What I Didn't Know

It has only been four years, but it feels like a lifetime.  Actually, it is a lifetime - yours, Josiah!  When you were born (Grandboys = 4, Grandgirlies = 0), I knew immediately that I loved you with my whole heart, yet oddly not diminishing in the least my love for your cousins and brother.  Love is a funny stretchy thing that way.  I was happy to be stretched!  Oh, how you have continued my education over your lifetime!

Maybe I should have suspected that you would follow your older brother around like the Pied Piper.  What is the point of older brothers if not to emulate them?  But how could I possibly foresee how you can grab onto one of his antics and take it to a whole new Josiah-level?  Anything Aidan can do, Josiah can do sillier.

Being the "older and wiser" between the two of us, I didn't know I was no match for "Josiah stubborn."  I didn't know that in a test of wills, I would always be the one to first cry "uncle" or some other such relative.  I had hoped, but really didn't think, that logic would be a deciding factor in such cases. Logic has no relevance when you lock into pure, unadulterated "you can't make me."  Thank you for your "gentile" guidance on how to compromise effectively when we are at odds.  First, seek to head off the loggerhead with humor if at all possible - it allows both of us a graceful exit.  Secondly, I will state my case firmly but eloquently to your defiant body language.  Third, I'm still bigger and stronger, and I know how to direct you to your bedroom.  Sixty to 120 seconds later, I will love you up in an effort at reconciliation.  And finally, I will allow you to decide the exact timing of the return to "situation normal," confident that our final destination will be marked with hugs and kisses.  Once again, love shows its stretchability as it covers all manner of divergent opinions.

No, you can't make me
pick up the shoe I just threw
across the room.

I think my favorite Josiah-discovery over your lifetime is your laugh.  Just when I'm about to caution you and your brothers against the slippery slope of too much silliness, you start with the belly laugh!  And it's all over!  All of us go slipping, sliding, giggling down the hill.  I know it may not end well, laughter too often ending in tears, but I cannot keep a straight face long enough to insist upon the needed decorum.

Happy brithday, Josiah!  I can't wait to see what you will teach me over the next years!  I love you bunches!