King Josiah

A few months ago Jeremy made up a story about "King Josiah" and his pet monkey, whom Josiah named Hannah (after his aunt). They collaborated together to fight and triumph over a bad tiger. Since then, Josiah sometimes asks for a retelling of this story, and he loves to commission drawings of "King Josiah" and "Hannah the Monkey" and the "tiger caught by his tail in the tree." ("You draw King Josiah, Mama," he says. I get lots of unpaid art commissions from the King.) I'm not sure it's related to this story or the Biblical one about the boy king (which Josiah quite enjoys and finds very special), but he certainly takes a royal attitude some days, even toward the forces of nature (see the paragraphs below).

"Fishing" off Daddy's bench on the patio

Often on car rides--especially longer trips to Flagstaff and back--Josiah complains about the sun being in his eyes. But his complaints are typically directed at the sun itself. "STOP IT, SUN!" he yells. "Stop shining! Stop it! Stop shining in my eyes!" He keeps this up in an angry and elevated tone, accompanied by punches directed at the sun. I've tried to explain many a time that the sun is not an animate being and cannot hear, acknowledge, or address Josiah's grievance. It doesn't work. (He also yells at the wind when we're riding bikes--"Stop it, Wind! Stop blowing!")

When Josiah is in no-nap-meltdown mode during a car trip, everything has the potential to offend him. On our way up to Flagstaff several weeks ago, he started yelling, "Stop it, cars! Stop driving!" Every new car that passed us (or that we passed) renewed his railing against them. He got pretty worked up about the fact that the cars kept driving despite his commands to the contrary.

In the last few days Josiah has added "so" and "huge" to his everyday vocabulary. He likes to speak and act in the superlative, so these are helpful modifiers for him. Now he's not just tired, hungry, mad, sad, etc. He's so hungry, so sad. And he now wants "huge-huge" cookies, ice cream cones, pieces of cake, or whatever other dessert he can think up to request (whether real or imagined). Sometimes he even wants a "huge-huge-huge" one.

When dessert is a topic of discussion, Josiah claims to be a "big boy" (because big boys get bigger portions than little boys). But if we're not dishing out ice cream or cake, Josiah still typically says he's a little boy. Yesterday he informed me, "I'm just a little boy, Mama. I can't reach stuff."

I think he looks so much like Jeremy in this one

And this looks like one of Jeremy's childhood faces, too

This evening Jeremy read a Bill Peet book to Josiah that had different exotic animals in it. Josiah was clambering and bouncing around and stopping to look at the pictures. He stood up at one point, pointed to the giraffe in the picture, threw back his head, and laughed very loudly. "AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!" he said. "I'm laughing at the giraffe! AHAHAHAHA!"

Laughing and tugging at his fishing pole while I pretend to be a stickleback on the other end

I saved the gross stuff for last, so if you don't want to read about poop, you can stop here.

Josiah loves to visit the potty during his "book time" because it means he can leave the table--and possibly get me to read him an entire book while he sits, uninterrupted by his sisters. The other day I was reading and he was trying to eke out something on the potty. He was modestly successful; he looked in and suddenly burst out, "I have spicy poop! It has hot peppers in it!" (I have no idea where this thought came from. I asked if he had eaten hot peppers, and he looked confused. I think he doesn't yet understand that what goes in is what comes out.)

Today Josiah visited the bathroom innumerable times. I'm glad he's trying to use the potty more, but this whole process wears me out! Sometimes I just want to tell him to pee in his diaper rather than going through the bathroom ordeal for a few drops of pee in the potty. He told me about 10 times this morning that he had to poop on the potty, and he got a tiny turd out only one of those times. So the 11th time he claimed to need to poop on the potty (during naptime, no less), I was suspicious and a bit disgruntled. But he came through and actually pooped this time, and in his excitement over the promised chocolate chips exclaimed, "My poop dancin'! I love you, Mama!" and kissed my hand.

And finally, some gratuitous shots of our boy . . . because he really is just that cute.