Joshua at 3 and 4

I started this series about a day late to get it all in before he turns 11 so we get 2 years today.

Again this picture was taken a couple of weeks before he turned 3 but in my opinion its closer to 3 then 2, right? Anyway I forgot to tell you one of his other stories of our nearly losing him. This time to choking! Twice in this year he nearly choked. The first time was this particular day. We were at a pumpkin farm with a group of mommies I did things with regularly. They were giving out candy bags and there was one of those big blow up jumping things...you know the things they go inside and jump in? Are you getting were I'm headed here? Anyway Joshua is the type of kid to be constantly on the go...moving moving moving, the kid really has never stopped. One of the things in the candy bags was tootsie rolls. Well apparently he had stuffed his face with those bad things and then got into the jumpy thing. Jumping and a mouth full of chewy candy? Not a good mix. I didn't see it happen at first I was chasing after Kenzie who was nearly 1 at this time and a friend of mine saw him turn purple...uhm he was still jumping though! She pulled him ou to fthe jumpy thing and had to do the heimlich on him. She got it out and he was fine although he was really mad that he couldn't have the candy back! After that we no longer allowed any of the kids to have tootsie rolls. Those things are easily swollowed in to large of sizes! This picture was taken shortly after the incident. You can see it didn't phase him though!

A couple of days later. Joshua and Izzak carving out pumpkins. They weren't wearing much clothes but this was actually fairly common for Joshua when at home anyway the kid has never liked clothes, still doesn't he strips down to his boxer shorts when at home. He has always been real picky with his clothes. Not the style but fitting just right and tags, itchy all that sensory stuff. He never did get past the whole over stimulated with bright lights and crowds thing. Only difference is as he got older he didn' t cry he just goes kind of crazy man like when a lot is going on.

Joshua was a big fan of big trucks as a little guy. Maybe even obsessed. He always had one in his hand when he could and if he has one don't you dare try to take it away from him. See this pic yep normal home wear. Diaper and nothin else!

He's wearing jammies in this picture but that is only because he wanted to go outside.

Lets see I said we had 2 near choking incidents his third year right? Hmm the other time was in a restaurant. He had the typical kid meal of the kid menu and they had a free desert with it which was ice cream with a gummy worm on it. Joshua, like I said, had a tendancy to stuff things quickly when eating as if it would disappear if he didn't. The gummy worm? It's a bad thing to swollow whole! He started to choke on it and with gummy things you can't really do the heimlich well because it basicall sticks to their throat. Kelly had to reach in his mouth to pull it out which was even more fun because it was slippery. We got it out. Joshua got mad because he wanted to eat the offending worm and we outlawed another candy in our house. About the only thing allowed in our house candy was chocolate. Which really was okay by me!

Here he is on his 4th birthday. I was pregnant with Madison and due in a couple of weeks so we did Joshua's 4th and Kenzies 2nd on the same day. I made cupcakes for them and we had 101 dalmation decorations. Yes that is me in the gray stripes behind Joshua. I was huge by then.

Joshua got to be a big brother again for the second time 3 weeks after his birthday to Madison. He thought she was pretty cool and was a lot more interested this time around more then when Kenzie was born and he kept asking me when she was going to go back!

He still was a total towhead with that ultra blonde hair. I loved his hair by the way and this kid has also always had awesome blue eyes. I have some better ones when he is older I will try to get up to show his eyes.

At four Joshua finally got a year with no major incidents. I appreciated that honestly because there was a lot going on with everyone else!

He loved playing with Kenzie and their cousin Kayla who is only 9 days older then Kenzie. He also started to go to preschool when he was 4 which was fantastic for him. He loved to go there and had a wonderful teacher who totally "got" him and since Izzak was in 1st grade then I actually had a couple of hours a couple of days a week where it was just me and the little girls.

The one thing that was bad the year Joshua was 4 was that was 2001 when the terrorist attacks happened. I tried so hard to not let the kids see what had happened but it was almost impossible since even if we kept it off at home it was always on when we went somewhere. Joshua got it in his head that the airplanes were the bad guys and that all planes had bad guys in them. We lived really close to the airport in Portland so planes were always going overhead and if we were outside he would be terrified and scream about the bad guys and hide under cars or buildings. It was really sad. Just as he was getting better about it about a month and a half later we witnessed a train accident involving a truck. The driver was ejected from the truck and killed and Joshua saw that happen so then we had the train fear. That was easier to get by because I had problems when hearing or seeing planes myself so we just made every effort to not be on those roads. Fortunatly he doesn't have problems with either anymore!