Jcnt's teethsies are out!

Jacinta's first teethsies have broken through her gums. Her top and bottom two teeth have almost simultaneously come out within a few days of each other. Joaquin's first (bottom) tooth came out when he was around 6 months old.

Jacinta didn't want to stay still while we tried to pry open her mouth for a photo.
Georgie bought this toy Magnum for Joaquin.
Yes, sometimes I like to dress them similarly, if not exactly.
So sleepy.
"You will now check your email and respond to Mama's evite."

con-con & quin-quin

This post is dedicated to Tasha who watched after Joaquin this past Sunday while Georgie, Jacinta and I did some grocery shopping and Target shopping. We really appreciate it, Tasha! Joaquin met and played with Conner. One could say that they were on a playdate. You took amazing photos of them.




I also wanted to mention that Joaquin now nags us to put on the headphones while he plugs-in the cable into the wicker basket.



con-con & quin-quin
Tasha said that Conner kept calling Joaquin, "quin-quin".

I can't believe we have the same couch!

Lollipop Club

Tasha, please leave a comment briefly talking about that afternoon. :-)

I want a pet zombie!

Such was the premise of Fido, a film I recently enjoyed watching. If you saw Shaun of the Dead, Fido can almost be the film that followed it. Remember when Shaun domesticated his zombie best friend, Ed?

To see what follows "Remember when Shaun..." simply click on the area where the text is invisible and drag your mouse over the area -- like selecting and copying text. I learned this inviso-text trick from Aint It Cool News a long time ago. It was to help prevent people from reading spoilers!

Anyways, I recommend Fido. Who wouldn't be interested after reading this plot summary on imdb:

"Timmy Robinson's best friend in the whole wide world is a six-foot tall rotting zombie named Fido. But when FIDO eats the next-door neighbor..."

Jqn: 26 months old!

Twenty-six months old; that's 809 days old or 1,164,960 minutes old.

Joaquin has finally figured out that he is able to climb up on almost anything if he can get one of his feet up on the top for leverage.

He is playing with Jacinta more and more. As an example, Joaquin loves spinning her around while she is in the exersaucer.

Climbing up and going down stairways is a must since we do not have any stairs in our place. Joaquin finds stairs very interesting even though most of the time he is not even paying attention to how he steps.

Speaking of climbing... Joaquin is almost able to climb into the bath tub by himself. We've seen him do the bend-over with his legs almost parallel to the ground as he tries to get into the tub.


Joaquin still loves bath time. One time, he couldn't wait for his turn to bathe and begged us to get into the tub with Jacinta. Georgie and I agree that in about three month's time, these two will probably be able to play with each other in the bath.

Waking up in the morning is something that Joaquin prefers to do himself. If we force him to get up, it makes for a grumpy little boy. Getting him ready for school in the morning becomes a whiny struggle and a desperate search for the last location of Jqn's tete (binky).

We are taking Joaquin to a speech therapist next month. At this age, children "should know/say at least 50 words." Although Jqn is a very talkative child he is still speaking in his own language. We've successfully taught him a few words recently but would like to be able to learn how we can help him better.

Georgie and I decided to let Joaquin's hair grow out.

Daddy: "Joaquin, say 'I want the tete."
Joaquin: "Noooo!"
Daddy: "Come on, Joaquin, say 'I want the tete."
Joaquin (in a loud, drawn out, screechy voice): "I want the tetehhhhhh!"

Joaquin has (a couple of times) gone to his bedroom, closed the door and went to sleep.

Because he has grown a couple of inches, Joaquin is now able to reach the door knobs. Not good. He locked his bedroom door once and we had to talk him through to unlock it. We're talking about a child who is going to a speech therapist here. Plus, the screws that hold the knob in place is on Joaquin's side of the door. Luckily -- less than five minutes later -- Jqn was able to turn the knob and unlock the door. So now, Georgie covered the door latches with packing tape.

I'll see you in dreamland, sweetheart.

Jcnt: 9 months old!

Today you are 9 months old, Jacinta!

Jacinta and Danielle.

In the morning

You wake up between 7-7:30am in the weekdays usually with a smile, chatting and kicking your legs at either my head or Daddy's head depending on how you rotated in the early morning hours. But, often-times it is my head because Daddy gets up before me, escaping your morning leg exercises.

In the weekends, we try to get you to sleep a little later in the morning. You've been very good though by quietly playing for a while until you get bored. By then, Daddy will have a yummy cup of coffee waiting for me on the nightstand.

Yay to Daddy!

It's been pretty easy-going getting you ready for school in the morning. You don't make that big of a fuss. If you do, Daddy has found a way to bribe you; giving you some Earth's Best graham cookies. Those are pretty yummy. For breakfast, you eat cereal and/or pureed (fruit) jar food.

In the afternoon

During school, you like to be in the exersaucer. We think you might skip crawling and just start learning how to walk. Our babysitter has also told us that Joaquin has been sweet towards you by handing you some toys, but you've been swatting and throwing at Joaquin with them.

For lunch, you eat pureed (fruit or veggie) jar food. I still pump twice a day during work hours so you have a bottle in the morning and another later in the afternoon. If you're still hungry, you are given a bottle of formula. I've also included some snacks for you. It is the Gerber Stars, just like Joaquin use to snack on. Actually, when Joaquin sees me giving you the stars he asks for some, too.

Another thing that you've been doing is grabbing Joaquin's binky from his mouth. You're pretty fast -- we've seen you do this many times. You're also going through a stranger-danger phase. You cry if anyone other than I or Daddy hold you. I love when I see you and Joaquin look and smile (at times laugh!) at each other. The most recent moment was last night at Lola's place.

In the evening

You like to take a cat nap between 6:30-7PM. Sometimes this gives us a few minutes to be able to start dinner earlier than usual. For dinner, you have pureed jar food. I've started giving you food with turkey and chicken. You seem to really like the turkey dinner.

Tonight, when I told you to dance while we were watching American Idol you started bobbing up and down while smiling. I am overjoyed to watch you and Joaquin when you dance. It's so endearing.

Kicking your legs in the tub and splashing water everywhere is one of your favorite things to do during bath time. You're not as patient with me as Joaquin is when I wash your head. I understand -- you have more hair. You have longer hair. Ah, well, it's a girl thing I suppose.

You're still co-sleeping with me and Daddy. I love it. I love looking at you while you're sleeping. I love when you roll towards me. We enjoy having you with us, but I know we have to get you to sleep in your own room soon. It will be the best for all of us in the long run.

It looks like you might have 5 teeth coming out at the same time. Eeps!

Tumblefurs-less

Our Number One: Nicki.
And, no, your eyes are not deceiving you; Nicki is a Persian blue.

To help you appreciate better why we are so excited that our cats were groomed to have short hair, here is a picture of Nicki before.

I tried to take a similar shot of Shadow.

Welcome to a lot less tumblefurs

Today, our (other) babies got their fur trimmed. A lot. We're really happy about how they turned out. It's not just for my pleasure -- no more clumps of fur rolling around the floor like tumbleweeds, no more fur on everything that they happen to sleep on, no more fur in Jacinta and Joaquin's hands from pulling on them -- but for theirs as well. I hope this will help them have less frequent furballs.

They look like really big, skinny rats. I took some 'before' pictures of the cats. Unfortunately, the ones that I took of Nicki (before and after) weren't that great. I'll have to dig up some of my older photos of him and take new ones sometime this week.

Fern enjoying Jacinta and Joaquin's company.

A photogenic Shadow.

Click on the picture to view the whole image.

Click on the picture to view the whole image.

At the Chicago Auto Show

When I saw this photo, that was the first thing that I thought of. It looks like Joaquin is getting the car started in a hurry while remaining cool.

We went to the Chicago Auto Show a couple of weeks ago with Alex and Tasha. I was pretty excited when Georgie told me that they had asked if we wanted to go. I hadn't been to the Show for at least 10 years and the one thing I remembered is how much fun I had collecting the useless brochures and giveaways.

To get to the show, we had to park maybe a mile away and ride a shuttle bus. The ticket line wasn't too long, but actually getting into the exhibit area was chaos. And, the people briefly glancing at checking bags were there to make people's experience as uncomfortable as possible.

We arrived with positive, excited energy exploring the inside and outside of cars, dreaming about owning that one in the future, imagining what it would be like if we had that much space, etc...



Two hours later, we were done. I think I was done after the first hour. I just found it to be pretty boring. It wasn't at all what I remembered, expected or looked forward to re-living. I didn't even get a chance to grab any of the said useless items.

Trying to leave was a challenge. We were directed every which way, but the right way, to the place where the shuttle bus would be. And, well, we ended up where we started; where we were dropped off. Should've known.