OOOHH BOY!!! A Boy and the Ocean

Since telling Josh about our trip to the ocean and beach, it is ALL we have heard about for the past month. "Eat dinner on the beach" was the standard reply to any questions concerning what he wanted to do or eat. THANK THE HEAVENS we finally made it there.

But first, we stayed a couple nights in a state park in Mississippi. We found a place that gave air boat rides into the swamp to feed gators. Yea, it was as fun as it sounds. The first part of the tour was holding one:

After holding this beast Josh actually said "let's get bigger one!"

THAT'S MY BOY!!

We had to wear hearing protection on the boat, but he didn't mind. When the boat went faster, the grin got wider. We stopped at a spot and our guide threw some marshmallows into the water and the gators (6-8 footers) came right up to the boat. He even let Josh throw one in which he just thought was too cool. Soooo, for the next couple days all we heard was "I hold baby alligator" and "I feed bigger one marshmallow"

The first Day on Dauphin Island, Alabama we went to the estuarium. It was a neat place that had numerous aquariums and displays about the geography of Mobile Bay. Crazy boy, of course, could hardly be contained

Despite the "Please do not touch the animals" sign on the tank, Josh did. Hey, he can't read that well yet.

That night we thought we would make a quick trip out to the beach to just get our feet wet. We didn't even bother putting on our suits. What were we thinking. Josh went straight for the water and jumped right in

Then, he decided to run up to the dunes and roll in the sand.

The result:

We had to take him back to the water, rinse him off, and then carry him back to the campsite. what a mess.

One day we went to a civil war fort on the island and took the "first-class" tour

After a while, Josh discovered he liked not being able to touch bottom. So we had some impromptu swim lessons. He has NO fear of the water.

No, Josh isn't drowning in the sea behind us.


Of course, Josh wanted nothing to do with naps. So he would just pass out at odd times; like on the back of the bike.

On our last day, we took our left-over hot dog buns to the pier and fed the gulls.

Josh is beyond learning new words. He's putting together whole phrases. He counts to ten with no problem and almost has the alphabet down. Sometimes we can hear him in bed saying it.

He is really jumping right into the terrible 2s. He knows how to push our buttons and challenges his limits all the time.

Potty training is still in progress. He understands it, but he just doesn't want to do number 2 on the potty. He'll sit there for a couple minutes and say "it's not working". He'll usually then go right into the other room and do it. We've tried several bribes and giving him privacy but he just won't do it. GRRRRRR!!