Gems from Josiah

Recent things Josiah has done or said:

~ On May 3, I was getting ready to help him brush his teeth; and as I looked at him, I felt so overwhelmed with love and got a big smile on my face. He said, "What?" I said, "I'm just happy." He asked, "Because you have a baby in your tummy?" I said no (although I knew at the time it was a possibility, but it was way too early to know). He said, "Remember when you had a baby in your tummy and it died?" Then he brought up adoption and said we could get some babies that way. I asked how many we should adopt, and he counted carefully, then said 5, so we could have 7 kids like the McClays! :)

~ One day last week, Josiah was doing some pages in a Learning Time book; and on each page there was a picture of a dinosaur. We were talking about how some dinosaurs were carnivores and some were herbivores; and he pointed to one and said, "This was a meat-eater, right?" I said, "Yes." Then he pointed to another and said, "Was this one a weed-eater?" And I laughed and laughed!!! Last summer we happened to have a dinosaur weed-eater in our garage, but fortunately we have a newer model this year. :)

~ On May 4, Josiah killed his first fly! I had previously let him play with the fly swatter, and he would swing it around but had never managed to actually hit any insect with it. But on that day, he really killed a fly!

~ On April 28, we had gone to a concert at a local church; and after we got home, Josiah hesitantly came to me and mumbled something about changing his mind...and wanting to be good. In the past, he had sometimes expressed that he wanted to be bad and that he didn't want to love God, so it really seemed significant to hear his decision on Saturday. I told him I was so happy and so proud of him before I tucked him back in bed. The next day when we were eating lunch at my parents' house, he volunteered to pray before the meal (a first for him at their house). He has shown reluctance to pray aloud, but he seems to be changing that.

~ A while back, I had told him that at night when we pray before he goes to bed, I would let him pray first and he could thank God for something, then I would pray. He took the initiative to decide to, each night, thank God for 4 things (because Josiah is 4 years old); and it's been really interesting to hear what he has to say. It's often, "Thank You, God, for my parents," but God has also been thanked for Josiah's closet, bunk bed, walls, memory verses, teddy bear, shelves, etc. Obviously, Josiah looks around the room and says what comes to mind! But I can tell that He's growing in prayer, and it's so encouraging to see that.

~ This past week, Josiah learned to count by 10s to 100, by 5s to 100, and by 2s to 20. (When I just asked him to count by 2s for me, he only counted as far as 20, because he said, "If I count to 100, it would take...TWO DAYS!" But I think he really could go further than 20.) He also was learning how to count by 3s and was frustrated because he couldn't land on 10 when counting by 3s. He wanted to say, "3, 6, 8, 10," and was unhappy when he realized it didn't work that way! He also learned that it's really easy to add a single digit to a number ending in 0--for example, 10 + 7, 50 + 3, 80 + 1, etc. All of this math learning took place in random conversation, just for fun, no workbooks involved! I have a feeling when we "officially" start kindergarten work in the fall, he'll breeze through his math for the year.