Joe Turns Two

Take it away, Mr. Joe!



Indeed, my little Joe has gone from an enormous baby to an enormous two year old right before our eyes. Aunt M (who Joe calls Aunt May-May) and Uncle J (who Joe calls Uncle JoupPHHchH) came down to visit for Joe's birthday and we had a wonderful birthday weekend. It started with a party at home, continued with a trip to the aquarium and finished with a fantastic party at school.

The Party at Home

The first thing we did was open presents and look at cards. Joe got some Thomas toy trains and a stuffed bunny from Uncle J and a construction dinnerware set from Aunt M. Uncle J also got Joe an Elmo card which turned out to be the biggest hit of all.



Next came cake time! In the tradition of my mom, I made Joe's cake myself. I always thought that was a normal thing until I became a mom myself and heard that people usually buy birthday cakes, but where is the fun in that?! I remember vividly being excited about my cake, getting to pick the ingredients, smelling it baking in the kitchen and waiting impatiently for it to cool so we could eat it. That's the only way to do it! Here's the final product:

We sang to Joe and he and I blew out his candle.



Just like last year, he didn't really want to have any cake, but the adults in the group were more than happy to take care of it for him. He did enjoy some vanilla ice cream, though. Here's the birthday family picture (sans me who was behind the camera).

Finally, it was time for Joe to get his present from Joe Momma and Joe Daddy. We got him a Thomas the Train tricycle. He was a little hesitant at first, but before we knew it he was flying down the sidewalk.

Trip to the Aquarium

After some rest from the home celebration, we went towards aihpledalihP to go to the aquarium. I think Joe had as much fun in the car as at the aquarium mainly because he got to spend quality time with his Aunt May-May.

Here's the dynamic duo playing peak-a-boo on the road to the aquarium.



Once we arrived, there was so much to see and touch! Joe even touched a shark and a sting ray! Here's a few of my favorite shots from the day.

Party at School

Last but not least, since Joe's actual birthday was on a Monday, we decided to have a little celebration with his friends at school. After thinking a lot, I decided that what two year olds would enjoy the most would be balloons.

That's probably true of people of every age, but it turned out I was right on the money with my hunch that they would love to play with balloons. Joe showed the group how to best play with them.



The rest of the class joined in after eating some cupcakes and yogurt.



I had a lot of help from Joe's teachers which allowed me to sit and play and giggle with the class.

After Joe calmed down a little, he joined in on the food too.

Who's that pretty little lady on the left? Why, it's his girlfriend Marissa of course! She was very happy to share in Joe's special day.

Final Thoughts

I can't imagine Joe having a better second birthday. He got to have a sweet family birthday at home with his favorite people, a trike, a trip to a magical land of animals, and a party at school with his friends and balloons. That would be a great party for anyone! Happy Birthday, Joe! Your mom and dad love you so much.

You are my sunshine, my love, my sweet son. You are the prize in the cereal box of life. Thank you for another wonderful year and I hope I'm blessed enough to see many more. Love you forever!

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Side Note: I'm know I'm behind on the blog, but I have a good excuse! We're only a couple of weeks away from our big move. I'll be posting in the next week or two about how we're closing out our time here. It includes our first family trip to our new home at ekuD as well as a recent trip we took to Central Park. Get excited!

A Gentleman and a Scholar (and a Model)

Well, I thought that I could wait to post until after Joe's birthday, but so many cute things happened since my last post that I just couldn't hold off! Plus, it's been chilly around these parts (see picture above!) so I have some extra time indoors to blog.

While the weather may not indicate it here in P-ton, it is in fact March and along with March Madness (which I am absolutely obsessed with this year... GO BUTLER!), we celebrated St. Patrick's Day. A trip to the dollar store afforded us some cute hats and headbands that made the holiday festive both at Joe's school and my work. Here's Joe in the car on the way to school and Joe Momma at work with Dee.

One week shy of Joe's second birthday and he is really starting to exhibit some serious talent and smarts. I don't know where he gets it. :) I present Article #1: Two awesome pieces of artwork that Joe created using his hands and feet:

I present Article #2: Joe loves to match the Audio/Video cables by color on our DVD player. Red, White and Yellow... this boy has got it down! Every time, perfect matches.



Finally, I present Article #3: Joe isn't even two years old and he can count to ten. He doesn't like to show off this skill, but I got lucky in Target today. I played a game where we would go back and forth with the numbers until we got to ten.



I know I'm bragging, but I'm not going to stop yet. It's school picture time again and Joe's pictures are just out of this world adorable. I've been showing them to people at work who say things like, "You should enter him in contests with Gerber or something" and then I tell them that he was in fact one of the faces of "Earth's Best". Look at this handsome boy!

Joe's class picture was even better. In an unbelievably providential moment, Joe's lady friend, Marissa, was dressed in a ekuD cheerleading outfit for picture day! Apparently her parents are ekuD alumni. Joe stood behind Marissa with his hands on her shoulders. It's just precious.

I want to end this post by saying a little something about family. I define family as the community of people who love you. With that definition in mind, I want to say that I love my family. I love how they have welcomed me into their life and how they've surrounded Joe with the same love. Two of these folks, Aunt M and Uncle J will be coming into town for Joe's second birthday in just a few days. I know that Joe will be surrounded by love and I know that there's no better gift than that... but I'll save all the mushy talk for the next post, which will most likely be Joe's 2nd birthday post. (I really mean it this time!) I leave you with a cute impromptu family photo.

See you next time!

Member of the Uncle-Thomas-Cherokee Tribe

As a belated birthday present for Uncle J, we took a trip to Washington DC to visit him (and eat ham and lemon meringue pie). I came up with the idea that perhaps Joe could sleep better at someone else's place if he could sleep on the same cot he uses at school. So Joe Daddy asked his teacher if we could borrow a cot and they said ok and bada-bing! It worked!

Joe had so much fun seeing Uncle J's place and slept very well, which means we were all able to sleep well! As was posted in an earlier entry, Joe's present to Uncle J was learning how to say the word "Uncle".

It's unclear whether learning the word "Uncle" was the cause or if Joe just suddenly decided he missed his Uncle horribly, but between our visit to DC and Uncle J's next visit to P-ton (which was about a month), Joe used most of his free time to ask for (read: beg for) Uncle. Call Uncle. Phone Uncle. Where's Uncle? So when Uncle did come and visit, he made a short video so that Joe could watch it and get his "Uncle fix" anytime. And it has worked! Joe loves to watch his Uncle video.



Joe has also become obsessed with Thomas the Train. He loves watching the Thomas videos, so it made sense that Joe's first big boy underwear should be Thomas underwear.

He now pees exclusively in the toilet. He poops about once a day and sometimes overnight -- so far, it's always in his underwear or his overnight diaper. But he almost always comes home in the same underwear he goes to school in, so I consider him mostly potty trained at this point. I credit much of this to the fact that I have told him, "You don't want to pee on Thomas." He takes that pretty seriously. Look at how handsome he is! He's already a model.

For some reason which we cannot understand, just as Joe became potty trained, he became terrified of taking a bath. My best guess is that he thinks that the bathtub is a big toilet and he's going to get flushed. I tried everything to help-- I even got in the tub and took a bath with him to try to wash him, but he screamed anyway. Joe Daddy saved the day by purchasing tub crayons and large foam letters that stick to the tub tile. Joe was hesitant at first, but Joe Daddy drew Thomas the Train on the tile and before I knew it, Joe was happily playing in the tub for the first time in at least three weeks.



Along with potty training and talking up a storm, Joe has become a great little helper when it comes to chores, especially cleaning and laundry. He loves to help out and do big boy things. Joe Daddy put together a set of clips while Joe helped him in the laundry room in our apartments.



The most monumental update for this post is that after almost two years, Joe finally got his Cherokee tribal membership! See us receive the happy news:



We still have to have a little ceremony and I have to buy him his Cherokee present, so there will probably be one more blog post about this wonderful development.

I leave you with two adorable photos of Joe. Playing with Dad and sitting at the kitchen table. The next post will probably be a birthday post... I'm getting teary just thinking about it. See you next time!

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Big Haircut, New Class and Potty Time

Hi, fans of Joe! Since I last posted, Joe got a big haircut via Joe Daddy's shearing kit and the decision was made that it was time to move Joe into the 2s class, even though he's still a couple months shy of the big t-w-o. Many of his friends *MARISSA, cough* had moved up into the new class and the teachers decided that he was going to be "too bored" if he stayed back with the younger folks. Here's a look at his new class' cubbies.

I work (and Joe goes to daycare) in an area that is primarily a community of newly immigrated Indians, which is why his class is made up of Anuli, Ruhi, Rajitha, Umer, Srikar, etc. I have to say that I had little contact with my new friends from India before about a year ago, but Miss Padma this year and Miss Datta last year provided a type of maternal care that I have rarely seen even among mothers themselves.

One of the main differences between his old classes and his new one is that his new one is focused on teaching and is slightly less sort of "free form". Miss Rita (his new teacher) was very impressed that Joe was immediately able to sort his number cards correctly on his first day of class.

To be honest, Joe had a little of an unfair advantage, because ever since he was born, we have counted "1, 2, 3!" in the elevator as we enter and leave our apartment (on the third floor). He loves watching the light change to say "1, 2, 3" or "3, 2, 1" and he loves pushing the buttons, so he's had a great deal of experience with 1, 2 and 3. Nevertheless, I just smiled and said, "Yes, he is the smartest child on earth." =)

Also, I was given a poster board and asked to make a family collage to be hung in the classroom. I waited until the last minute because I couldn't figure out how to do it in a way that would be cute, but my friend and coworker, Dee, came to the rescue and created a fantastic collage that Joe loves to see every day. His teachers say that he likes to look at it and point at me and say "Mommy!" Thank you, Dee!!!

The most important difference about Joe's new class is that the changing area has (drum roll please........)

A TINY TOILET! It's labeled and everything.

Joe had been interested in me and Joe Daddy using the toilet and he seemed to understand the concept, so we decided to get him a potty for home use too.

Every day Joe uses the potty a little more and his diaper a little less. Today he went for almost six hours only using the toilet and I feel like he would do even better if we were more consistent with putting him on the potty at home. He uses the potty almost exclusively at school. I'm so proud of him! His teacher said she thinks he will be in underwear for his second birthday. As a former nanny who potty trained a boy who was a couple months shy of four, this seems like a miracle to me. Joe is growing up! He'll kill me someday for uploading the following picture, but it's necessary and adorable.

To even the score, I scoured my computer to find a picture of me as a toddler on the toilet. I know I have one somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment. I did find a file that included a picture of my brother on the potty, so I'll post that instead.

Last, but not least, Joe got to go on an adventure with Joe Daddy while Joe Momma was out of town... to Petsmart! They didn't pick any pets out to take home, but Joe still loved seeing all the different kinds of animals, especially the fish.

Next time: Valentine's Day!
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A Big Start to 2011

Welcome to 2011, everyone! Here in P-ton we've been snowbound for what feels like weeks on end. The good news is that Joe has been able to take his first adventures walking in the snow.



The bad news is, he's spent much more time indoors getting into monkey trouble. Case in point, putting his artwork literally on the fridge.

Luckily it just took a little soap and water to clean everything off. I guess the old "crayon markings all over the wall" stereotype is a real toddler right of passage!

Near the end of 2010, Joe got to take a trip to Joe Daddy's office. He hadn't been there in many months and everyone was very happy to see him. One of the first items on his agenda was to drop nearly a dozen air biscuits onto the lap of a famous political scientist. Apparently, he felt very relaxed.

After that, he took a little break to catch up on the latest headlines.

For the second year in a row, Aunt M and Uncle J came down for New Years. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that weekend.

Since Joe Daddy was home for a few weeks, you may have noticed that he decided to grow a horseshoe mustache. I thought that it was going to end up sticking around for much longer than it did, but alas, it was just for the holidays. Joe didn't seem to notice it either way.

Last weekend, we went down to Virginia to see Kim and Walter. We hadn't seen them for almost a year. When we move, we're only going to be two hours away so we can make these trips much more often. While we were there it was decided that they are officially "Grammy Kim and Pa-Paw Walter". They showered Joe (and Joe Momma and Joe Daddy) with great food and lots of love. It's just one more reason we can't wait to move in the next few months.

Joe spent long stretches of time roughhousing with Walter on the floor. No amount of growling or scary faces deterred him.



Joe also loved to jump from their ottoman to their couch over and over again like he was in a bouncey castle.



Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend:

The only obstacle we faced was that Joe didn't remember ever being away from home before and he had a terrible time sleeping at night. He refused to sleep in his portable crib and would only sleep in the arms of Joe Momma or Joe Daddy. I won't lie, it was kind of nice-- not the sleeplessness part, but the snuggling part.

This weekend was the first weekend in awhile that we haven't had anything unusual going on, so we mainly did chores and hung out at home. It was nice to have some one-on-one time with Joe. He's been a real momma's boy lately. Recently, when I was upset about something, Joe came over and brushed my hair with his brush and put lotion on my cheeks like I do with him. Tonight, he said his clearest "I love you" to me before he went to bed. So, tonight I leave you with a short video of me and Joe playing the "cup stuck on the face" game. He can play this one for an hour.



Next time: potty training! Oh boy!
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A Special Message for Uncle J