Happy Birthday Joey

Joseph Micah
June 27, 2006
aka: Joe Joe, Joey, Joe Man, & Joe

Joey was born two years ago and was the sweetest, quietest little baby. He didn't cry a lot and as he got older and more alert, he seemed to just sit and enjoy watching his two older brothers run through the house.

I don't think I would necessarily classify Joey as "bad" but he definitely finds trouble. Some might say trouble finds him, but in this case....he finds trouble. Joey has a very strong personality, we think its because he's in survivor mode in our house. He has two older brothers who he tries and tries to keep up with and play with, and then there is his little sister Madison who in his eyes, does absolutely nothing. Although he does find it quite amusing to take toys away from her, and pull her binky out of her mouth. Anyways, Joey struggles to fit in with any of his siblings right now........to little for Justin and Jacob, and just a little too old for Maddie.

Joey has a smile that melts your heart, and when he wants to, he can lay some looks on you that have you in the palm of his hand. The problem is that at two years old, he has already figured this out.

With Joey's strong personality comes a bit of a temper. We first witnessed this last year at dinner down in Tennessee. We had just sat down to eat, things were going fine, when all of a sudden Joey got really upset. We didn't understand why at first, and I don't know that we ever figured it out because we saw a side of Joey we never had. His face got bright red, possibly a shade of purple, and he bit down on the edge of our table, similar to a tazmanian devil, and proceeded to shake his head as if he was going to take a hunk out of the table. Josh and I stood there speechless, laughing of course, because we had never seen our sweet little baby do anything like this before.

As time goes on, Joey continues to fight his way into the lego pile, the car pile, into the sword fights, and anything else his brothers are doing. Joey is shy when in front of strangers, he sort of stands perfectly still as if the person won't see him as long as he doesn't move. He will literally just stare at the unfamiliar person, no blinking, no movments, he doesn't cry, or run for me or Josh, just stands there and will not break the stare between him and the "stranger".

We often joke that Joey is the "demon seed"....... Last winter it was in the evening, freezing cold, and Joey insisted he wanted to go outside. Mind you, he had a t-shirt and diaper on at the time, and Josh told him that he could not go outside it was too late and way too cold. Joey continued to voice his opinion on the matter, so Josh said, ok fine, go ahead.......let him see for himself was the thought. He didn't go out outside, but in our back unfinished sunporch, with cement floors, which was still pretty darn cold. Joey stepped outside, and although I am sure the floors were shockingly cold judging by the fact that he was standing on his tip toes, he was not going to admit to us that it was cold. So he walked around, and seemed to be playing as he looked at us like, see I can play out here, its not too cold, and even if it is, I am not going to admit it to you two fools watching me from the doorwall. Josh says its the fires from hell keeping him warm........a terrible thing to say about your 18 month old, but Joey was pretty content playing outside in the cold.

Joey tries to be a big helper, in fact, Daddy recently put the ladder up against the house so he could retrieve a Frisbee off the roof so the boys could continue playing. The ladder was on the back of the house, and the Frisbee was at the front of the house. Josh walked up front to get the Frisbee and as he went to go down the ladder, who was standing on the roof but little Joey. Josh's heart sank to his toes and time seemed to stand still. He thought a million things as he walked towards Joey........of course you dont want him to take off, or panic, or anything.

Well, Joey is 2 today, and I am so proud of everything about him. He really favors his Uncle Aaron in a lot of ways, he looks different than both brothers and Madison. They all seem to resemble each other, but Joey sort of has his own look. He has light strawberry blonde hair, big beautiful blue eyes, and the best smile in the world. I love him so much..........