Gideon's birthday

We're starting to plan Gideon's birthday and so I asked Joaquin what we should give him. I thought I'd get an answer similar to what he said my mom should get...and it was similar, but not exactly the same.

Gifts, and presents, and boxes of STARS!

First movie

Joaquin watched his first full length movie last night in which he knew nothing about the character or the story-- The Ant Bully. It was mediocre at best, but Gid gave it 4 stars anyway because of the nice experience we had. He has watched Thomas movies before, but this is the first time we've put something on and he's watched it all the way through without knowing the characters or having several 'preview' runs (i.e. 20 minutes, then 40, then...).

He also started telling me "As I said, ...", which is pretty funny. Here's an example from the weekend:

J: Sailboats are scary
A: Why are sailboats scary?
J: As I said, sailboats are scary because they come to me at night and they scare me

My mom's birthday

My mom's birthday is coming up, so I asked Joaquin what we should get her. He said, "Gifts and presents and boxes full of choo-choo trains!"

We are definitely at the point where we can have full conversations with Joaquin, which is really fun and very telling at some times. Since we have gotten back from Texas, he has told me that he is bored at daycare, which we have kind of guessed, but it is a totally different thing to hear it from his mouth. Who knew he knew the word bored?

He also tells us that he knows all about things ("I know all about [insert whatever he's excited about here]"), goes to the bathroom by himself and shuts the door for privacy, hates wearing pants, can calm himself down when I ask him to, and can be reasoned with.

I'm having a hard time writing this blog lately. I've been trying to figure out why and what I've come up with is that our lives now don't seem as much of a series of 'events'...i.e. first words or walking or whatever...rather, it's much more of a comfortable evolution. So it's a big deal that I can say, "Joaquin, I need you to calm down now" and he can take a deep breath and do that, but that's just the latest on a process that we've been working on for a long time. I think it's harder to write about the process as it just melts into every day life. It's no less rewarding and in some ways, it's more rewarding to see this beautiful evolution...nevertheless, it does make it more challenging for me to revisit the blog :)

No blogging in 2 months

I have not blogged in over 2 months. Is it because nothing has been happening? Quite the opposite...these 2 months have been beyond busy. In truth, every time I think of returning here I get overwhelmed with the prospect. Inevitably, I will forget something and then do I go back and edit? Do I add a new out of synch post? Should I even attempt to address the past two months? I like to think of myself as easy going, but this kind of self examination harshly points out a few perfectionist tendencies.

We've had a great and busy 2 months:

Christmas: This was the first Christmas that Joaquin really got Christmas, although not completely. It took us a few hours to get him inside and even longer to open presents. Then he didn't care if it was him that opened presents, just that someone opened presents...one of my favorite memories is Nate opening up some powder and Joaquin asking us what it was for. We told him it was for your behind (the powder is called 'Monkey Butt') and Joaquin promptly pulled down his pants and said, "Put it on my butt!" This ended a bit when Joaquin started opening presents for himself, and especially when he opened his Thomas the Train track set. After that, he didn't want to open any presents and, in fact, we didn't finish opening his presents until the next day around dinner time. I think this year left quite an impression on him though and we shouldn't expect that next year. He regularly gets excited about Christmas now along with presents and candy canes and asks to watch Frosty the Snowman every once in awhile. Great Christmas-so much fun.

Joaquin broke his leg: I'm not exactly sure what happened as I was in the bathroom. I think he got his foot caught on one of the throw rugs. It was his top foot bone that had a piece broken off. They actually did not catch it at first and we had to go back...he got the cast the night of the 30th and had broken it on the 26th. He is a tough kid...he had already started walking on it. He ended up getting the cast off in about a month, but it was a rough month for us. The first few days were filled with begging and crying to take it off and then he went back to as 'normal' as he could. Normal for a 2 year old active boy though is pretty physical and Gideon and I had our share of bruises from that cast being flung all over. So happy to see that go!

More to come...maybe starting is the first step :)...

Joaquin's contribution to the Christmas tree this year!

Joaquin is 2.5!

...or just over :)

Here's what our little boy is like at 2.5...

He is obsessed with Dora the Explorer, Season 3-yes, only season 3. We don't have cable and so he can only get Dora on netflix. Netflix only goes to season 3 and that is apparently the season where they changed their intro. So it is "swinging from the vines Dora" all the time at our house.

His obsession with Dora has provided him with all kinds of Spanish. Spoken regularly at our house now are "Hop on-Subon!", "Por Favor", "De Nada", "Buenos Dias!", "Oh si, mucho gusto!"

His memory is incredible...he told me all the houses in the neighborhood that were decorated last year and he was only 1.5 last year. Sure enough, when decorations went up, he was right on. His vocabulary is also incredible, at a much higher level than most 2 year olds. He corrects his own grammar, speaks in full sentences, uses complicated words, and plays pretend with full conversations between his trains.

He's also decided he does not need to sleep anymore, regularly staying up with Daddy after Mommy goes to bed. Two nights ago he didn't go to sleep until 1 am and even then he woke up at 7 asking, "Is nap time over?" He's also a bit shy and very hesitant around big groups, especially those that are noisy, which can be quite a challenge with Gideon's family :). We had a party the other day and with one friend he was all happy and smiles saying, "We're having a party!" With 4 friends it turned into, "I'm scared of our friends."

This year is our first year really celebrating a traditional Christmas with him. He has gifts under the tree and got a message from Santa Claus that he watched 10 times in a row. Merry Christmas anyone out there that reads this-I hope you and your family have as much love and joy as ours does!

Old Skool

Joaquin's favorite song right now is admirably old skool.

No pictures!

Joaquin picked up a big novel yesterday (one of Gideon's) while I was making dinner and said, "I'm going to read, once upon a time." He walked over to the dog bed, sat down, opened it and said, "Once upon a time...aw, there are no pictures!"