I have many reasons for keeping this journal. One is that I want to remember the little things that Joshua does, the things you don't necessarily write down in a baby book. Like how he loves to make us laugh. He'll come up to Tim or me and find just the right spot on our knee or leg, the spot where it's the absolute most ticklish, and blow a huge raspberry. Then he'll look up and wait for you to laugh so that he can laugh right along. Or the way he is absolutely devastated when one of us is working on the computer and we don't let him type, as well. Oh, the wails of agony that issue forth from his tiny, tiny body! But pick him up and let him type, too, and he's all better, not a nanosecond later.
Another reason is that I simply like to write. I know I'm not going to be the next Toni Morrison, or even the next Erma Bombeck, but isn't there something great about getting all these thoughts out of your head and onto paper . . . proverbial paper, I guess? And if by chance some publisher comes along and just so happens onto this website, and then just so happens to think that millions of people would pay money what I have to say, then so be it! These are things that happen every day, right?
One of Joshua's favorite things to do is dance. Whether we're holding him and listening to the radio, or he's pushed the little flower in the middle of this toy he has, the flower that makes the music play, he's always jiving. Shoot, I can sing "If You're Happy and You Know It," and he's shaking his little bottom to the beat of my off-tune lyrics. Does this mean that he has a great future in music, because of the appreciation his father and I have instilled so lovingly and at such a young age? Okay, probably not. I sure do like to think so, though.
Or maybe he'll grow up to be a writer. He'll write the next great American Novel, just because 
Tim and I read to him constantly. Honestly, if we got rid of every single toy we have for him, he'd be happy with just books. Of course, they have to be board books, and the sturdy variety at that. This is because he also enjoys eating books tremendously. So every book that we have for him is tattered and frayed, and very, very chewed-looking. The corners have been worked over until they are bloated from drool, and there are little bite marks - our prodigy got his first tooth at the early age of 4 months - where where he's decided to dine on "Quiet, Loud" or "The Nose Book" (two of his favorites). His grandma got him a book called "Bite Me, I'm a Book," and this has been helpful in calming my anal keep-all-books-looking-nice self. I now know that ALL babies chew books, and am working on dealing with that!
These little things are the most special somehow, aren't they? I mean, it's wonderful for Joshua to know his "firsts" - first tooth, first sign, first step . . . but that's not what life is made of from day to day. I can't imagine a time when I'll have to think back and try to remember what it was like, but I know it will come. And sooner rather than later, probably. It will be good to read back, and let the memories flood in, reminding me of how joyful this little one makes me each day, in all of the little things he does.
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Quick update - Joshua slept through the night, from 7:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. on June 3rd, a week and a day after we stopped nursing him at night. It was fairly painless, and we didn't have to listen to nights of screaming agony. It was wonderful!
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