Letres

As I blogged previously, we've been working on the letters in Joaquin's name. He can remember what letters are in his name, most of the time (or at least most of the letters, most of the time) and can even write a J. So I got the idea from a little tracing pad that Dora sent us to have him start tracing the letters in his name. I write Joaquin in a light-hued crayon and he traces over it in a darker hue. I have to write the letters fairly large, but he's pretty good at tracing them. (He even managed to trace 'Grandpa' for grandpa's birthday card.) This picture shows his tracing as well as him attempting to write the letters on his own. He doesn't get the idea of writing them in a line or in order yet, but some of them are quite recognizable letters. Check out that fabulous N!

El Piano

We spent Saturday helping make the set for the High School drama. (Heather's directing it, so it's all Naegelis/Headleys to the grindstone.) Then we finished up the day with dinner at Grandma & Grandpa-pa's house celebrating Grandpa-pa's 62nd birthday. Red Velvet cake and candles, yea! During the evening we started talking about the strings in pianos (I don't know why, we're weird) and this inspired Joaquin to take a look at the piano's insides. Since Uncle Brian has been fixing up an old piano and teaching himself to tune pianos he was an excellent source of answers for our little "what it do?". You can see in this picture how Joaquin is attempting to stretch and play a note while watching the hammer hit the string. (His arms were just barely sort of long enough.) He couldn't help but touch the hammers despite getting in trouble for it. I know how he feels though, they always look so soft and fluffy.

El Hombre de Nieve

Albuquerque's had two snowfalls recently (weird I know!) and so we took advantage of one of them to go play. The park by my parents had snow and plenty of room to roam. Since Joaquin is an expert trained by watching 'Max & Ruby' (does this blog get repetative or what?), we made a snowman by carefully rolling balls of snow. As a former adherent of the clump method for making snowmen, I was impressed that it actually worked. We found sticks, bark and a pine cone to make the features for our snowman. (It had to be a pine cone for the nose, Joaquin was very insistent.) As cute as he looked, I was getting quite attached to him, but Joaquin had other plans. Recently he's been a fan of melting ice. Apparently Grandpa or Grandma showed him that if you drop ice in the sink and then pour water on it, it melts! He'll even tell you how it melts faster if you pour hot water on it. He loves to repeat this 'experiment' at their house. Since the park has a shallow arroyo that was flowing with snowmelt, we made another version of the experiment by throwing snowballs in and watching them melt. Joaquin loved it and was soon entraced by the idea that larger snowballs took longer to melt. He ran back to our snowman and decapitated him, carrying the head back to throw in the arroyo. This was so much fun that he repeated the process with his torso. Daniel and I thought it seemed a little murderous, but what do we know? Still, large as they were, those snowballs did melt eventually. (Especially since they lost most of their mass in the retrieval process. Joaquin would just pick up the biggest piece and keep coming.) So he and Daddy hatched an idea. They rolled the bottom of our snowman towards the arroyo, actually increasing it's size considerably on it's way to destruction. After pushing it in, we admired it's beautiful modern art-esque qualities and, getting bored with it's seeming indestructibility, went home for cocoa.

La Hora de Dormir - Mas o Menos

So Joaquin's never been all that good at following directions. So it's no surprise that bedtime is obeyed on his own terms. While he stays in his bed and eventually falls asleep, most nights he's up til ten chatting to his animals and singing. ('Video' following) I can't say I mind, Mommy gets a break and the late hours means he still takes a decent nap.

Durmiente

We've learned one encouraging thing and one discouraging thing lately. As this picture shows, he apparently still needs his afternoon nap! It didn't happen on this day (long and ugly story that I don't want to repeat!) and while Daniel and I were engaging in post-dinner conversation Joaquin got very quiet. When we looked over his head was swaying and his eyes were closed. We were barely in time to catch his head and lower it gently.

However, the disappointment is this, despite an obsession with water and soap, he doesn't do dishes!

Burbujas

Matthew gave Joaquin a giant bubble wand for Christmas. Joaquin couldn't wait for warm weather to try it out and I couldn't stomach that much bubble fluid being spilled in my house. So we braved the chilly weather and bubbled anyway. (There has got to be a better way to make that a verb!) The bubbles were tiny if you blew on the ginormous bubble wand, but pretty big (as bubbles go) if you swung it. So Mommy made bubbles and Joaquin tried to catch them in the trash can.

After we got too cold we went and helped Daddy tile some planters we're making. (I'm only mentioning this b/c I'm super proud of them. Aren't they gorgeous?) Joaquin helped by handing tile and making intelligent sounding comments. "Mommy, you have to make the lines then you squish the tiles", etc.

Mi nombre

Joaquin and I have a new game; typing on the computer. I open up Word, put the font to 48+ and let him type away. I show him how the key he types appears on the screen. (This was pretty instinctive for him since I've been trying to get him used to mouse use for awhile. I'm not really succeeding, but he knows that the arrow on the screen is the 'mouse'. It's really funny b/c frequently he'll point to an arrow on a sign and say, "Mommy, what does that mouse say?".) While he enjoys making rows and rows of semi-colons (and his pronunciation of that is wildly entertaining), we've also been reviewing letters and typing his name. He now likes to tell me his middle name is Ignacio Headley, just like Daddy's. We know because we typed out his full name and Daddy's full name and the last parts look exactly the same! (He can write a fairly recognizable J, so we're well on our way to writing our own name. Really important since many Sunday School/Swimming Lesson/VBS teachers can't spell it right!) Anyway, to supplement this new interest in the letters of his name, we also put up some pictures of objects that look like the letters in his name. Sal & Erika gave them to us, and you can totally see the letters. Even Joaquin recognized several of them before I told him what they were. Plus, Chelsey gave him a cute little sign with his name in fancy calligraphy/pictures, so his room now has 3 large copies of his name. This all bore fruit the other night when he came up to me with his favorite little black hose and held it up in a U shape and said, "Mommy, what letter is this?". When I guessed correctly he made an O, an I and then a J. Of course I got out my camera and took pictures so he came up with a Q as well. He just made an O and stuck his little finger out for the tail. Daddy took charge and helped him come up with A and N. He thought it was the coolest thing!

El Gimnasio Pequeño, parte dos

Last week was the end of the semester at Little Gym. For the last few weeks, they always try to have the parents sit for a little while the kids do some of the activities alone. (If with the teachers is alone.) So this is Joaquin playing with their giant parachute supervised only by the teachers. Turns out getting Joaquin to participate can sometimes be tricky. It's kind of fun to watch someone else deal with that other than me! But Joaquin loves the parachute so he was very willing to play this game. Then we showed Daddy a few of our tricks and posed with our metal on the 'podium'. Olympics here we come! Just Kidding! I have no athletic greatness aspirations for Joaquin, but they are totally trying to evoke that image with these little 'graduations'. The exciting/scary part about this is that with the start of the new semester Joaquin is now old enough to attend Little Gym BY HIMSELF! (That's in all caps b/c if you could hear me saying it, it's almost a yell.) I was both relieved, since his participation was waning with only Mommy's appreciation, and scared.

Today was his first class solo. Normally he's supposed to be in a class with only 3 and 4's, but because I'm a horrible mommy and missed yesterday's class, we went today to a combined class. Combined means there were also some 4 and 5s in the group. Joaquin was obviously the only kid there straight from Mommy & Me class. They had to keep hauling him back to the group. However, it was kind of a good thing. By the end of class he was getting much better about taking turns and doing what everyone else was doing. Plus, watching the big kids made him try several things he's always refused to try for me. I'm kind of tempted to leave him in this class for a few weeks and see if the inspiration keeps helping him, what do you guys think? (I'm serious here, could totally use input.) Either way I'm very excited that we're finally to the stage of learning structure! Both here and in Sunday School schedules are being emphasized and focusing on group activities is a major skill to learn. While I'm sure it's possible, it's something I'm finding hard to teach him myself. Go Joaquin go!

Creatividad

Joaquin's been very creative lately. One Saturday morning he decided to take some pictures. There were many pictures of the ceiling and the floor as well as some finely focused pictures of the drying rack. However he did finally get the hang of it and manage this one of Wiggly all by himself. Good, huh? Once he got a few pictures of Wiggly, he decided he wanted a family picture of all of his puppies and kitties. (That's not how he phrased it, but considering all of his puppies and kitties are mommies, daddies or children, they're a family!) So he and Daddy arranged them in a nice grouping and Joaquin tried to take a picture. This was hampered by the fact that he got a brainstorm and was trying to shine the flashlight on them while also taking the picture and he didn't have enough hands. (I have no idea where he got the idea to add a light, but he's right, photographers are always doing that.) Finally Daddy took over the camera while Joaquin worked the flashlight and we got a few good pics. Then finally, Joaquin had to pose with his animals, so we got a few cute ones there. I was very impressed with his ideas and how specific he was. He definitely knew what pictures he wanted and apparently that photography needs light. Go figure.

He's also become more creative with crafty things. He had a ton of fun with the marker set my grandmother gave him for Christmas. It includes some markers that can be mixed together to temporarily draw in a third color. We got to demonstrate some of the color mixing concepts he learned in his book 'The Color Kittens'. It also included glitter glue pens. Joaquin loves these horrible messy things, and I've had to put them up high so they will only be supervised toys. This is what Joaquin looks like while using these things. Apparently it takes a lot of concentration to make this much of a mess! (By the way, the lines on the paper are apparently snakes.)

My third, and favorite, example of Joaquin creativity, is his new language. Inspired perhaps by knowing some Spanish as well as English, Joaquin has made up his own language. He calls it "Gongi" or something like that. He doesn't tell you he's speaking Gongi, he just says Gongi randomly or asks if you want to hear a Gongi song. A Gongi song is when you take a tune you know and sing it with made-up words. So, in Joaquin's case, you sing 'Jesus Loves Me' or 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star', but the lyrics go something like this, "Gongi, Gongi, Tonki yong, Gongi, Gongi, Tonka lon". Seriously! And impressively I can always figure out what the tune is, and the words actually fit into it. (Of course that's easy to do if you can just make up a word to fit in that rhythm, but he is only three.) He's also relatively consistent and Gongi always has a similar sound, sort of like he's speaking Polynesian. He also thinks it's hysterically funny to use Gongi in regular life and when we don't understand him it's even better!

Pan Tostado de Francia

So we've discovered that basically Joaquin likes anything with syrup! He and Daddy had a good time making french toast Saturday morning. Since Joaquin really enjoys watching people cook, he and Daniel set up an assembly line. Joaquin handed Daddy the toast and helped him soak it in the egg/milk/cinnamon/vanilla mixture (yes Daniel makes GOURMET french toast). Then Daddy worked the hot pan (we're sometimes smart parents). It was very good and Joaquin actually tried some, not his usual m.o. when confronted with new food. He might have tried it b/c Mommy poured syrup on it, hmmm..... what else would that work for? Halfway through our meal Daniel and I cracked up, noticing that Joaquin was copying my technique of swirling a piece of toast through all the syrup smeared on the plate. (Even though his entire piece had syrup poured all over it) Man, I manage to pass on my worst habits to this kid!

Bailando!

So before the Carrolls left we got together and took a bunch of pictures in costume. This is continuing a tradition Daniel and I have started of making a book of a bible story using pictures of us in costume and photoshop. Last year's turned out quite successfully, so we got ambitious and included Kara, Shiloh, Allie, Auntie Boo-boo, Uncle Brian and Uncle Matty in the fun. I would post these pictures but they're all on Kara's camera! We're 'illustrating' the Christmas story, so we pulled out some of Daniel's traditional Ghanaian shirts to adorn our shepards. It looked perfect and also inspired Daniel to attempt to show us the Dagomba dance. (Dagomba is a tribe in Ghana) Daniel also calls this tribe the MC Hammer tribe since their traditional garb for fancy occasions includes these shirts, a floppy hat (not a turban), and Hammer pants! However I've never seen MC attempt this dance!

Día de Reyes

Brace yourselves for some excitement folks, we're basically caught up with blogs. Seriously, this blog actually happened on Epiphany, that is January 6th, and today is only the 8th! I'm back on track and feeling fabulous!

So Joaquin and I decided to celebrate Epiphany/Twelfth Night/Día de Reyes this year. (Which, in case you didn't know, is when the Magi arrived to worship Jesus, according to Catholic tradition.) Well, I decided and Joaquin as my shadow had to join in. We made a Kings' cake or Rosca de Reyes and decorated it the Mexican way (at least according to my research) with a little sugar and dried fruit. So take that all of you folks who hold to the New Orleans' method of green, purple and gold sugar stripes. I wish I had known that the tradition is to keep your Nativity scene up until February and only put the Magi figures out on Epiphany. Isn't that fun? We've already put away most of the Christmas decorations so we had to skip that part of the celebration. Still, we put a pinto bean (to stand for baby Jesus) in the cake and took it to our small group that evening. Daniel actually got the bean in his slice, which is fortunate since it means that now we have to host a Dia de la Candelaria party with tamales, and I'd hate to put that responsibility on our friends from New Jersy! Joaquin refused to eat any cake despite helping make it, instead stealing basically all the dried apricots from the top. Then he discovered a new way to play with his hoodie. He was doing this for quite awhile, so I took some secret photographs. Then we took some dried grass from our friends' yard to put in Joaquin's shoe for the Wise Men's camels. The next morning those nice camels had left Joaquin a present! (Don't worry, I realize he's had a million presents, these were simply a few little sets of Duplos that I bought utilizing some of his Christmas money from Greatpa-pa.) Unfortunately it appears those camels really like tape. Those presents took like five minutes to open!

Adiós Tío Mateo

So first a short story of Joaquin. I forgot to post this story in the Third Christmas blog which is when it happened. While attempting to figure out one of his presents that evening, all the adults crowded around and disagreed about how to put it together. Joaquin waits for a moment and says, "Let's read the instructions". He is so my child, Daniel NEVER reads directions.

Anyway, on Tuesday we had to say a sad goodbye to Uncle Matty as he headed back off to England. Despite the fact that Matthew is one of Joaquin's favorite people, he takes his frequent absences in stride. I think he was too young when Matthew was here all the time and so doesn't really remember it well. To him Uncle Matty is just like Mi-mo, you see him every so often to have fun. Which is really how I saw all my uncles, and how most people see their uncles, but it makes me a little sad. Anyway we had early breakfast/coffee with Uncle Matty at the airport and Joaquin was goofy and charming. He even told us all the steps to making coffee with Daddy, inspired by the coffee grinder at the coffee shop we sat in. A man at a nearby table listened in and then told us we should see about getting him a scholarship from Starbucks. Ha, ha! I got a bunch of really charming pictures since Joaquin snuggled with Matthew most of the time. They even played a game on Matthew's cell phone, which Joaquin participated in and remembered in great detail. (Yesterday he was telling me about how they played a hard game and Uncle Matty died!) In fact, Uncle Matty is so clever he managed to coerce Joaquin into 'accidentally' pushing the buttons to order the game on his phone, thus causing Grandpa to foot a 7 dollar bill. Sure blame on the grandchild, nobody will get mad at him! We miss you Uncle Matty, hope England is treating you well.

¡Próspero Año Nuevo!

Happy Belated New Year's everybody. I'm not embarassed to say Joaquin made it just to midnight. He was in his bed falling asleep in Mommy's arms at 12:00. So really he rang in the new year. We left my parent's party a little early and put him to bed the moment we got home, but really he handled the whole thing pretty well. We got to my parents at about 7:30 and up until 10 he and Allie (And Daddy) were playing happily if loudly. Then we had a moment of crashing. This is Joaquin right about 10 - 10:30. He voluntarily came with a blanket to snuggle on my lap and I was pretty convinced he was going to fall asleep there. Then.... he got a burst of energy and decided to visit everyone. The man under the blanket here is Joaquin's soon-to-be-Uncle Brian. True to form, since he likes all his male relatives way better than his femal ones, Joaquin loves Brian. I don't know how I managed to raise such a sexist, but Joaquin just thinks boys are more fun, I'm only grandfathered in b/c I'm his mother. Anyhow after making Brian hide in the blanket for awhile, he moved on to Dana and Tia Lina. Here he is making them laugh with his nonsense words and goofy antics. Then he managed to convince Tia Lina she should work at playing with him. After Tia Lina's acrobatic arms failed (she is pregnant after all), we moved on to other playmates. Auntie Boo-boo and Chelsea! Chelsea, besides being a friend of the family was Joaquin's Sunday School teacher for awhile and a definite Joaquin fan. Even though she's not a boy, she is a lot of fun and will frequently let Joaquin play with her cell phone! (Not an activity mommy is usually willing to do, so Chelsea is definitely cool!) At this point we managed to wrestle him into pajamas to remind him that bedtime was coming...sometime. He was still perky and valiantly fighting tiredness with goofiness. Once he started getting crabby we caved and brought him home, brushed teeth, read a story and tumbled into bed just at midnight. Of course he was still so peppy that I had to lay down with him to calm him down enough to sleep, so Daniel's and my New Year's Eve kiss was delayed by a few minutes. (Very few, once he calmed down Joaquin crashed!) Still I'm pretty sure I'm spending this year and many more with him, so that's alright. :)

Regalos Favoritos

In this rather insane gift season all the presents were nice (and super generous), but here are a few of Joaquin's favorites. This cool toy came from Aunt Rachel and Jonah! It has a drill, a screw driver, some colored screws and this platform to drill them into. There are also some cards that have pictures on them you can copy (in this instance Daniel was copying the picture, Joaquin doesn't quite get the point yet). Joaquin can play with this for a long time (it makes his fifth toy drill, 4th one that works on batteries. Sigh). Even our neighbor girls love it, they came over with their mom the other day and played with it for about 45 minutes. So good job Rachel!! Thank you, thank you. (Spiffy packaging too, loved the dual wrapping paper.) I bought him a animal hospital set that he enjoys but Geoffpa-pa gets the prize for two really beloved presents. The first were these wooden cars that come apart into pieces and then can be reassembled in a variety of ways. At first Joaquin just kept taking the wheels off and playing with them. (Don't ask me why that was fun, I don't know.) However he and Daddy discovered a way to put most of the pieces of all three cars together and make a limousine! Now it's our favorite. Geoffpa-pa also bought a adopt-a-kitty stuffed animal for Joaquin. This thing is a little freaky in that it's not a cuddly stuffed animal, it's stiff and it breathes and purrs. Seriously, it has a little engine in it that makes part of the body puff up and down and breath. And if you hold it against your ear you can hear it purr. This happens constantly, once you activate it, until the batteries die. Joaquin loves her and, as she's a tabby kitty like Baxter, has named her Mama kitty.

Tercera Navidad

And now we come to our third and final Christmas (I'm sure you're all relieved). We came home from El Paso just in time to see Uncle Matty! We had dinner and opened presents from Grandma/Grandpa, Uncle Matty and Aunty Boo-boo. I'm telling you December is a present every minute for this kid. This beautiful picture is Matthew blowing up a bouncy ball thingy for Joaquin. Sometimes he is so useful to have around! He blew up that entire thing all by himself and in about 2 minutes. Increible! Joaquin behaved remarkably well for a toddler than had been on the road most of the day. Maybe it was getting to see Uncle Matty who is one of his favorite people. He even submitted gracefully to the indignity of having multiple adults try to show him how to play with his new toys. How annoying. I think my favorite present from Uncle Matty (although Joaquin is rather blase about it) is the Airfork One. This is a fork with a plastic airplane body for the handle. The packaging actually calls it, Airfork One. Ha, ha, ha! Gives a whole life to the 'open up for the airplane' skit so many parents perform while trying to get a small child to eat.