2½

Happy ½ Birthday, boys! At 30 months, they are very well-coordinated and fearless, as proven by the follwing fascinating feats they have achieved. They can now kick a soccer ball while running, slide down tall slides all by themselves, climb to the uppermost parts of the elementary school playgrounds, and swing in the big kids' swings.

Joshua is overall more of a chatterbox, but Caleb has some lines of his own that are uniquely Caleb, such as, "Oh my gosh! A bug!" Hmmm... I wonder where he learned that? ;) The boys have also learned to embellish their interactions with actual English dialogue, so instead of simply hitting and pushing each other, they will hit and push while exclaiming, "No! Don't do that!" They also like to tell us if someone is funny or if someone is sad. For example, while playing with their trains Joshua might say "Oliver funny!" and if Joshua is crying, Caleb will say "Brother sad. Brother, don't cry." If they want something, they will say "Open! Open!" which seems to have replaced its longstanding predecessor, "Ajibah!"

The boys are empathetic and polite, for the most part. If one of us is coughing, Joshua will pat us on the back and ask, "Are you ok? Are you ok?" Both boys will say, "God bless you!" if you sneeze, and "Excuse me, sorry!" if they want you to move out of their way so they can squeeze by. Joshua loves to give kisses, and will announce his intention to kiss someone or something, saying, "I'm gonna kiss it, I'm gonna kiss it... mwah!" Caleb will sob softly, fight back tears, and reach out for an embrace if he realizes that he has hurt our feelings. I'm probably beginning to sound like a broken record on this blog, but they really are such sweet boys and we are so thankful that God gave them to us 2 and a half years ago.