new tricks!

i know i say this a lot, but joshua changes so much every week. he goes to his pediatrician tomorrow for his 2 month checkup, and just this past week, he has discovered that those tiny hands and fingers are connected to him! it's hard to describe, but rather than his hands seeming so driven by impulse and reaction, joshua seems to have discovered that he is the one in charge of where they are. although, he does not have the same coordination you and i have, he seems to be earnestly working on that. it kind of reminds me of the first time i tried to play super mariokart on the super nintendo... when you try to keep the crazy kart on the track, it's so hard not to over-correct. you steer around the corner and end up in the trees, so you ease off the gas and end up all turned around, not knowing which way you are going until the little angel or whatever it is floats down with a sign in his hands telling you, kindly, that you are going the wrong way. so, you stop, gather your thoughts, and give it another try... i think this is a lot of what joshua might be feeling. you can see him touching his face, with his fingers closing in his eye, and the harder he tries to move them from scratching himself, the harder he closes them. so, he ends up scratching himself even harder. he is a crazy driver right now, but he is learning.

just yesterday, he decided that he was going to start smiling at us. although they say babies don't smile at birth, joshua definately did, and he giggled, too. however, this never seemed to be a reaction to anything we could see. to us, they were just random smiles. perhaps, he was daydreaming about milk? anyway, just yesterday i noticed that he smiled at me when i gave him a funny face. and, last night and today, he's been trying out his new trick. this was so exciting because now i know those funny faces i give him have meaning!! and they make him SMILE! maybe he is laughing at his goofy mama, but atleast i know the energy isn't going to waste. he may not be talking yet, and he may not understand what we're saying, but he is interacting now.

along with these smiles come some noises that sound like he's about to start crying, but as soon as they come out, joshua has a big grin on his face. i think he is proud of those sounds he is making. i'm not sure what he's trying to say, but they probably sound pretty similar to the crazy things i talk to him about. (i will not be shocked if his first word is so obscure that only i will know what he's saying because i will remember the day where we talked about having to keep the door shut so that the coleopterans don't fly in, or when we had daucus carotas for dinner one night.) best of all, he is so proud of all that effort going into making those noises that it makes him so excited.

on another note, while we were getting ready for church this morning, we discovered that our dog had learned a new trick, too. i don't know who she's been hanging out with, but someone has shown her how to knock on doors and run. i hope she doesn't teach this trick to joshua, or we will have a 2 year old making crank calls to our neighbors. seriously, we were getting dressed for church and salem (our dog) banged on the outside of our door. as soon as mike opened it, she ran down the stairs. "no one's there, hmm..." then, she did it again! we could not stop laughing because the scene was so very teenager-ish. and most of all, we couldn't believe our dog had learned how to knock and run!