En el Mente de Joaquin

As usual at our house there is a lot of building going on. But a boy can't live on Duplos alone (gasp, it can't be true) and we've been enjoying some of our other building toys lately. Uncle Jeff and Aunt Alicia bought him these gears for his birthday and he's been having fun making them work. Unfortunately since he wants them to all move each other they have to be perfectly squished in. And the tolerances on plastic toys aren't all the good so they have to be in the just the right spot for everything to work. It's a recipe for frustration, but when it works, fabulous! The funny part about Joaquin is that he's always made fantastic contraptions with his building toys. Frequently they bear absolutely no resemblence to the description he gives you. But he definitely sees it, b/c if mommy knocks a few blocks off while trying to clean he is upset when he comes back in the room. (How does he even know? Some Joaquin creations are very crazy looking, how can he keep track?) So I was very

surprised when he called me to come see his legos 'playground' the other day. This is what I found, a cute little slide. Actually it's two slides, see the two scoops? The straight part is actually the ladder up. He was very proud of himself and I could see why, it was really quite slidelike. He was very excited to continue but was then frustrated by the swing (honestly Duplos are not meant to build a swing). So Mommy got creative with some outside toys and then we added a teeter-totter to complete it. Isn't our little playground lovely? But this is one representational artistic moment in the crazy surrealistic world of Joaquin. To give him credit he always has a vision of what he wants and he stays pretty faithful to it. You can even see it in his imaginative play. He's famous at Little Gym for the day he ran around the entire hour with one hand up like he was balancing a plate. They asked me afterward why he was holding his hand so oddly. I said, he's probably pretending something. When they asked he said he was holding a pie. It was chocolate pie if I remember correctly. After we all asked for a piece and it was eaten he dropped his hand. Another example was last Saturday while we were painting the FLC at church. Since all his playmates (Mommy, Daddy and Uncle Matty) were painting diligently he had to make his own entertainment. He played outside for awhile but got lonely and came inside to play in the room. He found a ball and some various bits of our equipment. Then he made up a game where he had to bounce the ball over the various pieces. And he had to do it in some order without knocking them down before he could move on. I'm not kidding, it was actually this complicated. And HE FOLLOWED THE RULES. Isn't that odd? If you make up the rules can't you just change them so you win? He was so frustrated with himself when he couldn't make it work. Sometimes I'm frustrated trying to get him to do things my way and sometimes I just can't wait to see what else is going on in that little head!

Cocos

Ahhh coconuts, a fruit I find absolutely disgusting. And since they are obnoxiously hard to work with I have an excuse never to use them despite the fact that Daniel's a fan. However I always give him Almond Joy's in his christmas stocking since I love him. :) So after partaking of some this Christmas (Daddy is very generous), Joaquin decided he likes coconut (with vanilla he always adds, I don't know why). He says this, but he hasn't had any since. The other day at the grocery store they had coconuts and Joaquin demanded one. Being an indulgent mommy I purchased on. He and Daddy had a fun evening breaking into it. (They used a drill I believe.) Joaquin was underwhelmed with the coconut milk but he enjoyed helping Daddy grate the flesh with our cheese grater. I don't know if they ate straight coconut, but Daniel found a way to make sure Joaquin was game for the whole experience - chocolate! They made their own Mounds bars using chocolate chips. Woo-hoo! I'm not sure that Joaquin ate any of the actual bars, but I have photographic evidence that he enjoyed the melted chocolate chips.

El Día de Valentinos (2011)

A Valentine's Day post! Joaquin and I had a fun time doing the photo session for his Valentine's cards. We pretended to be hugging people or blowing kisses. The resulting faces were cute and quite funny. It was lots of fun as well since Joaquin was excited about the idea and relatively cooperative, something not usually true about him and cameras. A little streak of rebellion frequently pops out when I ask him to pose and the grimace he makes when told to smile is hardly photogenic. I try to trick by asking him to say cheese, but he can tell I'm trying to trick him somehow and he starts shouting out any other word he can think of, frequently nonsense words. "Say cheese!" (Mommy desperately trying to be cheerful and winsome), "fork! ha,ha,ha, ha, goke-ga-go, ha, ha,ha,ha" (Joaquin, laughing hysterically.) It's a fun game, but I won't be sorry to see it go. Although it didn't make onto the card, I think this closed eye picture is my favorite.

The goofy expression is one I see many times a day. Such a crazy one this one! Joaquin and Daddy got very into the spirit of the holiday this year. Daniel and I went out on Sat. (he picked the restaurant and arranged babysitting! We could have gone to McDonalds with that set up and I would have been happy, but the tearoom was even better!), and Sat. morning Daddy and Joaquin went to a parent/child class at Lowe's to make a musicbox for Mommy. Joaquin was very excited as you can see from this picture. He even got a free work apron for coming. Unfortunately lots of parents had this cool idea as well and they ran out of the kits before Joaquin got one. He was very sad (I was told), but held it together manfully while Daddy exercised ingenuity and purchased a larger kit for a jewelry box. They decided to make that instead and later buy a little music box mechanism to put in it. Since this kit required more tools they came home and

worked. When I came home I was very surprised to see them busy as little beavers and was very

impressed with my jewelry box (seen here with it's creator and Mommy). Now all it needs is a coat of paint although Joaquin's enthusiasm seems to have run it's course. Maybe for Mother's Day?

Cráneo Campo de Juegos (más o menos)

It cannot be said with any degree of accuracy that Daniel enjoys board games. Despite sitting through long games of Axis and Allies in college, he can wander off completely during a game of Trivial Pursuit. My family however always enjoyed playing games together. So I have been introducing Joaquin to them recently. He really enjoys them despite a keen lack of competition. I've been helped in this endeavor by Daniel's aunt Erika who sent Joaquin several child-friendly games for his birthday. And really who can resist quality time with this cutie? Not Daniel that's for sure. Our favorite is Cranium Playground, a game I sincerely recommend. We had a great time playing with Jonah over Christmas break and it has been well loved since. We even force adult guest to play it! Our latest victim was Johanna who came over because we made yummy food and then was suckered in. She's the girl imitating Joaquin's tongue action while drawing. (He's not a natural draw-er by any means, so drawing takes a lot of

concentration which means a lot of tongue action.) The game could honestly be considered educational since the kids have to count, draw, identify letters, and dance. Joaquin's favorite, and best, category is the letter category. You spin a wheel, call out the name of the letter revealed and then make it with your body. He's really creative about making letters with his arms and legs. The letter in this picture is K, see it? The last picture in this set is him dancing. Looks like he's really grooving, huh? Other than fun family shenanigans, I have nothing else to fill up this blog, so here's a few moments from the mind of Joaquin. 1. He has a CD with songs in french, one being "Alouette". He kept telling me how he wanted to know the story of the song and I told him I couldn't understand it since it was in french. He wanted to know where people who spoke french lived and I told him France (didn't add the others, why make it complicated?). So he decided that after we move to Colorado we should move to France to learn french to understand the song. There's also the Kookaburra song on the CD. Once he learned that the Kookaburra was a bird that lived in Australia he added Australia to the list of future homes. Apparently seeing the Kookaburras in pictures Mommy looked up online was not good enough. (Incidentally we talked about all the other animals in Australia and I started wondering, why do they all start with K? Kookaburra, Koala, Kangaroo....hmmmm.)

2. At storytime he learned about floatplanes and how they land on water. The librarian told him they use them often in Alaska because they have a lot of lakes there. Then yesterday we were driving home and were nearly knocked off the road by a giant tumbleweed. Joaquin thought that it must have been a tree when it was still a plant. I told him no, but that it was big for a tumbleweed so it must have grown someplace with a lot of water to get that big. He tells me, "That tumbleweed must have grown in Alaska!". Good logic for a little guy! I told him that he was right, Alaska did have a lot of water but that was too far for a tumbleweed to tumble and it had probably grown near someone's garden that they were watering. He thought that seemed reasonable. :)

Hacemos Frio!

We've had quite the snow storm this week here. Tuesday morning was our first snow day and so of course once our morning activities were cancelled Joaquin wanted to play in the snow. I bundled him up in a snow suit that Dora found for him. It's totally old school, he looks like the kid from "The Christmas Story". Truthfully I don't think he could put his arms down all the way. He also looked about 20 pounds heavier. I put on his mittens, Daddy's socks and his snow shoes. Of course mommy was still in her pajamas so I sent him out in the backyard to play while I got dressed. (Thinking we would play together in the front yard later.) I watched through my window to make sure he was okay and saw him gleefully singing the ABCs on his playset and tossing snow around. So I stop to use the restroom and then I hear "Mommy, I need you! Mommy I'm freezing". He continued to bang on the door and scream things like this as I desperately tried to get some clothes on and let him in. Honestly you'd think ten seconds would make or break him. After I get him in and start taking off his gear he informs me he needs a hot bath. So we took a 45 minute bath to warm up. And today he didn't ask to go out at all. Considering he's my snow baby, I think it's safe to say it's cold!!!! We've had a good time, despite the fact that Joaquin's creativity in making things out of random household items is wearing for mommy. (I keep having to clean things up and there's lots of things I don't want glue on!) Joaquin drew the cutest picture of Daniel, me, himself and Chita. He also had to draw a picture of the 'bed' he made for Chita of pillows and blankets. It was kind of an amazing picture because he actually drew little bubble of the colors of each item in the proper orientation. So if you didn't know what it was you'd be totally bewildered, but if you knew what it was, it was an amazing representation. Fortunately tomorrow supposed to be warmer cause both of us are getting cabin fever!

El Ropero

We've been making Joaquin a dresser during Daniel's Christmas break from classes. Joaquin doesn't always enjoy hanging out with Daddy in the garage (I think it gets boring), but Daddy misses him when he leaves him. So they came up with a good activity for Joaquin to do when Daddy can't concentrate on him. Sawing random pieces of wood. Now I know what you're thinking, sounds dangerous and destructive. That's exactly what makes it appealing to a little boy! Honestly, the jigsaw isn't that dangerous, especially after Daniel showed him how to use it and hold it. And it isn't nearly as destructive to purposely give Joaquin something to destroy as it is to let him loose in the garage unsupervised. Seriously. Turns out he's pretty good with a jigsaw, especially when you take into account that he's a four-year old. He also thinks it's really fun to cut a board in half (and cute through several). I was kind of surprised that he kept with the sawing long enough to get through a board, but he thought it was great fun and worked at it very determinedly. Go Joaquin go. He was very anxious to show me and very excited to get a movie made of his exploits (following). The dresser itself turned out beautifully as you can see. It's a behemoth of a thing with seven drawers. We kept the outside black so that it can be matured by changing the drawer fronts. The handles are very pretty glass ones that Joaquin picked out at Anthropologie. He had actually a lot to say about which ones he liked and why (Daniel had to dissuade him from some because of their lack of sturdiness and it was a very serious discussion). Several ladies were eavesdropping on our conversations and were audibly entertained. Now it's in place and it looks very nice, making Joaquin's black bed and green shelves meld better. Once we get his bunk bed finished it'll be just beautiful!

El Guante

The other night Joaquin put Chita's stuffed racoon into his sock. (Don't ask me why) After he took it out, his sock was super stretched out. This reminded him of one of his favorite books, "The Mitten". So he went and got it and read it to Chita. He did a pretty good job actually.