Notice that Joshua tells the girl to take her shirt off too!

Family drawing

Joshua draws a picture of our family at the camp

 

First signature

 

Joshua's teacher saw him writing something the other day, and was surprised to find that he had tried to write his name all on his own.

First solo bike ride

One of our friends in the dorm tuned up the bike Annette hasn't ridden in 4 years this week, and it inspired us to take Joshua for a whirl on his tricycle. It was great to see him finally ride the bike on his own!

End of 1st year of preschool

Joshua's preschool had an end of the year picnic this week. Out of his class of 7 1/2 Koreans, it looks like almost all of them will be leaving this year due to graduation or moving out of the area. Joshua will go from being the youngest student in the class to one of its leaders next year. This was the first time I've seen Joshua actually singing and participating in a group circle time.

First Fireworks

This year, Joshua was really excited about seeing the 4th of July fireworks. He talked about them all day: "I love fireworks!" He could barely contain his excitement and anticipation about seeing his first fireworks. He stayed up until 10:30pm so we could catch the fireworks display along the Charles River.

When the fireworks finally started, Joshua's excitement turned into abrupt silence, and after 5 seconds, he declared, "I want to leave!"

He felt a little bad about leaving early, but he pointed out to me, "Look, other people are leaving too." I explained to him, "But that's because those kids are asleep." When he got back home, he told me, "I never want to see fireworks ever again!" I think it was a combination of the loud noise and the bright lights that spooked him. Well, we'll try again next year.

Raspberry Lollipops

Self Censure

Joshua spotted a whistle on the hallway table on the way out the door to school, touched it, put it down and said, "I told myself, Do not blow the whistle because you might wake up Nuna (our neighbor upstairs." I am constantly amazed at Joshua's self awareness and ability to delay gratification and restrain himself.

Joshua's computer drawing

Potato Chip Man

Joshua drew this using the Microsoft Paint program on my tablet PC.