The middle child.

Oh, Joe. This kid is a crack-up. I never want to forget all of the quirky, hilarious things about this crazy 3-year-old, so I thought it was time for a Joe update.

- We absolutely, completely underestimate this kid. Unlike his big sister, he's much more interested in ramming cars together or building a dinosaur with Legos than he is in learning how to write or doing a puzzle. But when we can get him to slow down long enough to practice writing his name or figure out a puzzle, he nails it. He's really smart if you can get him to stop moving for 5 seconds to talk to you. And he has a huge vocabulary that surprises the heck out of me. He'll throw out "appropriate" or "frustrated" and I just die (mostly because it comes out "appwopwiate" and "fwustwated" with his precious little voice.)
- He has a ridiculous obsession with the color red. The love runs deep. When given the choice, he'll choose red anything over any other color 10 times out of 10. All of his school projects that come home are red. Red snowman? Yep. All red Christmas tree? You bet. His favorite clothes are the red ones - a red fire truck shirt & red Superman shirt, red sweatpants, even red underwear. He has a red winter coat, red gloves & hat, new red shoes...he looks like a walking strawberry on cold days. His love of red is so extreme that he refused to play one of his new board games he got for Christmas because there wasn't a red player. We're not sure how this even started, but it's been going strong for months now with no end in sight.

- He comes up with the weirdest names for things/people; "Bony" is currently the name of choice for just about any character he dreams up. Though he still sleeps with a zoo of stuffed animals in his bed at night, his main 2 squeezes are his duck, which he named...wait for it..."Bony", and his puppy dog, which now goes by "Igor". (Your guess is as good as mine on that one, folks.) Recently, he's added his stuffed Superman to the mix, along with a bunny that he named "Superman". Weirdo.
- He has become very attached to me lately. I have no idea what triggered it, but it first started mid-December. I picked him up from school one day and his teachers told me he had been inconsolable for almost an hour, telling them he just missed me. There had been no warning of it & I still can't figure out what brought it on. Ever since then, he tells me all the time that he's going to miss me - at school, during nap or bed, if I run an errand without them. After Christmas break, I knew going back to school was going to be a struggle for him, so we started talking about the return days in advance. At the mention of school, he immediately started getting anxious & saying he'd miss me. I sent a picture of him & I in his backpack so he can look at it anytime he misses me at school; it seems to still be working!

- He has been 100% potty trained since the fall, which is 200% awesome. It's in the Top Five of my greatest accomplishments in life so far. I thought potty training that boy was going to break me for good. But some kind of magical bathroom fairy came along and POOF! Done. He's in underwear full-time, even overnight. MAGIC, you guys.
- He's very into superheroes at the moment, specifically Superman (it's the red cape.) He's getting better at identifying the different characters. When the kids put on dress-ups, he always chooses his Ironman mask & cape and runs around "saving" everyone. He tells me that he & his buddies play superheroes on the playground at school - he likes to pretend he's Super Joe. He has already determined that his 4th birthday party (yes, the one that is 7 months away) will be a Superman birthday.

- He doesn't listen, like, ever. He's just too busy playing to listen when I tell him things. We have to really make sure he's focused on us before we give him instructions or there's a slim chance he'll actually follow through. I often say to him "Joe, what did I just say?" to be sure he really heard me.
- It takes him forever to get to sleep at night. He still takes a nap every day (praise Jesus!) but that makes it harder for him to fall asleep at bedtime. He lies in bed talking to his animals, kicking the wall, & making funny noises. Thankfully, Brooke falls right to sleep and isn't bothered by his antics. He sneaks downstairs about 50% of the nights with one of a million excuses for why he's up. Most of the time, he gets shooed back to bed with the threat of his animals being taken away. But sometimes his excuse is so hilarious/random/adorable that we end up laughing at him. Tonight's excuse? "We need to check behind the dresser because I think one of my cars got lose-ded (lost) back there." Last night's? "I need something in my bed to help remind me of you so I don't miss you while I sleep." It's pretty hard to get mad at that.

- He has great manners, almost always remembering to say "please" & "thank you". He very randomly will thank us for small things that we gave him or did. For example, while eating a snack he'll say "Mommy, thank you for buying me red socks because red is my favorite color." Or he'll tell me mid-afternoon "Mommy, thank you for making me oatmeal for breakfast this morning." It makes me pretty darn proud to see how genuinely grateful his little heart is.
- He has the World's Best Smile and I just love him to pieces.

A few months ago, Joe brought this book (Five Little Monkeys Take a Bath) to us and insisted he could read it. It has become his favorite book and insists on "reading" it to us multiple times a week. It's pretty adorable!