Joaquin at 3

When someone asks me about Joaquin, the first thing that comes to mind is how verbal he is. That might not sound as distinguishing from other 3 year olds as it did when he was 1 and 'very verbal' meant he had a big vocabulary. But when I sit down and think about it, maybe the proper way of describing it now is how eloquent he is in his speech. He says things like, "Oh my!", "He will be delighted!", and "That's so interesting" and it is always "No thank you." He corrects his own grammar and entertains himself by quoting his books-the whole book-while he plays. Lately he has been very interested in us naming the author and illustrator of the book so he can start his quotes with the title, author, and illustrator and then quote the rest of the book. His memory is incredible-this is not a kid you can say that you'll do something with the night before and hope that he will forget because he definitely won't.

He loves trucks, trains, and cars right now almost to the exclusion of all other toys. My mom's house is mecca right now because it's got construction happening on all the surrounding streets-so we get to get up close and personal with all those big CAT trucks. On the way home from school we have to look for daddy's car wash on each trip and the only name that has come out of school is apparently the only little girl who plays with the Thomas set.

He sings to himself and kisses and hugs the baby (my belly) regularly. He is very excited about the baby coming and sharing his room with her. Our brother in law recently had a baby and he keeps saying that he is his best friend and that he'll be able to hold mommy's baby all the time. He also seems to think that my belly button either is the baby or is the portal to the baby or something...he won't talk or kiss it unless the belly button is on display.

Finally, and this has been going on or evolving for quite some time now, but I don't think I've put it up here, he's gotten very particular about his grooming and clothing. The pants wars continue at our house in the morning and he will only wear clothes that are soft. That usually translates into Nate's old t-shirts. The latest hair cut and any kind of sunscreen application require a physical tackle and a 2 man team, but he's also doing more on his own...brushing his teeth and hair for instance. He is definitely opinionated about these things and likes to be comfortable!

Pre-school

So long without blogging...is it because we didn't have alot going on? Exactly the opposite, as you might expect, let's start with Joaquin's transition to pre-school...

We got an unexpected phone call in April that a spot had opened up in pre-school, which we had him on a waiting list for and really weren't expecting an opening until summer. Choosing a pre-school had been such a daunting task and our first, first-hand lesson in the inequities of education and how much you earn. Nicer schools seem SO much nicer and you start to question your value of money over how much you value your child. I study all this stuff...I knew that he just needed a good place to play and grow and I was still sucked into the class wars. Logic and years of research finally prevailed and we were soon getting a call from Gid's work based pre-school. We knew he was ready to move...him asking us if the price was right and being able to quote the entire Nick Jr. schedule was evidence enough of that...but it didn't make it any easier.

The first few weeks were hard. He told us he didn't like his teachers and started saying, "but I belong at home." He even started to tell me about a dream he was having in which he was on a rocket ship, but he didn't want to leave me...the first time he has ever talked about a dream and not a huge jump or psych background needed to figure that one out. It got more complicated when he got sick...an inevitability with a new school...but a simple cold lead to an ear infection to a really damaging ear infection, and he ended up sick for almost a full month.

It's now been about 2.5 months and we still have some days when we struggle in the morning, but the move has been so positive for him. He has less interest in TV in general now, his vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and he randomly breaks into songs that we don't teach him. They are having a summer 'camp' session now and last week they had a reptile show, so he got to tell us how much the 'big snake' (read: a python that went across his entire class' laps) tickled.

It's also fun and amazing for us to see how much these little ones already come with. While anti-social might not be the right word, he still has very little interest in playing with other children. They made crowns the other day and he didn't wear his (although he held it) even though all the other kids did. Same with the jumper-wouldn't go in because it was too noisy. I have to admit part of me loves this little stubborn streak of individuality in him.

Photos are his first school photos. When we got these, he said "I look sad."