Move over, Michael. You’ve got competition!!! This little guy has certainly stolen my heart. He’s my nephew, Joey! This photo was taken this past Christmas, during my family visit.

Since I live five states away from most of my family, I don’t get to see my little Valentine very often. So it’s quite exciting to experience his growth and development in quarterly doses.

Although Joe is three feet tall already, he’s only 20 months old. Apparantly there are some giraffe-genes in the family. Aside from my unusally long neck, I think I missed the boat on the tall genes. But not my brother, Dave. At 6′5, I’d say Joe is taking after his papa.

Last time I saw him, Joey was becoming quite interested in language. If you asked him who he was, he responded, “Doe.” And he kept leading me around the house and asking, “What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?” And then afer I had answered about twenty What’s that questions, he would smile as if to say, “I knew that already. I just wanted to see how long I could make you answer questions.” Yeah, that’s frighteningly a little reminiscent of my brother, Dave, too. Joe is like a little mini-Dave. A Dave/Joe hybrid. A Doe.