Where's Mommy's Nose?

It's been a few days since I've been able to post. I have my doubts that anyone has been up all night worried about not getting their Joshua fix...

An early fall cold has had the best of me for the past several days. But Jason did receive votes for husband of the year when he used an early return home from work on Thursday to clean our house from top to bottom. What that meant to me, sniffling and sneezing with head pounding, I don't think I can even put into words. Other than that, yesterday I had the pleasure of spending an entire day with Joshua while grandma was out on her annual shopping weekend with her sisters. We had a blast, but it wasn't a great day for finding a few minutes to write.

I do have two new tricks to report. They may seem small, but I believe I warned you all earlier about how everything seems monumental to this first timer. So here goes...

About a week ago, Joshua mastered the art of "putting back". Up to this point, he's been a terrific taker outer, but never quite got the hang of the fact that he could pick the things up and put them back where they came from. He's caught on to his shape sorters and how the different shapes go into different holes. His new favorite part about the ball popper is not the balls popping anymore, but rather chasing the ones that roll across the floor, licking them and then putting them back into the chute to do it all over again. So I'm pretty impressed about that. For a while I was wondering if we were going to forever live under a Fisher Price mountain of everything out of its place, but I have restored hope about our ability to teach him that things CAN and SHOULD go back where he found them.

Secondly, he has always had a knack for finding noses, but never on cue. When he was littler, he enjoyed biting people's noses. There's a precious video (perhaps Jason doesn't think so) of him coming at his nose and biting to the point where he fell over. Thankfully, the nose biting has stopped (especially important due to the 4 teeth and two more popping!). I've been working with him on the "Where's Mommy's nose?" game for weeks and he's been responding with blank stares...until last night. He was in the tub and I asked him where my nose was- he reached up with a soapy hand and squeezed my nose. I was so excited I nearly burst!

Well, the little monkey has just awoken for the day, so mommy duty calls. I'll be back again soon.