Joe says, "MOM! I'm so MAD that you missed a month of the blog!!!" Well, it's been rather busy around these parts and I got behind on the updating. I hope to make up for it with an extra long post of pictures this time. The picture above is Joe in the middle of a tantrum -- he has those now. They are short and to the point and happen occasionally when he doesn't get his way. Joe Daddy and I think we're hitting the "terrible twos" early. He gets frustrated, but doesn't have the verbal skills to express what he wants or why he's upset, so he usually slaps his hands on the ground, pinches us or falls onto the ground and whines. Nevertheless, it's rare and we hope it stays that way.
I'll start with the bad news first:
Joe got his first black eye this past month. He got into a fight with the rocking chair at school and the rocking chair won. Poor Joseph! They applied ice and by the time I got to school, he was playing and having a good time, so he seemed to be a real trooper about it. It faded in about four or five days.
In better news... one of the reasons why the blog was not updated in July is that I got to spend the first part of the month in Omaha with Joe's Aunt M! I had some work drama that ended with me getting some time off and a big promotion, so naturally I hopped a plane to O-town just as fast as I could. It was great to see M and finally get to check out Omaha. We marched together with her church in Omaha's annual Gay Pride Parade, which was a lot of fun. Omaha is a nice place and her church is one of the most welcoming, loving places I've been in a long long time. I hope to visit her again soon (like when her Jeopardy episode airs?) and maybe take Joe and the crew with me.
When I returned, the summer was in full swing, so we took Joe to the fountain at Joe Daddy's work to see if Joe might be interested in swimming a little this summer. He really didn't want to get into the water any more than just getting his feet wet, but he still had a lot of fun.
Uncle J came to stay with us for just over a week while he had a conference in the area for his work. With the extra help, we decided to take Joe to the beach. Joe was stunned by the ocean and spent most of the time sitting in one of our laps and watching the waves come up and go back out over and over. He did a little bit of playing with buckets and shovels in the sand and overall handled the whole thing very well. I think we'll try it again later in the summer!
Finally, just a couple of days ago, I went to visit the boys I used to nanny. (My "practice children"!) They loved playing with Joe and were very sweet to him. I can't believe how much they've grown!! Time flies! Before we know it, Joe will be their age.
If you haven't done so in awhile, I highly suggest going back to some of the first blog posts and watching a couple of the videos. It's unbelievable to see Joe so young that he couldn't roll over yet or so small I had to feed him Pedialyte from a medicine dropper. It's one of the reasons I created the blog in the first place -- you can really see the progress that Joe has made! See you next time!
