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.

Las Cruces

We took advantage of being in El Paso to go to church at my old church in Las Cruces. Look how cute and matchy my boys are! Even their shoes match! We had a lovely time seeing old friends and then ate at an old Las Cruces favorite, Mesilla Valley Kitchen. They're known for their breakfasts, which is good because Joaquin wanted.... you guessed it, waffles! This first picture with Mommy is how Joaquin looks before waffles (the wait was significant and he was really hungry). Notice my dress, my mom and I just made it out of some fabric Daniel had brought back from Ghana. It looks really good and it totally went with Joaquin and Daniel. We should've taken a family photo! And this photo with Daddy is how Joaquin looks after waffles! We didn't make the same mistake twice so Joaquin had a grown-up sized waffle. Then we got to wonder around Las Cruces for a little while, visit our favorite used bookstore (better by far than anything in Albuquerque), and admire all the new government buildings going up. There is some serious cash being spent in Cruces these days, those building are beautiful! It was actually a little romantic for us, even if we didn't really visit any of our old date haunts, since we fell in love in Las Cruces. Awwwwh.

Segunda Navidad: El Paso

So we celebrated actual Christmas Day/Eve in El Paso. I hesitate to even mention it in the blog since Joaquin was AWFUL for much of the trip. Admittedly it was probably precipitated by the fact that Daniel and I were over-anxious parents since we wanted him to be charming and sweet to relatives that don't see him much. Boy did that backfire. He was at least good with his cousins Elisa and Marcela which are pictured here with Joaquin on Christmas morning. They are much older than him and still play with him, a testimony to their sweetness. Joaquin absolutely loves them and was definitely at his best playing with them. We also discovered that he is an addict for waffles (he's had them before but something clicked and now he's a serious fan), so we took a family break and went to Village Inn for Christmas morning waffles. We mistakenly ordered Joaquin a half waffle since they didn't have waffles on the kid's menu. After he finished it (in record time) he demanded more and then completely demolished another half. It was an amazing feat of eating, especially from a child that's been refusing food lately in an attempt to establish control. Notice he can't even look at the camera he's so busy taking that waffle down! He also enjoyed Bisi's (short for Bisabuela, Daniel's grandma) backyard. She has many toys out there and El Paso was just warm enough to play outside (if the sun was on you and you wore a jacket). She has a playhouse with a kitchen and an old typewriter (Joaquin loved it), lots of old Tonka trucks, and a super-cool tire swing.

Fortunately for everyone's sanity, Mi-mo was staying at Bisi's so she helped chaperone. They actually had a very cute afternoon (and we have the most adorable videos of it, but they are way too long to post) where Joaquin, inspired by Max & Ruby, decided to look for treasure. When they informed Bisi of his intent she actually donated an old coffee can with some pennies and nickels to serve as the treasure. Captain Andres (Daniel's cousin) buried the treasure and after much prompting Joaquin 'found' it. While he was busily stuffing his find in his pockets, Mi-mo asked him if he had found treasure and he said, "It's not treasure, it's money". Apparently only gold coins count as treasure. I'd take money, but hey, what do I know? So at least Joaquin was charming for Mi-mo, and she's the one who counts the most anyway. She even watched Joaquin for the evening while Daniel and I went out with Sal & Erika celebrating their 14th anniversary and our 7th (Isn't that cool?). According to Mi-mo he behaved nicely and even 'read' her "Dear Zoo". Good boy!

Bajo el sofá

Recently a small toy of Joaquin's rolled under the sofa. I was doing laundry so I missed Joaquin's first calls for help. Since I was unavailable he went to his room and got his pliers to poke under the sofa with. When I found him, this is what he was doing. I was very impressed with his ingenuity. He actually got the toy to the edge of the couch. I told him, "Oh, look now you can pick it up with your hands". Apparently this was the wrong this to say since he gave an offended look and proceeded to try and pick up with his pliers. This proved to be quite difficult as the toy (I think it was a top) was round and kind of slick. After awhile he got bored and wondered off and I picked it up and put it away. I wish I had a clean-up fairy to pick up after me!