You know, no big whoop.

Joe’s teachers were excited to report last week that he seems completely enthralled with Irish music. They were doing St. Paddy’s-related art projects and stories last week, and they put on some traditional Irish music for fun. He would hear it start from across the room, break into a big smile, and start bouncing gleefully to it.

Around this same time, he seemed to develop a new mischievous streak.

He digs through our change jar, smears his greasy hands all over our bedroom mirror, and tries to topple every plant in the dining room.

He crawls into the bathroom when I’m showering, and flings the shower curtain around until he and the whole room are both soaked.

He also gets the screen door halfway open, and would no doubt be headed down the sidewalk if the squeak of the door didn’t give him away.

We are so proud of this little troublemaker!

Without a whole lot of room to maneuver here when it’s cold out, Joe has been using his gait trainer exclusively at school. But one day last week, it came home with him — the teacher said he wasn’t using it much there anymore.

I put him in it on the sidewalk, like old times, and he shrugged it off. He seems now to prefer slow, independent steps to quick, assisted ones.

Now he’s started shrugging me off when I hold his hand. Here he is in the waiting room at the therapy center. Places to go!

(P.S. I’ve watched this video at least a dozen times since shooting it a few hours ago. I just can’t believe how far he’s come.)

THIS JUST IN: We may have heard a first word.

We haven’t had any luck with getting him to repeat it at home, but he said it to the speech therapist yesterday. Three times, and always when she had stopped singing. Can you guess what it was?

We will keep trying to lure it out of him at home, or at least get it on video next time he sees the speech therapist. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, he is really perfecting his “Happy and You Know It” routine. Check him out:

2009

2010

2011

2012

Joe’s teacher said last week that they are moving him to a strap chair. This sounds like bad news at first, but it’s because he has figured out how to scoot his chair away from the table, stand up and wander away.

Ha!

Not exactly at lightning speed, mind you, but it’s not conducive to learning or finishing his lunch. So now he will be safely strapped in at the table, just like his more mobile buddies.

Also happening at school:

And he celebrated George Washington’s birthday by beating him half to death:

At age 3, Joe is wearing the same frames we got him when he was just 6 months old. They’ve been adjusted a time or two to fit his growing noggin, but never replaced. That’s kind of miraculous, especially since they aren’t the super-indestructible kind that we first looked at.

Because those frames were made for baby faces, and he’s got a growing little-boy nose to accommodate, it’s time for new frames. We went and tried two pairs:

Fisher Price, “Blast Off”

Fisher Price, “Cotton Candy”

We went with the second pair, which (except for the size and the nose pads) is pretty much the same as what he has.

Hey, if it ain’t broke …

Thanks to the blogosphere (and Facebookosphere?) I’ve gotten to know some other parents of children with “mystery syndromes” like Joe’s. We’re all trying to figure out what to expect, and how to introduce our kids to the world when there isn’t a two-word explanation for their differences.

One of these mamas is Dana at Uncommon Sense. Her daughter, Maya, was born a few weeks before Joe and has a lot of the same delays as him. Maya’s parents have been through a lot of the same specialist visits that we have, and also came home with more questions than answers.

Now, they’ve signed Maya up for a genome-mapping program. This video tells a little more about their participation, and this article explains the variety of questions that can be answered with genome mapping.

It’s fascinating stuff, even if you don’t have a little one who could be affected! I’ll be following their story for sure.

Patrick had some fun with one of the photos from my last post, adding Joe to this shot from the recording of the world’s worst Christmas song.

I like how Simon LeBon looks sort of annoyed with him.