El Dentista

Even at four years old I still feel like Joaquin has so few milestones left.  Their first year is so full of new experiences that when they get scarcer it feels a little depressing.  But big boy that he is, Joaquin just had his first dentist visit.  Woo-hoo!  He's come with me several times and sat on my lap during the cleaning.  So the office wasn't a scary place.  And of course they have cool tools and chair that moves up and down, so that helps as well.  Honestly I could tell he was nervous, but he was very good.  The hygenist, Karen (my hygenist from way back, she's been cleaning my teeth since I was a girl) got him to open up by asking him how many teeth he had.  Stymied, Joaquin responded, "As many as I need".  After Karen stopped laughing she asked if she could count them.  She started with the bottom one through ten.  Then moved up to the top and continued eleven through twenty.  When she told Joaquin there were twenty, he said, "Yeah, two tens."  He really likes numbers this one.  He's always making new connections about numbers and adding and the patterns of counting.  And even though we like to teach him things this he does on his own.  Anyway after that he and Karen were good buddies and he let her clean his teeth and even took the polishing pretty well.   All he said was that it tickled.  The final step was a fluoride foam in trays.  He sat there for four minutes with those things on.  I was very impressed.  Although Karen gave him the little sucker tube to suck up his saliva and I think he sucked out most of the fluoride instead.  Overall he was as good a patient as you could expect a little guy to be.  He even got to pick a bouncy ball from the treasure chest for good behavior.  (They had that treasure chest when I was a little girl!)  Okay, random Joaquin story.  Today I was singing "Jamie is a silly girl, silly girl, silly girl" etc. while changing her diaper.  Joaquin starts making his own words, first "Chita is a fast dog".  The best was for Esperanza (despite us not having decided on a name, to Joaquin this new baby is Esperanza).  "Esperanza is a floating girl, floating girl, floating girl".  You tell him about amniotic fluid and then.....

La Feria 2011

It wouldn't be fall in Albuquerque without the State Fair.  Actually fall in Albuquerque is kind of packed.  September State Fair, October Balloon Fiesta, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Joaquin's B-day and then Christmas.  Phew I'm exhausted just thinking about all the fun we have ahead of us.  :)  Daniel took a morning off work and we went, discovering it was Fire Day.  All the counties around had firemen and trucks there and tons of stickers, plastic hats and mood-changing pencils.  This picture looks like a sweet moment of mirth between father and son but it's actually Joaquin protesting taking a picture.  It's getting really hard to get pictures of him.  After all that excitement we spent the rest of the day with animals.  After the 4-H petting zoo (still the same one as when I was a child), we met a really nice mule and some minature horses.  Daniel and Joaquin became quite friendly with this mule, turns out he gets lonely at the fair every time he gets left alone.  After we left him, we heard his sad braying.  Then we saw a sheep being sheared and wool being spun and then woven.  It was all very educational and quite fun.  Then burritos and some pie before we headed home.  Despite tromping around with two children it was actually really relaxing.  It was a beautiful day, Jamie and I hung out on the grass while Daniel and Joaquin did more exploring.  The food was good and we didn't eat some of the grosser fair food despite the temptation.  My only regret is we didn't get any fry bread.  Is it truly a good fair experience without that?

El Dia del Rodeo

Preschool is fun.  We had Rodeo Day recently.  Not being a cowboy family per se, we didn't have any cowboy gear.  So Joaquin and I made a quick trip to Hobby Lobby to get a bandana.  I had a hard time steering him to the traditional paisley print after he saw one with puppies, but I convinced him this was much more cowboy.  Since denim is also much more cowboy we went with jean shorts (still too hot for Joaquin to contemplate jeans, especially since their recess area is sunny!)  I was pretty impressed with us until I saw the serious cowboy outfits some kids were sporting.  Fortunately Joaquin's enthusiasm wasn't dampened and he was honestly probably happier without having to deal with a hat all day.  By all accounts they had a great time, a real cowboy came and talked to them about cowboy gear.  Joaquin was very descriptive about the spurs.  (He kept calling them gears.)  Then they made hobby horses and raced them.  This is a picture of Joaquin's, his name is Caleb air Joshua.  Caleb and Joshua being the names of some friends of Joaquin, air being, and I quote, a funny middle name.  I have trouble not saying Caleb air Jordan due to my age, but I was very amused.  Then they had a cowboy lunch (mostly hot dogs and cheese and etc.) about which Joaquin told me it was very good although he only ate shredded cheese.  Yee-haw!

El Día de Labor, 2011

We went up to the mountains for a picnic on Labor Day, very cliche I know.  Impressively enough everyone was free so, Great-grandma, Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Matty, Aunty Boo-boo and Uncle Bryan were all there.  Plus Jo-jo-hanna and the Sturdys.  So it was crazy fun all the way around.  The picnic area was beautiful, but unfortunately already inhabited by a nest of hornets.  (And nest is the correct term, I know because we just checked out a book that tells the names for various groups of insects)  And we know they were hornets cause they went for the meat!  We had brought a bunch of lunch meat for sandwiches and they were on it like nobody's business.  Daniel actually ended up doing a little knife fight with them just to get his share (I'm still really upset that I never got that on camera!), until finally Uncle Bryan came up with a fancy plan for trapping most of them.  Very clever Uncle Bryan, and thank goodness because Aunty Boo-boo is NOT a fan of stinging insects and was desperately in need of a hero.  After a lunch and the accompanying excitement was over, we went for a hike to utilize Joaquin's cool walking stick.  Per usual, Joaquin had a great time picking up small pieces of nature.  Sometimes he is a such a boy, sticks and rocks are sooooo exciting.  Then I went home with Jamie (it was her naptime) and Joaquin, Daddy and all the other youngsters took a trip to the wonderous land of Kitsch that is Tinker Town.  This is a museum of bizarro machines and various random bits of junk that is located on the trail up to the Sandia Crest.   Every Albuquerque child has visited it at one point or the other and it's definitely unique......  However both Daddy and Joaquin had a good time.  I feel we packed a lot into a small holiday.

Los Afinadores de Pianos

So Uncle Bryan got a cool new gadget for his itouch/pod/phone (whatever he has) that makes tuning pianos very accurate.  We were priviledged to be guinea pigs.  Bryan came over one afternoon and tuned our piano for the small fee of dinner.   Joaquin was very excited to help, he loves looking at the innards of the piano.  Plus Uncle Bryan can tell him what everything does and uses cool tools.  So I  got this very cute picture of them concentrating together.  Unfortunately Joaquin had to go when he started humming along to the notes and confusing everything.  Poor kid, apparently it's instinctive to try and match pitches when somebody keeps playing them.  He's pretty good at it too, but it's still not helpful for the tuner.

El Predicador

You are looking at Joaquin's praying mantis, Fast Catcher.  So called because he's very fast at catching bugs.  We found him on our screen one morning, where he stayed during the entire morning Joaquin was at preschool.  When he came home Joaquin was enraptured, he watched him for forever.  We had a spare bug cage thanks to a birthday party at Explora so once he seemed destined to stay with us he had a home.  Of course he needed something to eat, so Daniel and Joaquin spent an evening trying to catch him some bugs.  Turns out they don't like ants and other bugs can be hard to catch.   After looking under some old bricks etc, Daniel was finally able to catch a cricket (impressive I thought) so Fast Catcher ate royally.  The next morning Joaquin and I went to the pet store and purchased him some more.  I have rarely seen Joaquin as interested as he was in Fast Catcher, he would watch him catch and eat bugs for as long as it lasted.  However unfortunately Fast Catcher has gone to his just reward as of this morning.  That's the problem with bugs as pets, they don't live very long and you have now way of know how old they are when you catch them.  Joaquin seemed fine, but as we looked closer he was on the verge of tears, just manfully trying to hold them back.  We don't know why he was so reluctant to give in to his grief, but I made him snuggle with me until he seemed to have his equanimity back.  Poor baby, we are burying Fast Catcher tomorrow in the flower beds so I hope that will give him some closure.  Side, somewhat related story, Joaquin is now a dragonfly ninja.  Some friends came by for a birthday dinner for Daniel and when Joaquin went out to greet them they discovered a dragonfly sitting on the bricks.  Joaquin leaned over and grabbed it.  Seriously!  He brought it inside to show us and then let it go in the living room.  While we were bemoaning this, he caught it again!  And then released it into the backyard.  Go figure.  Nerves of steel that one.

¡Es una chica!

So, it's a girl!  Yeah!  Woo-hoo!  We had a lot of fun at the ultrasound guessing what part we were looking at it.  Daniel is freakishly good at it.  I think he only guessed wrong once.  She's apparently not a fan of the ultrasound, she kept hiding her face.  So unfortunately we don't have any good 3-D pics of her face.  The ordinary ultrasound pic is a little scary since it looks like a skull, but here it is anyway.  Also my favorite one, her little arms folded with her hands clasped together.  Finally a 3-D picture of her back and shoulder with the back of her head and chin.  She looks great and perfectly healthy.  15 ounces and due date still the same at Jan 12.