Mi hijo lindo

Well, it's my turn to write a blog about my special time with Joaquin. He and I were in Santa Fe over the weekend while Bethany was at a Women's Mini Retreat. We took the train again per Joaquin's request. Joaquin LOVES he train like all 3 year old boys should.

The train ride was nonstop questions: why are the train wheels metal? Why are the tracks metal? Why are the railroad ties wood? Why are the train walls plastic? Why...? I can honestly say that I love every question that comes out of his mouth. I know that sounds impossibly cheesy but it is true. I love hearing his thought process and seeing him make connections and draw conclusions. It seems he is beginning to think that I know everything so when I can't answer a question and I tell him, "I don't know" he responds, "DON'T SAY THAT!" or "YES YOU DO!" It's a good thing he is learing now that there is A LOT I don't know. It may spare him a my Daddy knows more than your Daddy fight in the playground someday!

We revisited our old haunts from the previous trip and I was surprised by how much he remembered and how important it was to him to do it all again. We spent a lot of time talking, walking, and holding hands and I am so grateful to be his daddy. Thank you God.

Almuerzo en el Parque

The weather's staying nice and the juniper pollination is ending. Hallelujah! So Joaquin and I have been spending a ton of time outdoors. Lovely ABQ is home to very few flying bugs so it's even possible to leave the doors open for a few hours so Joaquin and Chita can wonder in and out of the backyard. Take that my friends in greener climes! We also revived a last-summer tradition of lunch in the park with our friend 'Jane' and her mommy. Joaquin and his friend managed to do some actual playing together (an accomplishment at this age, at least for Joaquin and other boys). My favorite was watching them march in circles. This park was re-vamped at some point, moving the playground farther from the road. The old concrete curb is still in place, just filled with dirt and grown-over with grass. Joaquin finds this very intriguing so he led Jane on a little journey around it. They looked very charming following the 'circle', a modern take on Hansel & Gretal. They also played with a little girl they met on the playground and all was well until she tackled Joaquin as he was playing pretend under the playset. Apparently she has an older brother with whom she likes to wrestle, but my non-aggressive little kidlet simply yelled at her to get off as she pinned him into the dirt. Fortunately he didn't really throw her off b/c I don't think he would have done it playfully, not really knowing the game. After I rescued him I thought, should we teach this child to wrestle? It's not a game we ever play, Daniel being more of the snuggle with my boy type and this is the second time it's put Joaquin at a disadvantage. His buddy Caleb is forever trying to wrestle him and Joaquin is usually offended and annoyed by it. Are we ignoring some essential piece of childhood here?

Esmoquin

This is a picture of Joaquin trying on a tux jacket. Since he is to be a ringbearer very soon we went to get fitted on Saturday. It was hysterically cute watching the lady measure him seriously, like he was a little tiny man or something. She measured his chest and his shoulders and his leg and arm length. Totally cracked me up. He actually enjoyed the whole process, especially trying on the cool shiny shoes. In fact, we had a lot of distress when we discovered that we weren't taking any jackets or shoes home with us. I shudder to think how attached he'll get after a whole day with them!

Okay, a few Joaquin stories:

1. Joaquin and I went to Target Friday night and shared a raspberry lemonade in their little eating area. Since it was dark outside you could see our reflections in the window. Joaquin asked me, "Why can you see the inside on the window?". So I explained how it was because the outside was dark and the room was light so there were reflections. He thought for a moment and said, "And when the room is dark and the outside is light you can see reflections inside." Then he wouldn't believe me when I told him it didn't work like that.

2. Leaving Target he noticed that the In sign was green and the Out sign was red and asked me why. I said it's like stopping and going. In is like going so it's green and out is like stopping so it's red. So he goes, "Maybe the green one says Go In and the red one says Stop Out. " He, he.

3. Here's an example of Joaquin's growing experience with humor. On Sunday, Grandpa and Grandma watched Joaquin while Daniel and I picnicked in the park. When we came home the adults were talking, so Joaquin dragged Grandpa off to play. They came back later and Joaquin proudly asked, "Why did the chicken cross the road?", "Why?" we dutifully asked (we should never let my father teach him 'jokes'!) "To get to the other side!" ha, ha, ha, ha. Then he asked me to teach him another joke (I'm guessing since that one was so successful). So I said, "Why did the chicken cross the playground...... to get to the other slide!" Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha. Joaquin's new joke, "Why did the chicken cross the road?..... To get to the other playground!"

4. So I've been listening to the classical music station in the car lately since it's a restful change from the everlasting Joaquin music. Fortunately he hasn't been complaining so I can continue. Yesterday he asked me, "What is this song about mommy?" So I tried to tell him what I thought the music sounded like, first running, then outer space etc. He really got into it and told me that the outerspace music sounded like his music that's in his room (He means his CD of Gustav Holst's 'The Planets'). And it totally did, big sweeping orchestral piece with a lot of low melodies at that particular moment. I was very impressed with him and later it was even cuter when he proceeded to tell (I think it was Grandma, can't remember for some reason) about the song where they were running in outer space. Love it!

Pascuas 2010

Yeah for Easter morning and Easter baskets. Despite having to be woken up for this treat, Joaquin quite enjoyed it. Isn't this sand toy cool? The sand trickles through the top and turns the wheels below. (Joaquin always tells me they're gears, whoops! my bad.) Then off to church where Joaquin looked absolutely ADORABLE! He and I had a shopping spree at Old Navy lately. (It was actually really funny b/c I kept consulting with Joaquin. He had a surprising number of opinions and for the oddest reasons.) Afterwards Easter lunch with the grandparents, Aunty Boo-boo and Uncle Brian plus Great-grandma. And of course, more Easter presents! Great-grandma gave him some Peeps (which forunately he wasn't fond of. I hate the wretched things and Daniel loves them. What is wrong with him?), while Greatpa-pa and Evelyn had sent a stuffed kitty home with Grandpa for him. This thing is hysterical! You push it's paw and it says hello, then if you attempt to 'pet' it, it rolls around on the floor (literal rolling) and laughs. Very bizarre, but Joaquin loves it. He named him Felix (don't know where he got the name) and Daniel told him it was very appropriate b/c Felix means happy and he's a laughing kitty. So now Joaquin goes around telling me how Felix means happy and he's happy. But by far the most favored present was..... Tinker Toys from Grandma & Grandpa. Joaquin, of course, absolutely loves them and the suggestion that he leave them at Grandma's house as his toys there provoked intense tears and despair. He loves to build this one. And with anything handy apparently. After lunch we had the annual Easter egg hunt with our lone young person followed by a myriad of adults. However it was a lot more fun this year b/c Joaquin was so much better at finding eggs. Admittedly we didn't hide them very hard, but he actually found 85% of them himself. The other 15% with hints. Good job big boy! It was a lovely worshipful Easter with beautiful music from the choir (which we're in, so I'm just tooting our own horn here), good family time, and Joaquin actually remembering his lesson on Jesus' resurrection. Happy Easter everybody, he is risen indeed!

Tinturando los Huevos

To prepare for Easter we had a fun evening with Aunty Boo-boo, Uncle Brian and Joaquin's friend 'Jane' and her family. (Jane is not her real name but as I haven't warned her mother I'm putting her on the blog, I won't connect her face with her actual name!) Joaquin and I had pre-made some Easter sugar cookies with some cool new cookie cutters and I bought frosting for them to color and use. Unfortunately I was cooking dinner and Daniel's daddy instincts aren't as fast as my mommy reflexes so we ended up with some odd colors. Still who doesn't want a purple bell and a green bunny, right? Notice how Jane is totally concentrating on frosting. For a three-year old she was dang good on it. Joaquin on the other hand used his frosting mostly to eat. On the upside, he did end up with this fabulous purple frosting handlebar mustache. This picture cracks me up b/c he's totally leaning forward and sneering. If the mustache was black instead of purple he would be Rhett Butler! After dinner (which Joaquin ate only sparingly, surprise, surprise) we dyed Easter eggs. Since Jane's mommy brought two dozen with her, we ended up dying 3 dozen eggs, which is quite impressive. Joaquin and Jane were interested the whole time, and even did some carefully supervised placing of eggs. Jane in particular always wanted every color to have an egg in it, so if I took an egg out she would immediately get another in. We ended up with some odd eggs, but many pretty ones as well as a 'black' egg for Joaquin. He had been talking about how we would have black Easter eggs (do not know where this came from) and since he was so adamant about it, we tried by using a brown egg and dipping it in the purple. It came out somewhat blackish so it made Joaquin happy and then he forgot about it, of course. Anyway, Joaquin and Jane were quite happy with their eggs and the end result looked very springlike in their little cartons. We're ready for the egg hunt everyone!

El Mar

Last Thursday, Joaquin and I had a marine day. We didn't have much to do so we decided to visit the aquarium for fun. (That's really our place that we like to go to together.) There was a very loud field trip there that made Joaquin feel kind of shy, but we had a good time anyway. Especially since they had some new jellyfish! Joaquin loves the jellyfish so the new stripey and spotted ones were very cool. We also got to admire the seashells secured in concrete. Then we went to Pro's for some horchata and Joaquin noticed the pan dulces case. He decided he wanted to try a concha, specifically a pink one. So we took it home (here he is devouring it, sitting at the table since it was messy!) and talked about how it was made to look like a seashell. He totally got it, especially since he knows what a conch shell is in English. (We have a beautiful one that Shiloh got for me a million years ago and Joaquin likes to listen to the 'ocean' in it.) Of course the only part he really ate was the sugar on top, but that meant a sweet roll leftover for mommy. :) Look at his expression in this picture, it's like total rapture. (Aren't his eyelashes ridiculous!)

Then he went to Grandma's while mommy tutored and had Nemo fruit snacks. She'd also bought a new Play-do set; guess the theme! You got it.... the beach. It even had some brown 'sand' play-do with grit in it. So all in all we felt very coastal all day.

Brinca, Brinca

So we've discovered a new phenomena, jump places. There are two in Albuquerque that I know of and they are basically a large facility with ginormous jump houses/bouncers/slides inside them. We went to one recently for a birthday party. (I know! We have fancy friends apparently. The only problem is I hope Joaquin won't start getting ideas. I'm way too cheap for this sort of thing.) Anyhoo, we had a good time although Joaquin got bored with the jumpers after awhile and played video games. At least he thought he was playing videos games b/c the computer was running a simulation. His frantic joysticking did nothing, but as he didn't know that he had a great time. It was a really great birthday party, the plus being parents got to jump/slide too. I had a wonderful time, probably used the slides more than Joaquin. We even took Joaquin's friend Caleb with us since he was invited but his parents were busy moving. So Daniel and I were the parents of very hyper 3-year twins that day. Turned out nice though since Caleb was having such a good time that it gave me more excuses to go on the slides.