En el Mente de Joaquín

"Mommy, what does this look like?" he says thrusting his fingers at me, "Well I don't know Joaquin", "A tumbleweed!" This is a reoccuring theme at our house, the "Mommy, what does this look like?" Anything from a funny shape he makes with his fingers to something he builds with his blocks. He likes to take two rectangular Duplos and move them around to form a T, a 7 and an L.

So here's a few more Joaquin stories to illustrate how the world looks in his mind.

1. I stopped at a stop sign the other day and then jumped a mile as Joaquin screamed desperately, "STOP!" "Stop what?" I asked, "There's a stop sign," he explained in a reasonable tone. Now this is a new game, yeah!

2. Today he was playing with his Duplos in his room and I hear him talking, sounding somewhat upset. So I drift over casually to see what the matter is. He's building a little train and as he turns to grab another block, his arm knocks a precariously-perched block off. "Be careful, Joaquin!" he hisses. Seconds later he knocks another block off, "Joaquin!" he rebukes again.

3. Today at storytime our craft was gluing together a paper snake. "Mommy, why are snakes so long?", "Well honey, b/c they grow longer like people grow taller." He thinks about this for a moment, "Do worms grow to be snakes?"

Felix Cumpleaños Charlie!

This weekend we were invited to the birthday party of one of Joaquin's friends from Little Gym that happened actually at the Little Gym. While I'm sure it cost a ridiculous amount of money, I'm almost tempted to save up. They opened up the gym for the kids and even had a few teachers there to run a low-key program. We got these fun action shots of Joaquin (partly why Daniel decided on this camera I think), and the kids had a great time running around. They (LG folks) even provided pizza and helped serve and clear it up. (I love it when people help with clean-up) All in all in it was pretty fun, especially since Joaquin was much more mature than usual about giving his present to Charlie. We had picked it out b/c he played with this toy at a friend's house and liked it and so therefore thought Charlie would like it. He gave it to him quite happily and then asked to "share it with him" but was pacified with a "You should come to our house sometime and play with it then" from Charlie's mom.

El Fin de Semana

You'll be happy to know we've picked a camera, yeah! So here's some pictures from our weekend. Friday night we attempted, once again, to institute a family movie night. I think this is a great idea, especially for tired and wanting to relax parents. We have several Disney classics on VHS (thank you Goodwill!) so we popped in "The Fox and the Hound". This particular movie is a favorite of both Daniel and I and should appeal to Joaquin since he loves puppies, etc. however he could only sit through about 45 minutes of it. This picture totally misleads you since he looks so intent. It's funny to me that his attention span for TV is so short. I think that some kids just enjoy things moving and music, etc. whereas Joaquin doesn't like it unless he sort of understands the plot. And movie plots are long! Even with Mommy explaining, it just isn't fun for too long. Fortunately he played in his room, so Mommy got to finish! ("You're my best friend Copper", "And you're mine too Todd." "And we'll always be friends forever, won't we?" "Yeah" Oh, so touching!)

However he makes up for his lack of movie watching in one new big boy respect, he's much better about picking up! Plus he's better at finding the little pieces and he puts them away a teeny-tiny bit faster than geological processes would put away toys. Thank you Little Gym and Sunday School for emphasizing picking up lately. See he even has a smile on his face. (That's cause Mommy has one too!) Also, notice his shirt says, "Explora!" on it. We purchased this shirt at Explora last Saturday when we went there with Mi-mo. Why you might ask, since souvenirs of one's hometown always seem a little pointless. B/c Joaquin had so much fun playing with bubble area, and the dam thingy that he was quite wet. We (Dora & I) had a lot of fun, and Daniel had a ridiculous amount of fun. He was literally playing with all the exhibits and demonstrating to any children that would listen to him how they all worked. He was especially popular at the dam exhibit where he co-oped all the children in to helping him make one large dam with a waterwheel and several waterfalls. We're definitely science nerds in this family!

Cámara Nuevo

So we bought two new cameras at Costco and are trying them out to see what we like. So far I think the Panasonic is easy to use, but I'm underwhelmed with the pictures. However, this might be b/c it can only be set to 3 megapixels, 5 or 12 and Daniel has it on the 5 setting. (He won't put it on the 12 setting since he's convinced our hard drive will quickly crash at my normal picture taking rate.) But since our other camera is 5 megapixels, these look a little grainy to me. However it was fun to hold a camera in my hand again, so here's a few cute pictures taken tonight around bedtime. This first one is Joaquin being measured on his height chart. This is getting harder to do accurately since he's started to stand on his toes! Stinker. For all of you who've missed us, we miss you too! Now that we're only the camera hunt, it won't be long till I'm blogging at a normal rate of speed. (So stop hasseling me, Matty!)

Sin cámara

So horrible news (and my excuse for lack of blogging. I didn't think it had been so long, but I got some complaints...) we lost our camera! It's been 4 1/2 days now so I think it's actually truly lost! So that means I don't have pictures to blog about Joaquin's achievements in Little Gym without mommy or pictures of our fabulous morning at Explora with Mi-mo, or pictures of him licking the brownie spoon and covering himself with chocolate. Sigh. You'll just have to imagine them until we buy another one - eek!

One Joaquin story I don't want to forget (and I will by the time I find a camera): Recently Joaquin and Daddy had a very in depth discussion about why certain things will stand and others won't. The biggest reason - flat bottoms. Things with flat bottoms stand much better than things that don't. The other day we were walking out to the car and Joaquin tells me, "I have flat bottoms, see!" and points to his feet. He does indeed. :)

Más Trozos

Joaquin's creativity in Duplos building is growing by leaps and bounds. I really enjoyed this particular creation since it looks to me like gypsy carts or maybe an old-fashioned circus train. Joaquin didn't have any explanation for me when I asked what it was, other than trailers, so who knows what he was really going for. He has also, despite a general downslide in this area, gotten better about throwing fits when the blocks won't do what he wants. I don't know if he's gotten better at manipulating the blocks or if he's just more philosophical about their limitations. (Although he's not particularly happy with any limitations so I'm guessing he's just better at working with them!) Recently, he's been building 'water cycles'. I'm not sure what water cycles are and neither is Joaquin. When pressed about them he just tells you that Daddy can tell you what they do and they have fans and smokestacks and the water goes here and then there. They do all look similar, they have rambling bases that he cobbles together, and multi-level towers with a variety of tops.

He's also enjoying more creative types of crafts. Today at Grandma's house (she's always more creative about this than me. Comes from years of doing children's church I think) where they made a 'house' on a large sheet of paper. They divided it into rooms and cut out furniture, etc. from ads to furnish it. They had a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room and a garage. (Joaquin nixed the bedroom in favor of the garage, go figure!) Joaquin's priorities are right where they should be; in a four-roomed house they had six toilets. However he is beginning to run into the limitations of glue. He found it very frustrating that he couldn't glue edges together as you can with tape. Sorry kidlet, a hard lesson of the world - no matter how hard you practice, somethings you just can't do.

Los Treses Terribles

So the terrible threes (yes terrible threes, I'd go back to two any day!) have been hitting us hard. The constant power struggle is a bit wearing. This kid is stubborn! For example, we were a friend's birthday party and Joaquin was quite rudely demanding a specific piece of cake. I told him he was being rude and he needed to say please or he couldn't have any cake. Normally he'll say please if reminded, but since I was rebuking him, he got all annoyed by it and refused to say please. We left an hour later without him having any because he wouldn't say please. Who sticks to their guns when chocolate cake and ice cream are on the line? Even in a good mood Joaquin can be hard to take. He loves to be extremely loud, does crazy things and thinks they're funny (and expects you to as well) and is insanely hyper. Sigh. However, he is a smart little cookie and realizes that we're getting a little fed up. He has a few coping strategies to bring us back to his side. First he says "I love you" to us, with increasing volume, until we respond with the right amount of fervor. If you say it in an less than loving tone, he tells you, "Mommy, talk happy!". My favorite is the small talk. He'll come up, sit down beside me and say, "So, what your name is?" I think it's a combo of "What's your name?" and "What's this" or something, but with a cheerful Joaquin grin it makes a good mommy pick-up line.