Games

Now that Joseph has mastered the major physical milestones (sitting, crawling, walking) he seems to be focusing more energy on those intellectual skills. He has started saying "Hi" to everyone. On walks, in the park, at the grocery store...we pass someone and they get a smile and an enthusiastic "Hi!" He also knows the words "Bye Bye" and "Nose". Say "Bye Bye" and he waves. Say "Nose" and he points to it.

He has also started playing with his toys in the way they were intended to be played with. While he still enjoys a good chew on a ball, a stuffed animal or any other plastic item, he is also figuring out that you push trucks around the floor and crash them into stuff, balls go into the proper holes of his toys and he is even starting to get the hang of how that shape sorting toy works.

One of his favorite games right now is to take various items out of our bathroom cabinet and throw them into our whirlpool tub in the master bathroom. He enjoys watching stuff roll around down in the bottom...which makes my golf ball sized bath salts a particular favorite to be tossed. In a related game, the other day Joseph decided sliding my blackberry along the keyboard of my laptop was about the funniest thing he had ever seen. Below is a video of the tail end of this game...his laughing had died down a bit...right before we got out the camera he was laughing his head off.

We aren't sure whether he's been intending to do this or not...but he seems to be starting to hide things. Not just anything, though, things that are important to him....like his blankies and pacifiers. We keep finding them in random hiding places...his blanky in the tube of the kitty condo, pacifiers in cabinets. I don't know if he is doing it on purpose or not. He certainly does not seem to remember he's put anything in a certain spot. Whether he's doing it on purpose or not, he does seem to be getting smarter!