Josh Gosh Bo Bosh Bonana Fana Fo Fosh

Sometimes, I have moments where I am obsessed with my kids. In a good way, an adoring way, a funny ha-ha way. It's most definitely not every day, so I like to take advantage of those feelings when they come, and write down the nice stuff so I remember it.

My Joshua makes me laugh. He will turn four this month, so consider this your last good look at three-year-old Josh.

Also, all the pictures in this post were taken by Josh with my phone throughout the past year. It's nice to see life from his perspective. Hope you enjoy his photography.

Little Josh is such a sponge lately. I have to be careful what I say because he will remember every word, and if I give him a different answer/instruction/story later, he will call me out on it.

This week he was eating dinner and asked, "I wonder what God eats for dinner. Can God eat dinner?" These were shortly followed by "Where does God live?" and "Is it far away?" At this point, I basically peed my pants with anxiety, knowing that I had one chance and one chance only to answer these questions exactly right, because this is the boy who remembers everything. These shouldn't be hard questions to answer for me, but apply the pressure of an almost-four-year-old listening with his whole face, and suddenly I feel a huge wave of moral responsibility that nearly knocks me over. Has this ever happened to you?

Yesterday we turned on the TV to find a kid show, and a TNT drama came on. Right away Josh gave a little gasp and said, "Hey! That's the guy that lives in the red house!" He thought he saw our neighbor Craig, on TV, snuggling with a girl on the couch. Before I even said anything, he quietly voiced this revelation, "Hey...that girl doesn't look like ELISE!" Elise is Craig's fiance. Josh knows who goes with who. Our neighborhood better watch out. He is observant. He will notice if you're snuggling with someone weird.

Matt and I were teaching Josh how to sing "Down By the Bay" in the car. We showed him how to make rhymes to fill in the verses, like "Did you ever see a bee with a sunburned knee?" He didn't quite get it. Either that, or he just wanted to be funny. Some of his verses went like this, followed by uproarious laughter: "Did you ever see a cupcake using a rope to catch a mailbox?" or "Did you ever see a duck eating a stop sign?" Preschool jokes. They are so stinking funny. To preschoolers.

There are certain rules that Josh remembers and upholds no matter what. He is really good at following directions when he understands the reasoning behind the rules. There's a scripture that reminds me of him: "Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart" (Psalms 119:34).

For example, Josh was making cookies at his friend's house when the mom offered him a bit of cookie dough to taste. He matter-of-factly answered her with, "At my house, we put raw eggs in our cookie dough, so we can't eat it or it will make us sick. Do you use raw eggs at your house?"

When he knows Mommy's rules, and understands the why, he obeys them. He always keeps the bathroom door closed because he knows Jude will try to play in the toilet. He always takes his shoes off by the back door so he'll be able to find them later and not get the floor dirty. Most of the time, when he understands, he's a very obedient child.

Here is a painting he made, free-hand, in preschool in March. Pretty good airplane, yes? He's quite artistic.