When I made the head and slid it in place, it was somehow “auto-connected” to the body again. I did not need to use the “join” command. I cheked in object mode and I checked in edit mode but they both treated everything as one mesh. This is the second time this happens and I’m not sure why.
You must have imported the sphere in the edit mode. So if you don’t want it to be one object, then exit the edit mode and import any object in the scene to treat that as a separate mesh. Hope this helped you
Yes, thank you! 
That helped me a lot. I didn’t actually realize that difference between adding in object- and edit modes. Now I understand.
You are welcome Dustmote 