Beards, Babes, and Bones

It's hard to keep up with all the funny things Josiah says these days! So I made a quick draft and alliterated the title so I'd remember to post at least these three.

1. Beards

 Josiah comes from two families of men who can (and often do) grow facial hair. Cases in point:

 Josiah's Pa circa 1986 . . . before little Jeremy could grow anything more than blond fluff on his head!

And Josiah's other Pa, circa 1996, with another full beard . . . and strangely similar glasses, too!

Our paterfamilias himself

Just look at those luxurious locks Jeremy sported back in the day (2006)!

Uncle Andrew workin' on the facial hair (2012)

Even Uncle D, the proudly hairless, attempts some scruff occasionally

Even though the married-in uncles don't affect Josiah's genes, they help promote the cause of facial hair . . .

 Dashing Uncle Justin with a beard and our little boy (January 2014)

 Handsome Uncle James with tiny-boy Josiah (December 2011)

Hey, you know beards are in the genes when Mama can sport one like the best of them! (c. 2004)

So I believe Josiah has taken note of the popularity of facial hair in the family. The other day he informed me, "Mama, I want a beard. I gonna grow a beard someday!" Since then he's regularly notified me of his plan to join the ranks of the bearded boys. Maybe I better look out come No-Shave November?

Hard to believe this sweet little boy will be a bearded man one day

2. Babes

You don't realize how much your kids pick up on your phrasing and usage until you hear echoes of yourself in what they say.

The other day Jeremy was working on the computer, and the rest of us were in the room keeping him company. Josiah was bouncing around as usual when Jeremy sighed a deep sigh. Josiah stopped and looked concerned. "What's wrong, Babe?" he said in a sympathetic voice.

He also calls Jeremy "babe" sometimes when he hollers for him across the house or yard. "HEY BABE!" he yells . . . and makes me reconsider how I call to my husband.

[Disclaimer: this final installment of the "babe" scenarios is not drawn from our daily usage, and I still don't know how Josiah knew to apply the term this way.]

At church a couple weeks ago, Jeremy loaded the kids in the car while I finished talking with someone. As Jeremy strapped Josiah into his car seat, Josiah looked out the window at a group of high school girls in the parking lot. "What are those babes over there?" he asked Jeremy. And then he yelled, "Bye, Babes!" as Jeremy shut the door.

I don't think Josiah considers Lydia and Abby "babes," but he has recently mentioned a few times that they're his "best friends." (Yesterday he told me, "Abby is my best friend . . . somedays.") This is, of course, very sweet. But he also calls all sorts of other things and people his best friends--random characters from poor-quality books that he's read once, a little boy from church, a parrot Daddy saw outside when Josiah was napping, etc.

3. Bones etc.

Okay, so this doesn't work as well as a theme, but it alliterates. Here are a couple of Josiah's humorous mis-speaks lately:

We went peach picking on Friday (more pictures from that later). Josiah has consumed many a peach since then. But on one of the first, he ate halfway through and exclaimed, "There's a bone in there!"

Some friends gave us hand-me-down clothes, in which Josiah found a pair of pink ballet-type slippers. He likes to wear them around but constantly loses one or both. "Where my flippers?!" he asks me several times a day.

Well, I can't think of anymore funnies to include in this section, and naptime is almost over. And so this post will end with a whimper.