El Dieciséis de Septiembre

So I do realize that we are not yet in September, however this was Joaquin's Independence Day. (Well actually Thursday was) Whilst I am obviously biased in favor of my wonderful son and his amazingness, I will be the first to say that he is not mature for his age. His focusing abilities are not stellar, even for a child of three and he has never been one to try and push the boundaries of what he can do. For example, the child stays in his big boy bed until we get him out, and has since he first got it at age two. However, recently Joaquin has been branching out as far as physical experimentation goes. I've been encouraging that since I want him to be a little less sadly klutzy than my family. But Thursday was a little scary since he decided to be independent in all sorts of ways. We came home close to lunch time and I was in my room trying to fold some clothes before feeding him and he decided I was taking too long. He went to the fridge, pulled out a tupperware of Spaghettios (I refuse to apologize for feeding him Spaghettios - love 'em myself) and then pulled a chair over to the counter. I was only alerted to his actions when I heard the microwave door open and then close. There was a beep and then he was apparently stymied. I went in to 'help' him. Apparently he had opened the fridge, saw the Spaghettios and decided they would make a good lunch. Not sure whether to punish him or reward him, I simply told him that he should ask me for help next time and zapped the Spaghettios. Then at naptime he talked to himself for two hours and at two hours (almost to the dot) he said, "Mommy I awake" and came out of his room to find me. Hmmm.... I also didn't get mad at this, b/c technically if he hasn't fallen asleep after two hours he's free and I go get him. But how he knew time was up I'll never know. Lucky guess? That evening we went to Home Depot looking for a new kitchen faucet. While Daniel and I were discussing, he went around a corner and then disappeared. We quickly split up and ran up and down aisles calling him name in urgent tones. Daniel found him and when I picked him up to kiss him and yell at him he told me, "I was just looking." Cause that makes me feel better! Not sure about this sudden big boy behavior, we'll see where it breaks out next.