What Will wants for his birthday

His own 5-way mirror! We did some shopping on Saturday and while Glenn was trying on pants, Will and Reina discovered the magic of mirrors. We had to drag Will kicking and screaming (really!) away from when it was time to leave. He sang, he danced, he did karate chops. He was very enthralled by the charming character on the other side of the mirror. "Look mom! There's so many of me!" We had a busy weekend! Both kids attended a birthday party on Saturday morning and Will made friends with this chap: On Sunday, we all piled into the car for a trip to Denver. "I AM smiling!"The kids were dropped off in Brighton to spend a few hours with Pop-pop and Grandma Pop-pop. Glenn and I headed into Denver to participate in the American Lung Association's "Fight for Air Climb." We climbed 56 floors to raise money and awareness for lung disease and asthma. It was fun... well as much fun as gasping for air every few flights can be. It definitely made me appreciate the feeling of breathing normally.

It's now Wednesday and I home this afternoon with both kiddos. Will has another one of his weird rashes and as I was leaving the doctor's office to bring him home, Montessori called and Reina had a 100 degree fever. So I'm feverishly (ha ha) pumping the kids full of fluid and multi-tasking. Here's hoping tomorrow is rash and fever-free.

2-year stuff

Reina had her 2-year check-up on Thursday. She's healthy and intelligent and uber cute, well according to us anyway. According to the doctor, she's in the 50th percentile for height and the 30% for weight. I'm starting to wonder if she was switched at birth because I don't think I've ever been in the 30 percentile for anything. At the check-up, the doctor asked a lot of questions about Reina's behavior and communication ability. I think this is the time when they look for signs of autism. When the doctor asked if we think Reina's demonstrates empathy, I had to giggle. Whenever she sees a baby human or a baby animal in person, on tv or in a book, she worries about where the baby's mommy is and if it needs a chupee. Books like "Is your Mama a Llama?" keep her enthralled by finding the mommy on each page. So yes, she demonstrates empathy, is able to communicate in 2-word sentences (where's baby's mommy?) and definitely feeds herself. I know, I know. I used this picture earlier in the week, but it's quite fitting here, don't you think?

The doctor was asking us about Reina's physical abilities and when the "can she jump?" question came up, I looked across the room to see Reina jumping up and down. Not only can she jump, but she's psychic! (Side note: Reina loves jumping. She also loves saying "I jump" as she jumps. It's just about the cutest thing you've ever seen. Unless you are in a hurry to get her dressed and she won't stop jumping. Furthermore, unfortunately her vertical leap is about 1/8 of an inch. I'm afraid she inherited that from me.)

Will and Reina have been getting along splendidly lately. I've been a parent long enough now to know that most (good and bad) things behavior-wise don't always end up lasting very long so I'm trying to enjoy this time of peace while I can. Will's at the age where his imagination is really taking off and he'll often assign a role to Reina in whatever world he's in at the time. Last night he was Ironman, I was Batman and Reina was Spiderman as we chased him around the living room. They will also play side-by-side while but it's often Will building legos and Reina coloring on the floor (literally, not coloring on a coloring book on the floor but coloring on the floor). Last night, they were busy with different activities and then Will asked, "Reina, wanna wrestle?" To my surprise, she did! For a few minutes away... No children were harmed in the taking of this photograph:

Or this one either, although a few crayons were lost in the battle.

Refrigerator jumping and bowling

Another three-day weekend come and gone. The weather was cold and windy so most of our activities were confined to the inside. I did attempt a long run with some friends and I'm still feeling the effects 24-hours later. This is the time of year when Glenn starts talking wistfully of Spring and I even start to feel a little sick of winter.

We had a couple bright spots this weekend. We get to babysit doggies and it sure was nice to have friends of the four-footed variety to keep us company for a night. Will still talks about Canyon a lot and he had a great time playing catch and leading a very patient Natron around on the leash for a few laps around our kitchen. Last night, I had a belated dinner with my friend Heather (at Red Lobster - one word -coconutshrimp!) so I left the kids in Glenn's hands and escaped for a meal. As I was leaving, the kids were doing this: Reina was a little more hesitant about flinging herself off of the top of the fridge into her dad's arms but not Will. He was so enthusiastic that I couldn't even get any pictures. The kid loves adrenaline. And that scares me to my very core.

We woke up this morning to another cold and blustery day, so we decided to go bowling. Hey, there aren't that many options on a February Cheyenne day! Needless to say, it was actually a pretty big hit. Will really liked it and even threw a strike at one point. I should record for posterity that he was beating my score for a while but luckily he got distracted by the arcade and didn't finish his game. Between turns, Will and Reina snacked on pretzels and grape-flavored sugar water. I can't even call it juice.... Some people in our party REALLY enjoyed their pretzels but I won't name names.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as Reina enjoyed your snack.

Pink!

I had the following conversation with Reina a few days ago while trying to teach her the colors.

Me: What color is this?

R: PINK!

Me: Green? Is it green?
R: Geen!

Me: What color is this?

R: PINK!

Me: Yellow! Is it yellow?

R: Lallo!

Me: What color is this?

R: PINK!

Me: Blue, is it blue?

R: Boo!

Me (pointing to Reina's pink dress): What color is your pretty dress?
R: Geen!

********

Reina decided to start talking in full sentences over the weekend. Upon noticing me wearing my coat unzipped, "Mommy, that your jacket? You hot? I'm hot too!" Granted, many of her sentences are spoken in Mandarin but at least she is stringing several thoughts together. Not surprisingly, much of her dialogue includes complaints about our level of service and attention to detail but every once in a while she has a few words of encouragement for us. She is a compassionate little soul. She's always worried about baby animals in books "needs Mommy!" and she generously offers her to chupee to babies that she sees. Today when I picked her up from school, she told me "Bobo crying!" When we picked Will up from his classroom I asked him if he'd cried that day. He did - somebody punched him in the face (his version of events) and Reina must have seen him crying on the playground. It makes me happy that she's so in tuned with him, at least at this moment in time.

********

A Hansen tradition continues on with Reina. The tradition of girls wearing boys clothes given to them by Pop-pop. Vicky and I both remember wearing boys jeans and shirts that Dad would buy us at the local farm and ranch store. For Reina's birthday, Pop-pop bought her one pink and brown outfit and one pair of jeans with a "Cars" shirt. Will is obviously a big fan of the shirt but Reina likes it too. She looks pretty cute, even though she wouldn't cooperate for the picture.

The last few posts have been Will-lite but he's doing great. He's been staying healthy (knock on wood!) and running around like a madman. More on Will next time.

A letter to the birthday girl

Dear Reina: Today, you are two. Well, you tell anyone who asks that you are "fweeee" (3) but you really are only two. You are changing every day and it's a joy to watch you learn new things and figure stuff out. You are just as busy as your brother was at this age. You bounce back and forth between playing with your babies to furiously coloring in a book or any piece of paper you can find. You love helping me with the laundry, and as soon as you can carry the basket down the stairs, the job is all yours kiddo! You can empty my purse in 30 seconds flat and we've had to put a rubber band on the pantry door to keep you from helping yourself to snacks. Reina, you've changed a lot over the last year. You started off as a mute, non-mobile little sidekick that I carried around and now you make your concerns known LOUDLY and you run from room to room giggling. You love to play hide-and-seek in daddy's closet and you shriek your disapproval when Will takes something from you, which he does a lot. Speaking of Will, you call him "Bobo" and you greet him with a hug when we pick him up from his class. You two are starting to play together more, which also means that you find a lot more to fight about. I've entered that lovely stage of parenting where I find myself saying several times a day, "If you two can't play with that toy together, then I'm taking it away!" Even though you shriek and holler at each other, you also snuggle up on the couch on Saturday mornings and watch as many cartoons as you can get away with.

Reina, your dad and I think that you are pretty smart. You count to 12 and beyond regularly and you know all your animals and most of the Toy Story characters. You love to sing and you request the "beast" ("Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast) song every time we get in the car. You have a very caring side to your personality, you are always giving your baby more juice or wrapping something else up in a blanket. You love pretending to give us medicine or a shot from your doctor's kit and you cackle when we pretend that it hurts. You can be fiercely independent one minute and clamoring for 'up-y!' the next. You are sooooo a 2-yr old with your demands and throw-yourself-on-the-floor tantrums, but we have a lot of fun anyway. Happy birthday Reina-girl, we love you so much!

Reina enjoying her birthday presents. Trying not to be too gender specific (and failing miserably!), we bought you a set of play dishes and food. You had fun on your birthday morning whipping up some breakfast for all of us. You look very regal wrapped up in your new 'Disney princess' blanket. You haven't discovered many of the characters yet, but you love Belle from Beauty in the Beast. After nap on your birthday, Will helped you play with all of the new toys. He's very helpful, that brother of yours. He even offered to take some of the toys into his room ...
Daddy brought you a bunch of balloons home after work. We thought you might share one with Will but not yet. We had to pry the balloons out of your sweaty little hand to get you in bed.
It's a birthday cake for Reina that doesn't look like a total disaster! That's three foals with two birthday candles and a bunch of green stuff that's supposed to be grass or rosettes or whatever it is you can make with green frosting. The cake looked a lot nicer in your mom's head.

This last picture needs a caption. You sang along gustily to "happy birthday" while we sang it to you. I think you were so excited to hear a song that you know the words to! You have the sweetest little voice and I'm excited to hear you sing that song to yourself many more times in the future.

Catching up

I have a few minutes to myself. Both kids and Glenn are asleep and it's too late in the evening to get any other projects started. I have a lot of little anecdotes to jot down before they leave my brain. Our weather is still frigid but both kids are healthy. Reina turns 2, TWO, in a few days. How can that be possible? (Actually, she keeps telling everybody that she's going to be three on her birthday, she's insistent!) I'll have a big weepy letter for her actual birthday, but this girl just continues to grow before our very eyes. She's smart (counts to 12 by herself!) and opinionated and crawls into bed with us at 5:45 a.m. on a Saturday and announces that she wants to watch cah-toons. Reina loves her brother and calls him Bobo. When she wakes us up for her early morning entertainment, she then goes marching into his room and says "Hi Bobo! Watch cah-toons!" She's so obviously almost two because the tantrums are increasing in frequency and duration but let's save that for the birthday letter.

Bobo's got a lot going on, too. He's still taking swim lessons with his Aunt Vicky and spends a half hour splashing around the pool shrieking. We haven't had anymore rash disasters and he's making it through the cold and flu season relatively untouched. He talks and talks and talks and talks and covers a wide variety of subjects. We had a ten minute conversation tonight on the way to swim lessons about male anatomy and how girls don't have certain male parts although he remains convinced that some girls do have said male parts and I was too tired to argue. He also explained to me the history of the dinosaurs (they lived a long long time ago and then the DIED (emphasis - his), and then they turned into bones and now the bones are in a museum. And we can see the bones and T-Rex has really sharp teeth and it would make you bleed.) Right now, he's very interested in bleeding and death and destruction. I'm assured that this is typical boy behavior and not some horrible foreboding of future interests, but it freaks me out a little bit. He's still obsessed with his Lego's and if there's a future profession that involves some paleontology, volunteer firefighting duties and structural engineering, Will's going to find it. Oh, and if he could blow things up at the end, that would be great.

Call in the Fashion Police

Dear Will-of-the-future: Son, I can pretty much guarantee that this picture is going to make an appearance on your graduation slideshow, wedding party reception or at least your NFL locker. This is what happens when you let an almost 4-yr old dictate his fashion choices. And yes, we let you run around public like this one afternoon. The Buzz costume itself isn't so bad, but when you add a jaunty deer hunting cartoon/camo hat to the mix, well then.... Star Command, we have a problem. And to be fair, I guess I need to point out Little Sister's choices for the day. You can't see it, but she's wearing a bright yellow UW shirt, brown cords and bedazzled, bright pink Mary Janes. And pink socks, we can't forget the socks. Good thing both of you are so darn cute.

Brrrrrrr!!!

You can't tell by the smile on Reina's face, but maannnnnnnnn it is cold outside! Right now, the temperature is -6 without the wind chill which is a heatwave compared to this morning's temperature of -21 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's been another one of those weeks where we don't know if we are coming or going so here are a few pictures from the week.

Reina in her pretty church dress given to her by a friend. She looks adorable, no? About 20 minutes after this picture was taken, she ate a handful of cheese puffs at the church coffee hour. Yeah, the cheese puffs with the consistency of Styrofoam that when eaten explode in a powder of neon dust that settles into the creases and folds of one very pretty green velvet dress. The good news is that the dress is washable... It's not green velvet, but here's Will's church outfit. Will hit another milestone over the weekend when he announced that he was going to marry Rachel from school. It's the first time that he's wanted to marry a non-family member. He explained that she would wear a dress and he didn't have to wear one. When I asked what kind of cake they would have, he replied, "a WEDDING cake, Mom!" Like, duh! He did conceded that it would probably have sprinkles on it. The happy courtship sadly only lasted until the next day when he saw Rachel at a birthday and she informed him that he wasn't her best friend anymore. That about broke my heart but after a hug and a pep talk from the mommy, Will was able to move on.

In other breaking news, Reina's wearing a ponytail. I warned you that it's been one of those weeks! It's sort of a modified ponytail but her hair is getting long enough to pull back and you can see her pretty face. I kept trying to get a decent picture of the new 'do but someone wasn't cooperating.
Or maybe someone else was being really annoying with the camera which caused said subject to throw herself down on the floor in an attempt to end the photo session.

Ha! Gotcha!

Next post: Something equally exciting. Maybe a detailed account of Will's friend throwing up at the birthday party. Enthralling!