I've tried jotting down a few funny things Josiah says, but I keep losing the scraps of paper . . . So here's a post to compile some Josiah-isms from the past couple weeks.
The other day Josiah was herding the girls into the kitchen and said to them, "C'mon, my two wifes!" (He also sometimes addresses each as "my doggy" or "my kitty.")
One night Jer told Josiah it was time to start cleaning up the toys before bed. Jer pulled out the Duplo container, and Josiah sat himself on the couch. "Good job, Daddy!" he said. "Good job cleaning up my toys!" (Needless to say, Jeremy quickly corrected Josiah's assumption that Daddy would take this cue to do all the work!)
Showing me an "egg" (rock)
Josiah is still obsessed with thinking about tigers (and lions, and often hippos, rhinos, and bears, too). He asks me several times a day, "Mama, where the tigers?" I think he's both curious and concerned. At bedtime just before I walk out the door, he quickly says, "Mama, where the tigers? where the lions? where the hippos?" I reassure him every time that they're in their cages in the zoo, or far away in a jungle or in Africa. (The zoo is the most reassuring, I think.) A couple days ago he said, "When the tiger comes to bite Siah, I gotta shoot it with my gun." He's repeated this theme many times since then--and indeed, he is often out hunting tigers in the backyard (though I think this particular time of the tiger coming is more real to Josiah; he knows [for the most part] that he's just pretending when he plays tiger-hunt in the backyard).
Playing a favorite game outside--"Chase Mama!" or "Mama chase 'Siah!"
"Guess what, Mama?!" Josiah said to me one Monday morning. "It's Saturday!!" (Jeremy exclaims this many a Saturday, and I guess Josiah wanted to extend the excitement.) The next day he tried again at breakfast: "Guess what, Mama?! It's SATURDAY!" Once again, I had to correct him. Wednesday he tried again, with the same disappointment. Thursday he said, "It's Tuesday, Mama?"
On a related note, it's interesting to see Josiah starting to figure out time and its measurement and passage--days of the week, night and day, the difference between "when" and "where" (he often asks the more concrete "Where, Mama?" when I make reference to
when we might do something).
This is what he does when I ask him to smile
Often Josiah asks (or frantically begs) for help with something--getting the last couple bites of soup out of his bowl, keeping his tools or Duplo tower from the girls, reaching something too high, carrying something too heavy, etc. "Help, Mama! Help!" he says. So I often ask, "What do you need help with?" "Help '
Siah!" he invariably replies. It's funny how maddening this response can get!
Help 'Siah with what?!
Another posed smile
Josiah still indiscriminately calls both girls "Abby" most of the time, probably for ease and convenience, since he
can tell them apart. "Abby's pulling books, Mama!" he says, or "Abby's eating shoes!" or "Abby's getting 'Siah's tools!" (Lydia commits all these crimes at least as much as Abby, and she's often the culprit when Josiah tattles.) Sometimes Josiah will put on his sweet voice and say, "Hi, Abby!" and give both girls hugs.
His sense of fun and wonder is contagious!
Usually Josiah is quite friendly and eager to strike up conversation with random strangers. He often loudly asks me, "What's
that guy, Mama?" when we're out and about. (This is starting to get embarrassing as his language skills improve enough so other people can understand him. At least he hasn't started adding adjectives like "fat" yet!) We went on a walk the other evening, and he'd shout "Hi!" to anyone he saw. But sometimes at social functions when we ask him to say "hi" to someone, he'll hide his head and pretend shyness. I guess I've used the word "shy" in such contexts enough for him to understand it, because the other day at breakfast I asked him a couple catechism questions that he usually answers immediately. "Who made you?" I asked. He put his head down in that "shy" way and didn't answer. "C'mon, Josiah," I said. "You know this. Who made you?" He replied, "I be shy, Mama."
