Oh the things that run through Joshua's mind, then come out of his mouth! LOL. It's been about a month since my last post - my God, how do all these bloggers find time to put entries out there...I feel like a pathetic parent for not getting enough posts out there about my kids. I guess the day to day life of taking care of kids keeps old Mom and Dad busy and entering a blog about the 'mundane' daily activities doesn't seem like entertaining reading for the kids (once they grow up) or for our fan base (hey, I know we each have one fan, as I read her posts and she reads mine). Anyway, I'll try to update you on a few of the things that have happened over the last month and update you on some of Josh's latest sayings.

The picture associated with this post was Josh, Audrey and I at the 'All Comers' track meet. About a month ago, Josh ran the 50 Yard Dash along with his friend Elizabeth Arendt and both had a great time - even though Elizabeth got robbed. You can read Ann's take on the meet in her post here. It was Josh's first 'official' sporting event...how much are those music lessons Ann? ;) Speaking of sports, we went a few days to watch Jess and Katie play in one of the city tennis tournaments. Josh of course, love to watch his cousins play tennis. One time we were out there and I was tossing him the tennis ball and he was actually hitting it, albeit more like a baseball swing, but nonetheless I was impressed. Of course Josh thought it was more fun to miss then excitedly exclaim, 'ALMOST!!!'. Maybe we'll get him into horse shoes or something so that 'almost' actually is good :)

One final sports note, Josh is taking a liking to tennis and Ann, Audrey and he make frequent trips down to the Outdoor Tennis Center to 'play' tennis. If they only knew how much time I spent down there when I was little, they'd appreciate this story a bit more. But I was talking with Tim and Jan Butorac while I was at the RCA's watching Eric, and they told me how 'Josh thinks he runs the place'. This brought a smirk to my face as I can imagine this scene playing out...Ann, Josh and Audrey pull up to outdoor...

Josh: Mommy, play tennis...hit ball...HARD!!!

Mom: Yep, we'll play tennis, let's get you and Audrey out of the car.

Ann proceeds to let Josh out first, then walks to Audrey's side. Well, as Ann is getting Audrey, 'Twinkle Toes' starts his march towards the clubhouse. Probably with a bit of the 'All Access Swagger' that I described in a previous post. So by the time Ann gets Audrey, he's probably a good 45-60 seconds in front of her and entering the clubhouse about the time Ann is locking up the car. So to people inside, they just see Josh swaggering into clubhouse alone...but he's on a mission. He doesn't acknowledge anyone or anything, just marches right by the front desk into the pro shop, grabs a tennis racket off the rack (on a good day, he might give them a courtesy 'playing tennis...yep!'), grabs a ball out of one of the ball carts and marches out the door towards the courts. This all happens in a matter of seconds...no adult in view, so to people - there are only a couple left ;) - that don't know Josh at the club, I can only imagine what they must be thinking at this point...of course Ann, eventually makes her way into the clubhouse and asks to borrow a racket as well and proceeds to find Josh already out on the courts 'warming up'.

Josh: Hit it hard Mama!

Mom: You don't always have to hit it hard Josh, you just have to make sure to hit it over the net.

Josh: I hit it hard! I hit it hard! as he grunts (because he's seen his Dad play) way too late to be a 'real' grunt :)

So in response to Tim's comment, all that I could say, with a smile, "Brings back memories huh?!" as I imagine that same scene unfolded a few times when I was little.

During the last month, we've attended a few parties where a pool was involved. Most notably, we were up at Val's for the summer 'Pool Party'. Josh had a great time. On subsequent trips, Josh got brave enough to dive off the diving board. I'm hard-pressed to be calling it that, but that is how Josh likes to refer to it as, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. That leads up to other parties where there was simply a 'kids pool' out. Well, I wish we had video of it, but from Ann's story telling (I haven't been able to make all these parties because they are during the week) Josh is by far the most excited one about playing in the pool - and usually the most fearless. He likes to show off, by standing to the side of the pool then proclaiming 'I diving! I diving!', then proceeds to belly flop over the edge of the pool (at least this resembles a dive more) and swim 'round and round' (walking on his hands as his body floats). That kid loves water as much as Gump loved to run. He could 'dive' and swim 'round and round' for hours on end and think it is the greatest thing ever.

Audrey is the consummate trooper. She goes along smiling where ever Josh 'demands' Mom takes him. She's growing up fast and is about to start the crawling phase of her life. She rolls all over the place - especially when Mom puts her right next to Dad in bed after the last morning feeding. Her and Dad look like they are doing Leap Frog in bed while they jockey back and forth for position. Josh of course loves Audrey - he's even pronouncing her name correctly now instead of the lovable Au-dee he used to use. He always wants to hug her and he's the best one at making her laugh. He'll reduce her to tears, laughing tears, frequently and Mom and Dad just 'eat it up'. Audrey's become such a Mama's girl right now though...makes it a bit tough on Mom since she never gets a break, but at the same time, Audrey's become more cuddly, so she just bats her long eyelashes at Mom and snuggles up to her, and Mom forgets about just about anything :) I can't wait until Audrey starts talking. I was looking at some old videos of Josh, and it is so much fun when they start 'communicating' with you. I can't wait for Audrey to get to that stage and even more hilarious should be Josh and Audrey trying to communicate :) (check out his Joshua's First Year Gallery, 'Walking to...BED!', 'Blowing Kissing during dinner', 'Day in the Life of a 9 Month Old', and 'Candy Inspector' for some 'older' movies that I just got up on the web finally).

Josh and Audrey got to see plenty of the Grandparents in this last month as 'Gamma and Gampa' spent a week in Rochester, then Ann, Josh and Audrey spent a week in Morris. Our entire family had originally went up one weekend for Ann's Grandma Goldenstein's 80 birthday (too bad we couldn't get Josh to bust out a solo, but you can see him sing happy birthday in this video if you want - it's by far his favorite song as he sings it at least 15 times a day.) Josh 'filled me in' on some of the things that happened when I wasn't around...yikes...let's just say that I'm glad Josh can't speak 100% comprehendible...but coffee at 10:30PM for a 2 year old makes me a bit nervous :| Think I'm gonna have to bust out the 'and die' phrase a bit more (read below for more info) to keep Josh from drinking coffee when I'm not around. I'll work to get pictures from these two weeks up on the web shortly.

Well, being that this post was titled with Josh's most frequently used phrases this month, I thought I'd share a few with you:

• X and die! - I think Daddy's gotten a little over board with the 'threats' to Josh. Whenever Josh was doing something that I felt was dangerous, or otherwise detrimental to his health, if I didn't want to bother with the risk, I would, for example say, "You can't play in the street, because a car will hit you and then you'll die." It's gotten pretty bad, when I go as low as to say, "You can't go outside right now, because the sun is too hot and it'll burn you and you'll die." Well, Josh of course has taken this to a new level. Anything he can't do, doesn't want to do, or doesn't want me to do, we can't do it because he'll die. "Daddy, can't play with vacuum...you die"..."Daddy, don't drink hot coffee...you die"..."Hair dryer hootttt! Burn yourself and die" I think I need to tone it down a bit on my 'threats' :$.
• Only Mommies and Daddies - This one is actually working pretty good. Whenever we tell Josh he can't have something or do something, we say Only Mommy's and Daddy's do X. He understands the statement and usually drops his requests right there. What's funny is when he's out playing with neighborhood kids and they start doing something we don't let Josh do. Josh gets a little 'concerned'. For example, if a kid is riding his Big Wheel in the street, Josh frantically runs along the sidewalk yelling, 'Only Mommies and Daddies in street! Only Mommies and Daddies in street!' The more the kid ignores them, the more frantic and concerned Josh gets. Hopefully he'll continue to listen to us when we use that line even though all the neighborhood kids ignore his helpful warnings :)
• Big Bear in there / Big Dog in there - One of these, Dad takes credit for, the other one, Grandma gets the credit. Part of the nightly ritual is obviously putting Josh in PJs after bath, then brushing his teeth. Well, when we are in the 'workout room' where Josh's changing table is, he insists on turning off the lights, then using the flashlight to look for the 'big dog' in the maintenance room (adjoining room, neither are 'finished' so no wall between them). Josh informs me with his serious voice that there is a 'big dog around the corner...WOOF!' Kind of cute, except after that he always tells me to 'cry' because he scared me. That gets a little old ;) but listening to Josh then trying to 'comfort' me is usually good for a few laughs...'Daddy, why crying? It's all right Daddy. Sorry Daddy.' He says this of course as he gets his face about 1 inch from mine. So I 'stop crying', and immediately, 'WOOF!...cry Daddy!'. So that explains the 'big dog' - I substitute it with the 'Tickle Monster' every once in a while ;) The bear...I don't know quite how this started, but as we brush his teeth in the sink, the 'overflow hole' (or whatever you call it), after spitting toothpaste out, he was digging around in there and not coming up to finish brushing his teeth. I told him there was a big bear down there, so now, to anyone that will listen, when we walk by a sink with a prominent 'overflow hole' he most sincerely explains to them that there is a big bear down there.
• Ohhhh myyyyy gossshhhhh - This is just one of the phrases Josh has picked up from Mom and/or Dad exclaiming something (thankfully he hasn't heard the R rated version of our exclamations), then proceeds to walk around for the next day saying this. Usually he even says it in the right context - when something 'weird' happens. But 'Oh My Gosh' has really stuck. He pulls it out frequently on his own and the way he drags it out makes Mom and Dad laugh.
• I want X - This is our Achilles heel right now. Josh has gotten in the mode of saying 'I WANT X!' and it is borderline obnoxious. To say the least, it is very poor manners, so we are working on it. Unfortunately, you'd be surprised how many times you say 'I want', 'What do you want', etc. yourself when talking to a kid. We are working on alternate phrases, but when Josh utters this, I usually ignore it a few times, then tell him "I don't respond to I want 'anything'" and he immediately starts to 'fumble' through 'Could I please have X?'. About 25% of the time, after I ignore 'I WANT X' a couple times, he will actually resort to the 'Could I please have X' on his own. Hey he's learning...as soon as I can completely 'cleanse' my vocab of 'I want...' hopefully we'll make good progress. This along with eating with his mouth closed are Dad's #1 priorities ;) So if you see Josh (or anyone in our family) violating these proper manners feel free to correct! :)

To summarize Josh's use of all the phrases he's learning, he has a classic quote. On our driveway, there are Voles digging holes into the sides going underneath the concrete. We've been told to put a couple tablespoons of peanut butter down there but have yet to try it. Another side note, a game Josh likes to play with Dad is 'biting his nose off' where Josh fake bites Dad's nose off - that fact plays into this quote. Anyway, this was a conversation Josh and I had verbatim:

Josh: Daddy, peanut butter down holes!

Dad (I didn't hear him clearly): What did you say Josher?

Josh: Watch out! Big monsters down that hole...bite your nose off...and then you die!

On second thought, I better be careful with the 'and die' phrase or we are going to have a paranoid kid on our hands (it's bad enough that we have a paranoid Dad an our hands - but I always contend, that I went through a lot as a kid so I just know what to watch out for - at least that is my argument).

Finally, I'm working on finally editing our raw wedding footage into hopefully a decent DVD. I'll be dropping some of the more 'entertaining' videos on our site - there are a couple out in the movies section right now that are in pretty raw form, but you get the idea. By the time I'm done, hopefully there'll be a few concise, 'watchable' wedding footage that might entertain someone...you never know. Also, this site has been compiled on all 'new' code (as I am making it a bit more generic so some family and friends can throw up sites that have the 'same' functionality, and allow me to do it in matter of minutes), so if you ever see a bug (either a flat out crash, or something navigates to the wrong page or whatever) please let me know.