Halloween 2010

So this is what he looked like on actual Halloween after daddy gave his pants a Siamese-like fade with some white spray paint. Plus I added his green cape. Very styling, very SkippyJon. He was super-excited about trick or treating so we went around our neighborhood. (Daddy stayed behind to hand out treats and good thing he did, cause we had a bunch of kids come through!) Our neighbors were very generous with candy, but then again Joaquin was generous with compliments. He told our little neighbor girls, "I love your face" (It was painted green) and to another little boy, "I love your hair" (it was also painted green ironically). Who do you think he's copying? The only fly in the ointment was that some people decorate their house really scary on Halloween. How do you explain to a three year old why someone has a fake dismembered person on their front porch? And when did Halloween get quite so gross? It's always been about the scary but the disgustingness seems to be moving up a notch. Honestly. Anyway, once we'd fleeced the neighborhood we drove around to show off our cuteness

to friends. We hit the Sturdys, Jenna & Chelsea's, Aunt Boo-boo and Uncle Bryan's, and finally the grandparents. Maximum compliments and admiration all around. (Plus Play-doh and cookies at Jo's house. She's got the good stuff!) It was a great Halloween, with Joaquin really understanding it this year. He knows everything, the trick or treat, the candy and the obligatory complimenting of other people's costumes.

Halloween a el Little Gym

Woo-hoo for Halloween. We started a little early, with a Halloween party at Little Gym. Here's Joaquin admiring himself after getting his nose and whiskers drawn on. He was SkippyJon Jones, although we left his cape at home, since we didn't know what kind of equipment we'd be climbing on. Here he is showing off his new tail. We purchased this tail and ears and we could find was black. However, despite the discongruity with SkippyJon's siamese coloring, Joaquin didn't want to alter them. I didn't realize how much he was expecting of them until we put his tail on. He stood there a moment, then frowned and said, "How come I can't wave it?". After I stopped laughing I had to explain that it wasn't really his tail and he didn't have any muscles in it with which to wave it. He took this phylisophically and enjoyed waving it around manually. Here's a cute picture to remind you that he really is cute, but the next picture is not. We arrived at Little Gym to find the place completely decorated and little fair type games set up, complete with prizes. Joaquin was very excited about both the games and the prizes (as well as the opportunity to run around un-directed on the big red mat). He ate several little chocolate bars before we started saving his loot for 'tomorrow'. This turned out to be disastrous because his next prize was a set of vampire teeth. Max (of Max & Ruby fame) has several episodes with vampire teeth and so Joaquin is familiar with their function. Once he got them in, he ran around the room, jumping out at us and growling. We

had to scream in feigned horror every time. You may not be aware of this, but vampire teeth and growling can create a lot of drool. And drool from a chocolatey mouth is disgusting at best. Sigh. (Notice also he jettisoned his mask and ears, everything came off eventually.) Anyway, he had a great time.

Pinturando el Globo

We finally painted our balloon! We had a free morning so we decided it was time to finally finish this project. In general, Joaquin has more fun mixing paint into unrecognizable colors than in actually painting, but he did put some color on the balloon. (Some of it was pretty ugly colors from the aforementioned mixing, but he thought they were beautiful.) I also ended up doing some painting after Joaquin demanded I make a rainbow, then a bird, then a ball, and then a hummingbird. But before my dubious painting skill were called into service, I managed to take some cool pictures. I was feeling clever and creative after seeing some beautiful photos a friend had taken of her children. So I tried to get more of Joaquin's face, and less of his profile as he concentrated. (I have many, many, many pictures of the back of his head/profile as he plays) This one turned out very fun, and I like the one where he's sitting back staring at the

balloon as if to figure out the perfect next brushstroke. But by far my favorite was this one. He was stirring some color and as I looked down at him, his eyelashes were just ridiculously long. So I wanted to take a few close pictures of them. This picture turned out blurry in the most perfect way and he looks so angelic. I think I need a copy of it in my pocket for everytime he throws a fit!

La Oficina

We've been moving our office to the living room in order free up our third bedroom. This requires a great deal of re-organizing on my part, not my greatest skill. So I wasn't particularly paying attention to Joaquin as I was going through the drawers. Sometimes this is a dangerous manuever since he can be very quiet when he's investigating something he shouldn't be touching. However in this particular instance it was quite cute. I turned around to see him stealing some post-it notes. As I watched I realized that he had been doing this for some time. He had taken one of my discarded binders and was putting the notes inside. However, to do this he had to punch holes in them. So he had taken the three-hole punch down from the top of the desk and was sticking a corner of each note in to one of the three punches. Then he had remembered how to open the binder rings (we had a very extensive discussion about this the other day when putting some of his school work into the binder I keep for that purpose) and added each note, then closed the rings again. I watched for several minutes, since he's super cute when

preoccupied with a task. Finally he had some trouble with the hole punch and mommy had to step in. Never did figure out exactly what he thought he was doing, but it was sure charming.

Resplandezca el Palo

So this is what it looks like if some gives you a glow stick at the end of Cubbies and you and Daddy turn out all the lights in your room to play with it and with the camera. There were a million more pictures like this, but I only kept the interesting ones. After awhile, they got the flash to work, and we got some pictures you can actually see. What's impressive to me about this is that the picture of Daniel was taken by Joaquin. There were several of these pictures (some with some very weird expressions on Daniel's face), but all of them actually had Daniel relatively centered in them. That's an impressive development in skills. Maybe we should get this kid a camera.

(One of the kid-proof kind of course, this kid can beat up electronics!)

El Solo Niño

Sometimes I feel bad that Joaquin is the only kid in an close extended family. He sees my family all the time and he has the burden of being cute for amusement of a bunch of adults and then trying to get them to entertain him once they all start talking to each other. And it doesn't get any better with Daniel's side. But sometimes it does pay dividends. These particular photos are taken after he managed to get all his aunties and uncles over for a rousing game of hide and seek. I have to say, my siblings and Bryan are pretty dang good hiders. Our house is not big so it requires some creative thinking and they are usually up to the challenge. We take turns being the person who hides with Joaquin since that has it's own challenges. While he'll hide for awhile, it usually degenerates into hiding in his blankets on his bed, which he loudly announces during the countdown. He's decent at seeking though (for a three year old, he usually misses things) and LOVES the moment where you find somebody and you both scream. Fabulous!

La Casita en un árbol

Joaquin has recently discovered the power of imagining what could be and then asking his parents to make it happen. Usually he just tells us he wants to tear down our house and build a new one with stairs. (He's attempting to circumnavigate our argument that we don't have enough money for a big house with stairs). However he does also ask for a tree house. I would be willing to try and make this happen if it weren't for the fact that we really have not suitable trees. Joaquin has been very creative in suggesting trees (especially impressive since we only have one real tree), but no luck. So recently he turned the pillows on my bed into a 'treehouse'. He had to climb onto the bed using my footboard, and then the black, log pillow was 'stairs' to his treehouse and he climbed up those. Ahh the joy of childhood, if you can't have something, simply pretend it!

Los Cubitos de Hielo

These are some plastic ice cubes we have (they're great for cooling cokes since they don't water anything down.) I had washed them in the dishwasher after use and then not yet put them away. Joaquin decided to do it for me. Notice two somewhat scary things. 1. He can reach/open the freezer door. 2. He appears to be somewhat OCD!

Preguntas

At Joaquin's preschool they work on a letter every week (both upper case and lower case, although Joaquin never seems to remember the lower case). This week was I. Joaquin traced the I's and drew one all the while wondering about the igloo picture. If I is for Igloo, what is an Igloo? He asked me about it as soon as we got in the car. I explained that in certain places it's so cold that not many trees grow so the people there make their houses out of ice.

(He probably was wondering what trees had to do with it, in his experience, houses are made out of stucco.) Then he wanted to make an igloo when we got home. We took out our ice cubes and attempted a house. Turns out it's surprisingly hard. For one thing little heart ice cubes don't stack well. For another, they start to melt and become really slippery! We then tried using our plastic ice cubes as a base but it was still only marginally successful. We're left with admiration for Eskimos.

The 'what is that' or 'why' question is a frequent one at our house. I think I can truthfully say that while most toddlers ask questions, Joaquin is a league of his own. By a long shot. I don't know if we unintentionally reinforce it because we answer usually, but I seem to spend much of my day explaining things. It's cute to a point but it occasionally reminds me of my least favorite part of teaching. Where the 45th (literally) kid asks you the exact same question that you just answered for 44 other children, a question which you also answered previously in lecture and then you want to kill them, but pull patience from somewhere inside of you and give them an answer.... yeah that part. I guess I just resent having my conversation hijacked since the person asking questions is essentially controlling the flow of talk and I don't have that many questions to ask Joaquin! Still, he is better than my students in many ways. For example, many ninth graders never seem to be able to use information to extrapolate an answer. They stay at a low level of Bloom's taxonomy only accurately able to answer concrete questions like, "what color is the sky?" etc. Joaquin is already putting information together to come up with new complex questions. Story 1) During a car ride he asks, "Do space shuttles have spark plugs?", he pauses then says, "Well they have a lot of fire so they must have spark plugs". Yeah, turns out spark plugs cause sparks that ignite the air/fuel mixture. Who knew? Joaquin for one, and then he decided that since space shuttles have fire they must have sparks and therefore spark plugs. See, he's miles beyond some of my former students. Story 2) I told Joaquin that electricity and water don't go together (forget why) and it would break electronics, etc. and a day later he asks me about it. After I confirm what I said the day before he asks, "What about water heaters? They have water and electricity." Sheesh, so I explained that the water was in one chamber and the heater was in another, or in insulated wires, etc. Then he says, "The chamber must be thin so that when you use up the hot water you can open it and fill it back up. Then you have to tape it back together." There's definitely a lot of processing going on in there.

Abuelos

Yeah for a random weekend with Mi-mo and Billpa-pa. They came down for Aunty Melissa's wedding shower and stayed with us. I don't think Joaquin got near as much grandparent time as he wanted, but we had a great time. Hurry back guys, we're happy to house you anytime!

Como se dice papier mache en Español?

Inspired by Max & Ruby, Joaquin has been asking to do some papier mache. Fortunately Mommy has done a lot of papier mache while making masks for FCT. I know that there's a great product, basically gauze with powdered papier mache all over it. You cut it in strips, dip in water and put it on. Soooooooooo much

cleaner. In fact, enough cleaner that I was willing to let a two year old play with it. We went to Chick-fil-A to get a balloon (yes it was a great excuse to go to Chick-fil-A) and then went to town making our own hot air balloon. I'll post another picture once we get it all painted, Joaquin wants a rainbow balloon!

La Fiesta de Globos 2010

Yeah for the Balloon Fiesta. You can see we were pretty excited! We went Thursday morning for the special shapes rodeo, just a little on the late side. Turned out to be the perfect morning, it was ridiculously uncrowded. We sailed to the parking lot in a few minutes and then parked close to the entrance. Once we got in, Joaquin and Daddy took off at a run. I don't blame them, the sight of all those balloons on the ground is really enticing. I think it's because we've all become so color sophisticated, nothing is done in bright primary colors, not even children's stuff. Therefore that many bright bold colors together is unusual and intoxicating! Aunty Boo-boo came with us and we had a great time roaming amongst the balloons before getting breakfast burritos, cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. (Sadly I seem to go to all these events mostly for the food.) We also attempted to go to a Balloon Glow having never been to one before. This was spurred by a Balloon Fiesta calender we bought at CostCo, it had a picture of the balloons at night. Joaquin was enchanted and so begged to go. Unfortunately we sat in traffic for a long time and then found it was cancelled. But we were close by in a field when the fireworks show began so we had a lovely view of that. We stopped and watched, Joaquin sitting on a construction barrel. :)

El Micrófono

Joaquin has been doing very well with his fit chart. Lots of new toys have been accumulated. His latest was a microphone. They had these things when I was a kid as well. It's not something that you have to plug in, you simply speak into this plastic toy and it has some kind of weird thing inside that makes your voice reverb. Joaquin loves it! It was very interesting shopping with Joaquin once that was in his possession. He sang every song he knew into it at top voice. I consider myself a commited Christian and I'm not ashamed of it, but I admit that it was slightly embarassing to hang out with him when he was screaming "Jesus Loves the Little Children" into it. Nice message, but gotta be the most politically incorrect words in a children's song I can think of. Here he is demonstrating his prowress with his new toy.

Globos en la Mañana

It's Balloon Fiesta! And this is the view from our front door. Amazing, huh? Joaquin definitely thinks so and as this has been a beautifully balmy Balloon Fiesta we've enjoyed it every morning. Don't you wish you here? Tomorrow we go to the Special Shapes Mass Ascension and then tomorrow evening the Glowdeo. Joaquin insisted that this year he wants to see the balloons at night. Woo-hoo!