J is for Joshua

I decided to pick up the ABC along again.



Joshua is "the monkey". He's my 12 year old step-son. He lives with us full time, and has done so since he and his dad moved in with me 7 years ago. His mother lived in New Orleans until Katrina and now she and pretty much the rest of her family live in Metropolitan Houston. Just to show how "full time" full time is, the last time he saw his mom was for spring break of 5th grade (March 2005).

Josh is a nice kid. He started 7th grade already. 7th grade. He's a Boy Scout. He's got his Tenderfoot rank and is one achievement away from Second Class. And then he'll be about 4 achievements away from First Class. He's thoughtful and smart. When he commuted with me most of the way to work to go to extended day over school breaks, he would always ask good questions about why things were happening as we were listening to NPR.

The things that he does to drive us crazy are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Mostly organizational stuff, time management, things of that nature. Hopefully, things that we can help him learn to handle in our efforts to help him grow up to be big and strong.

Now to figure out what K is for. Knit? Kite? I'll tell you what. K is not for Cathy.