Ir en Bicicleta por la Luz del Fuego

The other night we had that rare phenomenon - a free night! We spent an idyllic evening; Joaquin playing in the sandbox, Daddy pruning rose bushes while Mommy and Jamie looked on. Jamie cooed happily in the fresh air and Joaquin's giggles echoed. Seriously it was adorably bucolic and straight out of some perfect family scene in a movie. Very nice, plus now my rosebushes are finally pruned and they needed it! However once I went to put Jamie in bed, things took a turn for the more barbaric. I was gently rocking Jamie to sleep, when the light filtering in through the curtains began to flicker oddly. After laying her down, I stepped outside to this. Tricycling by torchlight! I don't know whose idea it was or why they needed the firelight but was definitely entertaining to walk in on. Some kind of male bonding fire ceremony? Okay a few Joaquin-isms. 1. Instead of saying he's hot and getting sweaty, Joaquin tells me, "Mommy, I have water in me." 2. Joaquin has been very difficult to wake up in the morning lately, he explains, "I was deep into bed". Finally some more Joaquin creations. He made these squares during 'naptime' a few days ago and was very excited to show me. While I dutifully admired their symmetry and descending pattern he explained to me how as you went to the right they got colder

and if you went to the left they got hotter. I was very confused for

a moment and then light dawned so I asked why. Because things

get smaller when they're colder (duh, Mommy!) and larger when they're hotter. Except for what Joaquin? Water! And just to prove he's still engineering, look what you make if you stack his squares... a vent! (You know the vents they have in commerical buildings and restaurants.) Finally, this video is of Joaquin's kaleidoscope. We've been haunting Cost Plus World market lately since they have cool Easter stuff and they always have a lot of little junky toys that Joaquin desperately wants. I bought him a kaleidoscope since it was 2.50 and he had been an awesome kidlet all day. He definitely got my money's worth out of it and it's still cool. He loved how the rotating caused the colors and shapes to change. So he made this, his manual kaleidoscope. Which is nice because many people can look at it at once since you don't have to look through a little hole. :)

Huevos de Pascua

So in keeping with my new policy of serious holidaying (not to mention looking around for any new holidays we can potentially claim some sort of attachment to), we've been having fun with Easter decorations. I decided to be crafty and Joaquin and I picked up some paper-mache eggs with the intention of painting them and then adding pictures representing names/metaphors of Christ. Lamb of God, Bright and Morning Star, the Alpha and the Omega, etc. But painting them turned into quite the project as you can see. They are all painted and some have their pictures on them. However it's been a long project and there was paint sitting on the kitchen table for many days. This was perfect fodder for Joaquin. True to his engineering

bent, Joaquin is much more interested in process than in the actual product. He doesn't really like to paint pictures, but he absolutely adores mixing colors to see what he gets. The amount of styrofoam bowls and paint we wasted! He did come up with some pretty colors though, my favorite was the periwinkle. Did you know that's what purple and blue make?

Un Poco de Todo

So what's been going on with us lately? Well, we have a foster baby with us, Jamie, for a few months. We can't put her picture online or we would show you how pretty she is. Joaquin has been pretty good about having a lot of my attention taken away. He can be pretty demanding when I'm working with her, but he's getting better and he loves being helpful when I need it (seriously). He's also really good at seeing Mommy is babied out and stressed. Yesterday when Jamie's need for attention and rocking got too much for me and I put her in the swing to cry for awhile, he came out of his room to a ferocious scowl. I told him I was frustrated and wanted to be alone so he should go back in his room. Instead of listening to me or whining at me, he came and hugged me and then let me hug him for like 3 minutes. (He also rocked me back and forth in an hysterical mimcry of what I do for him when he's really upset.) Does he know me or what? And it worked too. After that I felt much better and was able to calm her down and Joaquin got to watch Curious George. He's good this one. Really the saddest thing is that Joaquin is aware that she's only staying a little while. He tells people that and then tells us that he wants a little brother or sister who can stay. Even after experiencing a baby he's commited. Breaks your heart doesn't it? Other than that huge disruption, things go on much as usual. You can see the picture of Daddy and Joaquin wrestling around on our bed and 'flying'. Sometimes Joaquin points his legs and toes out and looks like Superman! He's also making amazing strides in the form of creating something with a plan. He's always made elaborate structures whose function he describes ad nauseum, but the making or drawing of something representational was not a skill he'd conquered. But recently he's doing it. He was looking through one of his blog books and found a picture of Duplo train he'd made and then copied it exactly by looking at the picture. Cool, huh? Then the other day he asked me to come see his rocket. I was expecting anything but something that actually looked like a rocket, but see the picture? It's definitely a rocket made out of his magnetic tiles. We counted down and blasted off and he 'flew' it around the hallway by pushing it around with his feet. These other pictures are Joaquin playing in his mud. I moved everything out of this particular pot, so Joaquin annexed it for his needs since there's no other mud in our yard that he's allowed to play with. (I don't let

him dig in my planters, they have nice plants in them!) He 's mixing up his favorite concoction.... rocky mud! He likes to add rocks and pieces of brick then stir it around till everything, including his hands and arms, is covered in mud. Such a boy. Okay, final Joaquin story. The other day we were at my mom's house with Uncle Matty. Joaquin was being his normal goofy self as we all talked and was attempting to get our attention. He announced, "Do you want to see my Nazi walk?" Dead silence as his shocked relatives took this in. Matthew turns to look at me in horror. Joaquin repeats his question. "Okay" I answer trepidatiously expecting my cutie to start goose-stepping and wondering what idiot had taught him this. Laughing uproariously he pulled a blanket over his head and wandered around blindly. "See Momma, it's my not-see walk." We laughed about that for a long time.

Cumpleaños y cumpleaños y cumpleaños......

Ahhhh, March 26th, the day of two birthday parties. The first was Jane's in the morning at Explora. Isn't that a great place for a party? Except I'm getting a little tired of all these over-achieving moms out there. I'm sorry Joaquin, I'm just never going to be the type of mom that spends $400 on your birthday, before presents! However, were I to be that ype of mom, Explora is definitely what I would pick. I didn't get to go because of our new little foster baby, let's call her Jamie, but Daniel and Joaquin had a whale of time. You can see Joaquin sporting his face painting and playing with his party favor Floam. (Anyone remember that stuff?) Besides making 'goo' with Borax and a few other random ingredients, they got lunch and a chance to roam. Joaquin got to feed a bearded dragon! He was very excited to tell me all about his prickly beard and how it filled out when he got home. I did manage to make it to the second birthday party, a home party with a pinata. They took the pinata outside because of mass chaos, so I missed Joaquin's turn at bat. When I asked him about it later he told me sadly that he hadn't won. Meaning that he hadn't broken it. I kind of feel that since candy comes out when someone breaks it everyone around is a winner but hey. I explained to him that because he's still little he always gets one of the first turns so the pinata is still pretty strong. When he's bigger he'll hit later and the pinata will already be weakened. He thought that made sense and was comforted.

El Zoo

Our second Spring Break hurrah to warmer weather was going to the zoo with Uncle Matty and Johannah. We had a great time although I admit that Joaquin enjoys the periperhies of zoo trips almost more than the animals. While the animals are fun, they can't compete with lunch on the the grass with the aforementioned companions. Then dippin' dots ice cream! I mean, come on! There's also a ton of 'rock' formations that the zoo uses for decor to climb on. So animals, perhaps not doing anything interesting, sometimes come a distant second. However his favorites, the flamingoes, where all hyper so we had a good time watching them. Seriously they were running around in herd formation, pivoting together, etc. It was really interesting and a little odd. The seals and sea lions where also a hit, especially since the new warmer weather was getting actually hot and you can watch them in a tunnel! Shade, yes! The elephants were also quite interesting because they were actually eating and drinking and spraying themselves. This led to a very interesting conversation later with Daddy where Joaquin told him how elephants don't just use their noses to hold their mocos but also to suck up water. As if that were what noses are normally for, holding mocos. I love it! The other animals Joaquin really found interesting were the naked moles rats, seriously. Since they're blind the zoo put them in clear tunnels so you can watch them scurry around and crawl over each other. It's oddly fascinating and Joaquin duly was. We

managed to pull him away after Matthew and Johannah had their surfeit of horror, but he definitely could have watched longer. It was very fun, made more fun by having 3 adults to one child. There was always a ride for Joaquin and always help for the luggage for me. Hmmmm.... I could get used to this.

Sicomoros

Last week was Spring Break. Woo-hoo, I guess. When he's only at school two days a week for four hours, Spring Break just seems more like a week where Mommy has to be extra entertaining. At least the weather cooperated, it was absolutely gorgeous, as Joaquin himself informed me. So we did a few warm weather things to welcome early Spring. First we met Daddy for lunch on the base. Yeah! The base has a McDonald's and a fabulous covered playground. Honestly if it weren't 30 minutes away we'd spend more lunches with Daddy. It's definitely a treat for the entire family. We (being Joaquin and I) got there early and while we were waiting for Daniel, Joaquin had fun playing with nature. Per usual, he picked up some sticks, but he also had a whale of a time trying to burst those round seed pod balls that drop from sycamore trees. I know they come from sycamore trees because that's what Joaquin told me. I was impressed and not sure if that was true, but he's right. No clue how he knew, Daniel thought I'd told him, which is a reasonable assumption seeing as I was a biology teacher. However, I'm not good with trees so it must have been somebody else. Go Joaquin and his acquisition of natural knowledge. Turns out sycamore balls are hard to burst, even with sticks. You have to stomp on them :) These last pictures are of Joaquin at the playground with Daddy. Nobody is more fun than Daddy!

Flechas

It's spring break, which means very little when you're in preschool. All it really means is that mommy has to work harder for a week. But we've been enjoying our relaxing mornings, playing instead of rushing to get someplace. Monday I made an 'arrow' by using some of Joaquin's duplos. The arrow was a hole around which the blocks were assembled. My arrow really looked like an arrow, but we got started making more shapes and they don't look anything like arrows although Joaquin still calls them that. I got him up after 'naptime' and he had created the great wall of arrows. Fabulous isn't it?