A Few Things About Josiah

Last week, around the time of Josiah's birthday, I wanted to write a little about him because there are a few things (actually, LOTS of things...that's why I blog!) that I want to remember from this time of his life. I didn't get around to writing that post when I intended to, but it's on my mind tonight so I'll jot a couple things down...

~ Josiah has really been into baseball recently and has had the opportunity to go to a couple local baseball/softball games. He's learning quite a bit about the rules of the game and the official terms for various things, but one thing that he can't seem to remember is the name for "grand slam." He calls it "slam jams." :)

~ Josiah is so creative! He is always coming up with ideas for things like:

* how to build blocks to form any number of items (guns, of course--can't seem to get away from that!--but also monsters to fight against, airplanes, ships, roads, swords, etc.)...I remember when we first gave Josiah some blocks when he was a toddler in Israel; he didn't show the slightest interest in them and it worried me since how could you grow up to be a well-adjusted child without playing with blocks? :)...my anxiety was quite unnecessary since he has grown to love blocks--big ones, small ones...we have a few sets and he has played a lot with all of them

* how to play with toys and follow a storyline with them, acting out the drama with the toys as props...and he loves to include David with this, too

* how to write and draw various things, from lists of how many "I read a book" stickers he got from the library to tracing with stencils to writing "Mom I love you" on a cut-out heart he colored...we go through lots of paper in this house with all his "projects"!

~ Josiah is trustworthy. I realized recently that one of the things I appreciate so much about Josiah at this stage is that I really can and do trust him. He's not a sneaky child, going around behind my back and seeing how much he can get away with. When he says something, I believe it (obviously, there are times when I know he's kidding or whatever, but you get the point). When I set limits for how and where he can play outside and the neighbor girls ask him to do something or go somewhere else, he comes inside to ask me first whether he's allowed to do that. When I ask Josiah to do a task, I can trust that he will. I LOVE this characteristic of Josiah, this quality of reliability and trustworthiness.

And now, a few more birthday pics. These are from our small group meeting last Wednesday. Since Josiah's birthday was on the 13th and Austin (another boy in our group) had a birthday on the 20th, we decided to celebrate together on the 18th at small group with cake and a pinata. All the boys (even the little brothers David and Adam) got a chance to whack the pinata before it was broken and the goodies spilled out. Who doesn't love a pinata? :)

~ Josiah and David (along with Austin and Adam) grabbing up the candy from the birthday pinata
~ Jeff and Merle checking out the way the swing is hung in the Zook's barn...while Josiah tries it out