Happy 15 Months Josiah!

Fifteen months, roughly 456 days, and close to 11,000 hours have passed since we welcomed our baby boy last year! Time is fleeting and I cannot believe how fast he is growing, the new leaps he is making in his development and milestones, and the eruption of his personality that has completely bloomed in the last few weeks. I’m mesmerized at his handsomeness, his intelligence, and his sense of humor daily.  I look at him and his sister and I cannot begin to describe the love that pours out of my heart for them.

I remember feeling the anxiety that I assume creeps into all moms when preparing for the arrival of a second child in the family.  I remember the questions… How will I ever love another little person like I love her? Will she feel left out? Will she be left out? And because we chose to have ours so close together the biggest for me was… How am I going to do this?!  I haven’t figured out the answer to the last one, every day is an adventure and we get through with smiles, tears, love and laughter. Just this past weekend I had a woman approach me to tell me she thought I was amazing as she watched me with my children and exclaimed she didn’t know how I did “it” with the two of them… I was too preoccupied in chasing them to stop and tell her that I didn’t know how I did it either, yet it remains the most busy, exhilarating, exhausting, rewarding, humbling, most grateful experience I could ever imagine. However, the other questions answered themselves immediately after Josiah arrived.  I remembered saying that Addisyn would never remember life without her brother, and boy is that true, and I’m sure she wouldn’t want to.  They are such the best of friends. Josiah’s determined to keep up with big sister and mimic and mirror her every move. Addisyn adores him and is ecstatic he can actually engage in play with her, and he truly admires his big sister.  My favorite past time is watching them just be together.  The sweet hugs that closely resemble choke holds Addisyn gives her brother and his attempts to stop and kiss her that often involve lots of hair pulling and pushing truly melt my heart.  I hope they forever have this kind of bond, and that they always know they have someone else who has their back in life.

At 15 months, Josiah is a smiling, rambunctious, always on the go, happy, healthy little boy.  He is ALL boy. He doesn’t sit still, he doesn’t slow down, he doesn’t have a sense of fear about anything (and is rocking a new head wound today because of that), he is brave, he is bold, he is funny, and he is so sweet.  He’s working on not one but FIVE new teeth currently, poor guy. He has an array of favorite foods, and will eat whatever we eat at dinner or put in front of him. He loves vegetables, all fruits, eats meat well, and loves pasta and breads too. He prefers to feed himself so his favorite foods are anything that doesn’t require assistance. He can use a spoon to feed himself several foods, and takes such pride while doing so.  He’s added several new words to his vocabulary recently, he can now regularly say “please, Bubs (what he calls Gunner), tweet-tweet, choo-choo”, and several other new words in addition to his already large vocabulary. He regularly sings Happy Birthday to You in his own version and Let it Go, thanks to big sister.  He can mimic any word and often says words I wasn’t aware he understood. He loves to shut doors, climb steps on his own, and will even go to the cabinet and get a cup for his snack all by himself. He’s such a big guy now!

We’re still in 12 months clothes, but slowly adding in 18 month spring clothes as I believe he’s about to hit another growth spurt in length soon. His favorite toys are balls of any sort (he has amazing hand-eye coordination, which Daddy’s super excited about), cars, blocks, and bubbles. Recently, he decided he liked to color and does a great job. He loves being outside the most, just like big sister. We did our first beach day of the season on a warm spring day a few weeks back and he was enthralled with digging in the sand and fearlessly running into the freezing ocean water.  I love all things about his personality, but if I’m honest his boldness scares me as a mother!

He keeps us all laughing, and smiling with is humor, and then does more hilarious things when he knows he’s done something funny.  He loves exploring and discovering things for himself, and is at the age where he has to touch everything and find out its purpose. We are so grateful for the past 15 months that he’s made us smile and filled our home with even more love. We love you Josiah, our sweet baby boy! Now, if only I could slow both of them down. 😉