A little of this, a little of that

...but it's all gonna be about Joseph :)

Joseph has such a personality and has recently taken up some cute little "things" that he does. I realize this probably isn't very interesting to most of the internets, but I want to record his sweet personality. And I heart bullet points, so here goes.

- Whenever I put lotion on Joseph comes up to me and starts rubbing my legs with his hands pretending he's putting lotion on my legs. He has seen me put lotion on a few times after a shower, so I assume that's where the connection comes from. Usually I'm just putting lotion on my hands, but he always comes to rub my legs as if to remind me to lotion up my legs, too!

- Joseph has started saying "no" with a funny accent. It's almost as if he's turned into a little English boy - that's the best way I can think to describe the way he says "no." I'll have to catch a video of it for you to understand exactly what I mean.

- Joseph can now count to three all by himself. He tries to hold up his fingers while he counts, but hasn't quite mastered it yet. So, he'll be counting "unn...doo...hee" while looking at his five fingers. Then a couple seconds later he'll say "fie!" and show me five fingers. It makes me so proud every time!

- Joseph is also getting pretty good at repeating his alphabet (I say "a," he repeats "a"). (When he wants to) He can make it all the way to "r," but he can't seem to say "r" yet. I still love that he enjoys repeating the alphabet. I can definitely tell he's learning.

- Joseph has recently become very interested in using a fork and plate. For a while I'd offer his food on a plate, but it would inevitably be dumped on his try. Then one day it just clicked, and he left his food on his plate and ate off it. The same thing happened with using a fork. I would offer a fork a few times a week and usually he would just hold it in one hand while shoveling food in with his other hand. Then one day he became very interested in using the fork and worked diligently to spear his food and eat it with the fork.
What I found most amazing is the other night when we were eating pizza he seemed to pick up on the fact that Will and I weren't using any utensils to eat our pizza so he ignored the fork and used his hands. But at the next meal he was back to using his fork! He's a perceptive little guy.

- I bought Joseph a potty yesterday. He's been showing signs of being ready for potty training, so I went ahead and got a potty. Unfortunately,  I think I missed that narrow window when they let you know they're going. Over Thanksgiving he would say "poopoo" then, inevitably, he'd poop a few minutes later. He did that for about a week. He has since stopped such niceties. Now when I see him going and I ask if he's going poopoo and he yells "no!" and either runs away (to do his business elsewhere) or continues with his business.... we'll see if this works. If it doesn't I'll just put the potty away for a few months (or years) before I try again.
In the meantime, he really enjoys sitting on his potty (fully clothed and diapered, of course). Baby steps, right?