EseaWorld

Then we drove to San Diego (amazingly enough passing through L.A. without any major traffic or stopping. I don't know if we just picked the perfect time or if bad economy and job loss has resulted in less traffic.) to spend a few days at Daniel's Aunt Beatriz' house. We had a fun time hanging out with her and utilizing the pool that was associated with her community. She gave us some great Spanish books for Joaquin, including 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' in Spanish. (La Oruga Hambrieta in case you were wondering.) We also got to catch a late dinner with Daniel's cousin Philippe, who was a real hit with Joaquin as you can see. I think he actually remembered him from Philippe's visit to us a year or so ago(?), so he enjoyed playing with him again. Our more photographed event in San Diego was SeaWorld. It was relatively warm the day we went and Joaquin was somewhat spoiled from our sojourn in northern California. All that to say that when we sat down to see the Shamu show, Joaquin was feeling hot and grumpy. He kept whining about the sun in his eyes (even after I gave him my sunglasses) and how hot he was. I promised him ice cream after the show and then he kept whining about how he wanted ice cream. We kept pointing out the amazing miracle of a giant whale leaping feet into the air and spinning around on a wet platform. He was much more interested in the heat. After the show, feeling like the parents of the most blase child in the world, we went and purchased ice cream in the shape of Shamu and a Shamu hat for our little sourpuss. (We were right by the Shamu arena, everything was Shamu.) And apparently this was all he needed. After finishing his ice cream he started giving me demos of how Shamu jumped, crouching down on the ground and leaping up into the air. Apparently he was watching? The fun continued after that with sharks and dolphins. Joaquin had a great time with a splash pad in the children's playground area. Apparently if you can't get wet enough by the Shamu method this is for you. He was absolutely drenched and Daniel rang out his clothes when he was finished playing to help him dry. This left him looking like a small gangster child, wearing clothes several times too big. Fortunately, he looked perfect for the small children area (nowadays he often looks too big for these areas. Age-wise and ability-wise he still enjoys them, but he's on the tall side and built like a tank so other mothers tend to glare at me, thinking I'm foisting a 5 year old in amongst their darlings.) They had a bouncy floor and foam blocks in varied colors to build with. Joaquin enjoyed the concept, but was annoyed by the many small children who did not understand sharing or building. They kept knocking down his creations and his mean Mommy wouldn't let him yell at them. Imagine! Unfortunately he was still too damp to play on the big kid play area so when naptime rolled around we headed for home. This made him so sad that we bought him a stuffed Shamu which he loves devotedly and has now replaced all his kitties and puppies as a bedmate. "No Mommy, just Shamu." This last picture is a cute one from the next day. We attempted to spend another morning at Sea World before heading to L.A. to see my grandfather, but Matthew called that morning to inform us that he had died. Joaquin was 'reading' the map to figure out the days activities, but we ended up giving him a little time on the play area and then heading off to L.A. to be with my step-grandma Evelyn. So there are still parts of Sea World we haven't conquered, but Shamu has definitely conquered Joaquin's heart. Even if he thinks he's a dolphin.

La Playa a la Mandalay Bay

We left Monterey and wondered leisurely down California towards San Diego, stopping overnight at a fancy resort hotel in Mandalay Bay. We regretted leaving our friends, but it ended it up being a good thing since it was really our only relaxed, unstructured, solo family time before everything got crazy with my Grandfather's death. We even got a suite so Joaquin was in a different room! This is such a luxury on a vacation nowadays, not something I realized before having kids. How did my parents not kill us? Anyway, we spent a late evening swimming in their heated pool. This is Joaquin in his new poncho, made and designed by Mommy. Or as I like to call this picture, "My son the emperor". It does have a very Star Wars vibe, doesn't it? After a lovely, child-free night of sleep, we spent an early morning playing on the beach. It was a rocky beach that came with a somewhat disturbing notice from the hotel. It asked all beach-wanderers to please clean the tar from their shoes before re-entering the hotel grounds. I had a brief second of thinking, "But we're on a completely different coast from the spill!" before realizing that these were natural tar balls. (And you thought the governor of Mississippi was full of crap, apparently there are such things!) Somewhat disconcerted by this, but undeterred, we headed out. Turns out the tar was in abeyance that morning so we only saw some chocolate-moussey looking patches in the water, but never had to deal with it directly. Joaquin (still in his fear of waves mode) immediately set about to playing with the sand. This is his 'sunset' to quote the master himself. We also made a sand castle, a la Max and Ruby. What would do without that show - it makes Joaquin excited to try so many things. As we decorated with a feather flag and a stick drawbridge, Joaquin poked his finger in to make windows. He explained to me that the windows up high were for the "princess to see out", but that this one he made down low was for little kids to use. Isn't that adorable? Daddy and Mommy also had fun collecting pretty rocks and rumbled glass from the beach. We came home with a bunch of really gorgeous rocks (they're even pretty when not wet, although incredible when they are), some mussel shell pieces, and pieces of glass all tumbled to smoothness. Joaquin got in on this fun after awhile and picked up a cool flat rock that he used as a plate for awhile. Then he came up to me all excited about his mushroom-shaped rock (picture) but turns out it was just a piece of plastic. Oh well. Notice Joaquin's shirt. Without realizing it, this was the perfect day to wear it, as Mexico was playing France. Mexico won, woo-hoo, but Joaquin hasn't really worn his shirt since (laundry reasons) so we're sorry for your losses Mexico. After all this fun scrambling around we decided to gather all our rocks and head on back to our room. Our plans were stymied by a bean-bag game set up on the hotel lawn. Like many small children, Joaquin can't resist a bean-bag, so we spent some time throwing and some just dropping the bean-bags into the designated holes. We even played with a father and his son Diego. (As you can imagine they loved that Joaquin's name was Joaquin.) Then Joaquin decided to play a new game where he tried to stick his head through the hole. After quite a while of this particular antic, Mommy got bored and we left for San Diego.

El Acuario de Monterey

If you ever go to Monterey California, visit the aquarium. It's totally worth it. Admittedly our experience was colored by being with friends and watching three small children have a great time, but it was really fun. The price tag is steep, but this is true of basically any attraction in California and at least with this one I feel like I'm helping the cause of educating people about marine life. It was a very kid friendly atmosphere as well. My favorite addition was this one (picture on left) where a little low hole was cut in to the wall and a window added so kids could look at the tank without any competition from adults. We had to see the hammerheads for G (totally with him there, they are cool and the tank was enormous! It included these whole schools of mackerel and I love watching schools of fish. It's so uncanny how they can move with such precision and grace in uniformity. Like herd movement on steroids! As a former marching band member I can tell you that is not easy!) and the octopus for M (also enjoyed that, okay I'm a bio nerd, I enjoyed everything.). Of course for Joaquin we went and saw jellyfish. He has an absolute obsession with jellyfish that I don't understand. I mean sure they're cool, but they're insanely dumb. They have literally no brain, just a neural net. Any plot line involving them has absolutely no conscious activity on their part. Talk about boring. Anyway, check the video at the end of the blog for Joaquin's reaction to the jellyfish. He's like this at ABQ's aquarium too, everytime! But the highlight for me was an amazingly comprehensive exhibit on seahorses and their close relatives (i.e. pipefish, and water dragons - you totally don't care, do you?). Sea horses have been my favorite since a small child and this many of them to watch was super, and extremely dorkily, exciting. I actually ditched everyone for awhile and was totally transported. Joaquin enjoyed the seahorses too, including this bizarro sculpture that someone felt was not complete with a small metal seahorse being birthed. Joaquin is covering it with his hand b/c he thought it was so interesting, but it was distinctly obscene looking. I mean how many statues of anything giving birth are there? And there's a reason for that. This last picture is a family picture taken while Joaquin was in a snit. Hence the refusal to face the camera. Daniel and I look nice though. Joaquin had been getting more and more fragile through our visit (due to the time difference it was really his naptime, to be fair). Daniel and he stayed behind to look at an exhibit that had little trapdoors that you could open to reveal bits of information. Joaquin was playing with these, and didn't want to share when some other children came by, demonstrating this by almost slamming one down on a little girl's fingers. So Daddy of course stepped in and put Joaquin in a corner. Unfortunately it was a corner decorated with cedar planking and this did not meet with Joaquin's approval. He said, in a despairing and tear-filled voice, "This is not a good corner. It hasn't been sanded, I could get a splinter, this is a bad corner." Etc, etc, until released. (This is the best story ever, b/c even if someone has never met Joaquin this would tell them basically all they need to know about his personality.) Then he proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes or so talking about what a bad boy he was and refusing all activities that looked like fun. Sometimes he punishes himself way better than we ever could. Despite that, he really enjoyed the aquarium, talking about it enthusiastically later. And I loved it!

Los Davises

Our California vacation started delightfully with a visit to our friends the Davises in Monterey. Now Monterey is cold which gave us an excuse to wear our jeans again. (Yeah! Not a fan of most warm weather clothes.) Joaquin had a fabulous time playing with the kids and they pulled the sweet child behavior of playing together in another room without bothering us for a significant amount of time! I feel this deserves like eight exclamation marks. How often does this happen at this age? They disappeared into the kids' room frequently and only came out for dispute regulation. We had a great day with them going to the Monterey aquarium (which I'll give it's own entry) and some fun at the beach. Joaquin actually had kind of a traumatic episode our first night there. He got caught in an unexpectedly large wave which knocked him off his feet and rolled him over a few times. When Daniel went to pick him up he said, "Daddy, you saved me." in a heartfelt voice. Poor baby, he was actually a little skittish near the ocean for the rest of the trip, so we made sure we had several more happy beach days to counteract the experience. Fortunately our beach day with his friends was great and our time with them was one giant play date for Joaquin. Here he is playing in their tunnels, yeah! Amazingly enough you can hook those tunnels together for a super long tunnel experience. Even more amazingly Daniel can make it through that tunnel. I was kind of impressed with his wiggling abilities. Here's also a picture of Joaquin digging a hole with M at the beach. She let him participate, albeit somewhat grudgingly, despite his proclivity for knocking half of the sand back in. She's a pretty impressive little digger though, that hole made it deep enough to start bringing up wet sand of an interesting color. Daniel and her mother were convinced we were at the beginning of a CSI episode, and further digging would uncover something for the children to talk about to their therapists for the rest of their childhood. Happily that proved not to be the case, but I'm still not sure what made the sand that color.... This final picture is Joaquin in beachcomber mode. Since Monterey was so cool, we had to wear jeans and sweaters to the beach. Personally I

prefer this since the Pacific is too cold for serious swimming even when it's hot outside. On the L.A. beaches you end up freezing if you swim and broiling when you sunbathe. At least this way we were comfortable out of the water. I wouldn't touch the Monterey water with anything less than a full wet-suit but we did see some optimistic young things wearing bikinis and 'sun'-bathing. Joaquin was very charming in his poncho and rolled-up trousers. He looked like a tiny version of a New England preppy wandering along Cape Cod. We also were extremely brave and took all three children out to eat at an Indian restaurant. This was really some fun for the adults that we had to bring the children along to. I really only feel comfortable doing this with other families b/c then there are at least some people at the restaurant who don't hate you. So we had a good time with our friends and Joaquin ate basically his body weight in rice. (He really loves rice, more so than pasta. Poor child, how he ended up with the Pasta Queen for a mother I'll never know.) We miss you Davises, thanks for your hospitality and all the fun.

El Dia de Exhibicíon

Recently Joaquin had his semester award ceremony for Little Gym. This was actually a bigger deal than normal since this is his first class without Mommy and he was supposed to be learning 'routines' that he would perform mostly by himself. Which may not seem like a big deal to you, but was a big deal to me. Especially since Joaquin is by far the squirrelist kid in his class. He is frequently just running around when he's supposed to be doing something specific. The teacher's still like him since he's cute and not nasty, but sometimes it tries Mommy's patience to watch. We made a big deal of it,

Daddy, Grandma and Uncle Matty came. When I told Joaquin they were all coming he asked, "And Uncle Bryan?" So I called Uncle Bryan to tell him how loved he was and

he decided as a former gymnast to come and observe. So Joaquin was, by far, the most popular kid in the room. He celebrated this by running around like crazy while he was supposed to be practicing skills with the foam noodles. He never participates well in this particular activity and an audience had no appreciable effect on him. He will often attempt the skill after the other kids have done it and the class has moved on to something else. I suspect he's asserting his independence in some way. "Look, I can do it, but I'll do it on my own schedule, thank you." He was a little crazy when they started the individual routines, but then did a surprisingly adorable little routine on the balance beam. The teachers are really good (he absolutely loved both Mr. Isaac and Mrs. Katy), and they have little stories for their little routine. On the balance beam they're caterpillars that turn into butterflies and then fly off the end. They have to bend down, walk, turn, stand on one leg, etc. Joaquin did most of it with only minimal hand support and he knew exactly what he was supposed to do. I was totally impressed but then he felt he'd been cooperative enough and refused to come over and participate in the floor routine. While we clapped and watched the other children, he played on some of the equipment. Finally when Isaac begged him to come over he deigned to come and did a perfectly fabulous little floor routine. Matthew kept saying, "Is he some kind of secret genius?" It certainly felt like he was just manipulating it so every eye would be on him and we would have to beg him. Sigh. On a up note, he had a great time with us in there, kept showing us things he could do. One of my favorite pictures if one where he's popping out from behind a mat with the other children to 'surprise' Mrs. Katy. Since they do this every week, I don't think it's really a surprise, but his expression is so delighted that the picture is fabulous. We finished with a celebratory lunch at McDonald's. Notice Joaquin's cool Shrek watch. Even Aunty Boo-boo swung by since she was done with school. In fact, Joaquin was able to coerce both her and Uncle Bryan into coming down the slide with him. I think he is some kind of secret genius!

En la Oficina de el Óptico

I tried out a new optometrist and Joaquin of course came with me. (I never realized what a big expedition any doctor appointment was until I had children. How did my mother ever get new glasses or maintain her dental health without going nuts?) He was actually pretty good, even during those tests where I had to focus on a machine so I basically couldn't parent him at all. He kept asking the lady what the machines did. Fortunately she thought he was amusing rather than annoying so it worked it. But the highlight of the trip (besides a new, good prescription) was the fishtank! Not only was it a nice fish tank, you could run around to the other side and one of the fish would follow you. Joaquin proved this theory multiple times, which was great since it kept him occupied while I was paying the bill.

La Regadera

So this post will just have a whole mess of pictures at the bottom b/c I have so many of this day that it's too much work to organize them. After the park we went over to see Rachel and Jonah (yeah for having them in town) and had a ridiculously fun day. The boys were relatively cute playing together inside although this peaceful puzzle moment did get slightly heated. Let's just say that Jonah's approach to puzzles, especially those he's familiar with is very conventional and Joaquin's is more avant garde. Much more. However after awhile we went out to the backyard and ran through the sprinkler. This was Joaquin's introduction to this particular childhood classic and he loved it! He and Jonah ran through it for over an hour and kept coming up with new variations. The favorite was putting a leaf in the spinning sprinkler to see what would happen. I took maybe a million pictures b/c they were so cute and having so much fun. They even got very brave and would sort of jump over the sprinkler itself. Afterward they swung in the hammock and were very charming and silly. It was a completely wonderful afternoon and looking at these pictures is making me so depressed that they are back in Florida!!!

El Aventurero

Joaquin is getting a little more adventurous. These pictures are from a recent Tuesday in the park. First he found what he called a 'tree hook' which was essentially a fallen branch that had a semi-hook shape. He kept using this to 'hook' the tree. I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish, but it was definitely entertaining enough for mommy to capture with a picture. Then he got really adventurous and climb the bear. Typical of summer in ABQ there was a daycare at the park (I kind of think this is cruelty to kids. Summers here can be HOT! We don't even go to the parks that often on hot days.) So there were plenty of other kids climbing on this bear statue, which is where he got the idea. Still for Joaquin to attempt a climbing project of this magnitude and then stick to it without any help from mommy is quite rare. He called me over once he had made it halfway up and then managed to pull himself up until his stomach was resting on the bear's head and his feet were dangling down her back. At this point he gave up and mommy had to rescue him, but I think it was a step in the right direction. Yeah for my newly intrepid Joaquin.

Regalos de la Boda

Eventually the play ran (very well, thank you for asking) and Auntie Boo-boo and Uncle Bryan returned from their honeymoon. We went over on Monday night to help them open an absolutely obscene pile of presents. (I miss getting married, now I have a kid already and the last of the large gift-giving events has ended for me, sigh. Honestly that's much more depressing than my impending thirtieth birthday.) Joaquin was allowed to actually help with the presents, here you can see he is finding a new use for their new salad tongs. He also got to play

with bubble wrap and 'help' Uncle Bryan unwrap. (By which I mean Uncle Bryan is already savvy enough to let Joaquin unwrap a few of the presents.) It's good to have them back!

Juguetes Viejos

We also spent much of our mornings redisovering Joaquin's toys. We took out some paints and markers that haven't seen the light of day in months. It was great. My favorite was this new machine of Joaquin's. He pulled out his tinker toys and wanted to make a machine that would make the yellow wheel spin. He tried wrapping the purple wires around it - not sure what was supposed to happen - and was audibly upset when I couldn't make that work. He threw such a fit that I told him to play with another toy for awhile and left him to it. (When I can't make something work the way he wants, he tends to get very mad at me. I usually tell him not to yell at me and then walk away since I'm trying to teach to be NICE to playmates.) After a little while he came to find me and made me come see his new machine. He had attached one of the wires to this contraption while the other end was stuck in a hole on the underside of his remote-control car. When he spun his car in a circle, the whole contraption spun with it and this friction against the carpet caused the wheel to spin as well. Victory! I have no clue how he came up with this solution, but I was very impressed and amused.