La Cama Negra

So, big news! The bed is up! Here are Joaquin and Daddy hammering in the slidey feet on the headboard. We took advantage of the moment to clear out most of his room and steam clean the carpet (totally necessary). The perk of this, at least from Joaquin's point of view is that his mattress was placed in the hallway. A mattress placed in the hallway can fall down, allowing you to jump on it and play the piano at the same time! Oh joy, oh bliss. It was pretty entertaining to watch, and despite the fact that he was probably damaging his mattress, Mommy elected to take pictures instead of stopping him.

El Cuatro de Julio, 2010

We had a fun fourth of July this year, combining it with Father's Day (since our vacation and my Grandfather's death kind of consumed Father's Day). To all our other Fathers... we do appreciate you, we were just a little busy. Anyway, since it was a father celebration as well as the fourth we had pineapple-upsidedown cake for Daniel and homemade ice cream for my Dad. And Joaquin loved it! He actually loved the whole process of putting the ingredients in and running the machine. I think he sat with Aunty Boo-boo and Bryan watching for the entire time it was running. Even adding more ice was soooooo exciting! I thought we would need entertainment while the ice cream was gelling and was kind of worried, but apparently the machine doing it's thing is enough for Joaquin. Yeah! He was also enamored with the ice cream itself. (Which is totally understandable since Heather found a great recipe online and it was fantastic! The ice cream I remember from my childhood.) Then Grandpa introduced him to a very special tradition, cleaning the dasher. Every excuse to get more ice cream! (My dad is an ice cream fanatic.) He and Joaquin were 'trying' it to make sure it was okay. After the first bite Joaquin said, "I think I should try some more." And he did. :) After ice cream and cake it was time for fireworks. We had a variety of small ones that we had purchased, but our neighborhood has a plethora of folks who specialize in illegal fireworks. That and our proximity to the Balloon Park fireworks means our neighborhood is quite exciting after dark on the fourth. Joaquin was excited but a little nervous about this bounty so after he had been warned to be careful about the fireworks he decided to do something about it. As I walked out of the house he was wondering around praying piercing, "Dear Jesus, please protect us from the fireworks. Make the fireworks stay in the sky and not fall on us." Good thing he did since a very close neighbor had some very exciting fireworks! Still we had a great time and leftover ice cream.

El Trozos de Duplos, otra vez

Were any of you wondering what happened to our lego blogs? We haven't done any for awhile, which I'm sure was a relief to all. However, this does not mean that no building is going on. Heaven forfend. Joaquin actually acquired some new Duplos on our California trip, so we've had even more fun lately. This first picture is another multi-media creation from Joaquin. Notice his dull affect, it's actually the happiest looking picture of this lot. He was very annoyed at me b/c I could not make the trio block structure sit the way he wanted, while allowing the purple Tinker Toy wire to remain stuck in the holes of his Duplo base. What can you do when toys aren't engineered to go together? He doesn't really take no for an answer in situations like these, he has an idea and it needs to happen come hell or high water. Personally not a fan of this trait as I'm not a perfectionist and can usually let all number of small details slide. How do you convince a small child that sometimes things can't happen the way you want and you need to learn to deal with it? Seriously, I'm open to suggestions. It's not really naught behavior, although it definitely becomes naughty when he yells at Mommy when she can't do it. But the ability to live with second-best b/c perfect is impossible is kind of a necessary characteristic. Anyway, this second picture is Joaquin and my fountain. It represents progress, b/c it is the first cooperative structure built by Joaquin and I. I've built before and he's been really mad at what I've done, or he's built and I've supplemented, but this is the first real cooperative effort. In case you're wondering, it sits in a pretend pool of water and the water is pumped up (Joaquin made a 'pump' for it) through the columns and then jets out at a variety of places on the upper structure. Some of them even blow bubbles. There are also lights controlled by a machine that Joaquin placed on the middle tier. Now don't you wish you had a fountain like that? But just so you don't think building is all we do, here's another picture. See, we can make a mess with a variety of toy options.

A Mano

We're kicking it old school here at the Headley household. Those nasty orbital sanders with their vibrations and noise (not to mention the dust they kick up!) got to be too much for us; or rather, for Joaquin. I'm not sure what did it, but the little cough he's been incubating made me a little nervous about a lot of dust in the air anyway. So he and Daddy sanded some of his new foot

board by hand. The big plus, even a little boy can do this by himself. Unsupervised playtime with a real Daddy tool can't be beat.

El Baile a mi Música

You know how cute it is when little kids attempt to dance? And how so many of them appear to just jive with any sort of beat? Well this is not true of Joaquin. Honestly he rarely, if ever, dances. I'm not sure if this is from an innate lack of rhythm (which seems unlikely b/c he's pretty good at singing rhythmically, at least for his age), or just shyness, as Joaquin really hates to appear stupid in any way. Whatever it is, we rarely see this video I have obtained for you. In this specific instance, Joaquin just started dancing while we were hanging out in his room the other day. When we complimented him on his moves and asked if he wanted any music, he said he had some music in his head. I tried to even sing some for him, but was politely asked to stop. He wanted his music. After awhile he asked Daddy to dance with him. I'm sorry the video of Joaquin and Daddy dancing is sideways (I always forget that you can't flip a video), but it is well worth turning your head for. My favorite is that Joaquin appears to see some differences between the two kinds of stomps cause I really can't tell. He also asked me to dance as well, but fortunately that was not recorded for posterity!

Afuera con Papi

Joaquin and I (Daniel) had another weekend without Mommy. This one was unplanned because our beloved Great Grandpapa Naegeli died. Joaquin and I proceeded with the original plans to go camping with our friends from church and it would have been cruel to not do so since we have been preparing him for so long. So, Mommy took off for the airport and we packed up the pickup and hit the road. Off to Jemez!

Most of you probably know that we are city folk but I think Joaquin is on a mission to change that! Our first camping trip was an easy start since this campground had bathrooms (outhouses), running water (somewhere), parking spots, tables, and fire pits. But don't worry, we did have the good fortune of setting up our tent in the RAIN! Honestly, what are the odds of that in NM? Fortunately, a wet evening did not damp Joaquin's spirit! Bethany's truck-bed tent purchase was nothing shy of utter GENIUS! That thing is AMAZING! Why doesn't every pickup owner have one?

We had smores of course since I think that is probably the main reason why Joaquin wanted to go camping. Funny though, he may be the only 3 year old who will actually reject a marshmallow, roasted or "raw"...but not in a SMORE! Oh bliss!

One night was enough for daddy since taking care of a 3 year old and a dog in the tamed, but still great, outdoors is not the easiest task. But at least Joaquin got to experience the joy of waking up in a tent. I have always loved that. When's the next trip? I'm sold!

En el Ciudad de los Angeles

When we left San Diego for L.A., we knew it wasn't going to be fun for Joaquin. We wouldn't be able to do many of the events we had planned, so we stopped and bought him some Duplos before we arrived. This is a maneuver we have pulled once before while visiting family that wasn't really child-proofed. I recommend it highly. New toys occupy kids for a long time and makes the trip really exciting. Just call it a souvenir, but a practical one. Joaquin was really quite good at my step-grandma Evelyn's house and since my dad arrived on Sat. evening, we were able to go out each morning and he didn't go completely crazy. We even visited the church currently served by our soon-to-be new pastor (it's the only church we know in the Long Beach/Lake Forest area) so Joaquin got to go to Sunday School. He didn't even care that it was in a completely different place, he was so excited to see other little kids and the familiar puzzles and toys he darted in without saying good-bye. I had to call him back and tell him I'd get him in a little while - like he was worried! He also managed to have fun at Evelyn's house. She does have a nice patio where you can see the edge of the lake (man-made, hence the square corners) and watch the geese romp in the grass (do geese romp? What verb should I use there?). She also has a very cute real dog named Gigi and a dog statue out on the porch. You can see Joaquin enjoying the stone dog in these pictures. (Evelyn calls her dog a chi-weeny b/c it's part chihuahua and part weeny. We saw some friends of our in Long Beach (they just had a little girl) and talked dogs with them- they're Boston terrier people. Jenn decided we should call Chita a Poo-huahua instead of a Chi-poo. I love it!) Having also become adept at entertaining himself with nothing when it's obvious the adults aren't going to, Joaquin enjoyed Evelyn's couch. Even though it was driving me crazy (I'm a little OCD about random things), I just let him. It's hard to damage cushions. The one bright spot was that we got to see my father on Father's Day, which we weren't anticipating so didn't have a card or anything for, and my cousin Katie. She had been intending to fly down and my family, Evelyn and her were going to spend Father's Day with my grandpa. Obviously this didn't work out, but we did get to hang out with Katie and her boyfriend and really chat. Which was great since we haven't done that in a while. So here's Katie with Joaquin and I, please forgive my terrifying grimace, I was trying to convince Joaquin to say cheese and therefore smile instead of saying smile and then biting his lower lip (his normal version of a picture smile). So thanks to Evelyn for housing us, it was good to be with family during that time. And while I was sad not to see my Grandfather one last time, I'm glad he is in heaven, taking on a new adventure. My grandpa became an electrical engineer when electricity was still new and hot, left Minnesota for California (to build Sequoia National Park with the CCC), went through WWII serving directly under Patton for awhile (even designed and built the car that Patton and Roosevelt and other muckety-mucks rode in to the Potsdam Meeting). He came back, raised three kids, visited basically every national park we have, helped start a church in his own garage and then did the maintenance when that same church gained a building. He retired early and traveled all around the world with my grandma. Literally all around, he's been to every continent except Antartica. Then he married again at 90. In other words, he was always up for an adventure and watching him get old and sick at 97 was sad. He was just so bored and frustrated. So I'm excited to think he is at peace and enjoying the greatest of adventures now.