How a pirate celebrates his birthday

Will's birthday theme this year was "Pirates." Obviously. He asked for a birthday cake that was two pirate ships shooting at each other. At first, I said, "Yeah right." But then Will's brilliant Aunt Vicky found a recipe for a pirate ship made out of rice krispie treats so with an extra box of cocoa krispies in hand, we were able to oblige the birthday boy's wish. This masterpiece took way too many hours and looked a lot easier in the book but the birthday boy seemed pleased and I have yet to eat a bad rice krispie treat so all in all we can call it a success. Will's party was held at a local community center that featured an inflatable slide and a bouncy house thing that tired everyone out. Many of the other kids showed up in pirate costumes and when they weren't busy racing up and down the slide, a few sword fights broke out. Reina had a much better time than is reflected in this picture. She just takes her crafting very seriously. The night before Will's party, Aunt Vicky and Uncle Matt brought Will's present over. It's a fancy battery operated gun with a bird that flies in the air and you can shoot it. Will was pretty psyched. As was Glenn.

Paying close attention to Uncle Matt....When he finally came inside for the night, Will (in a serious tone) told us that he has to practice so that he can be a good hunter. I think Glenn might have cried.

Finally, the birthday morning dawned bright and early. Will woke up and remembered it was his big day. We opened presents before breakfast and he was pretty excited about his gifts.
He'd been asking for a spyglass for a while and he put it too good use after school. For the record, this is his standard pirate outfit. I'm not sure why he wears the hood under the hat, but you can also see a gun and Reina's cake cutter in the holster. He likes to pretend that the cake cutter is a knife. Yeah I know.
Pop-pop and Grandma Hansen came over that evening and brought with them the grand finale of birthday presents, his very own pirate ship. He calls it the Black Pearl but it's actually Queen Anne's Revenge. I'm not going to quibble with a pirate-obsessed 5-yr old, he can call it whatever he wants. It took the grown-ups a little too long to set it up but since that night, he carries it up and down the stairs, would take it to church if we let him and plays with it in every spare moment.
It's a great time to be 5.

A letter to the birthday boy

Well here it is, Will. You are five. You are not a baby or a toddler anymore, you're quickly leaving behind the preschool years and in a few months, you'll be an official kindergartner. Sob. Five years ago this morning, you came busting into the world and you haven't slowed down since. You are beyond delighted to be FIVE. You woke up this morning with a big grin on your face and proudly announced to everyone you saw at school, "I'm five today!"

I'm sure I say this every year but Will, you are growing right before our very eyes. You wear a size 6 and have grown out of most of the pants in your closet in the last few months. If given the option, you'd just wear 'soft' pants (your definition, I haven't quite figured out what you mean yet), your Capt Jack Sparrow shirt, a fleece jacket, pirate hat (naturally), and an assortment of weapons everyday. Today you added your newly acquired spyglass and compass. Oh - and your snowboots. Rain or shine, you insist on clomping around the house in those. It's because Capt Jack Sparrow wears boots, naturally.

You are learning so much, both at school and at home. You write your name with ease and even add a P. after it with a flourish. You draw detailed pictures of nautical battles, complete with cannons, bad-guys and explosions. You drew a picture of our family for your Dad while he was in the hospital. At first glance, I thought maybe we were all waving but I was quickly informed that we all had swords (even Reina) and were battling the two bad guys at the top of card. Clearly. Duh Mom. At home, you soak up information like a sponge. Mostly pirate information, but every once in a while, other topics get through. You and Reina go to Sunday School this year and our drive home from church usually features your delightful interpretation of that day's lesson. When we are driving home from school, you tell me about dinosaurs and George Washington and leprechauns and whatever else caught your attention that day. Your brain is always working.

To say that you are obsessed with pirates right now is perhaps a bit of an understatement. It's not just 'pirates' in general either. It's Captain Jack Sparrow. You insist on using his first name and chastise me if I refer to him simply as "Capt Jack." You balked at getting a haircut last week because you felt you were well on your way to growing out long, black dreadlocks. You also asked me how you could grow a beard, because CJS has three beards, according to your recollection. If given the opportunity, you'd watch Pirates of the Caribbean every night of the week and twice on Sundays. You settle for reenacting as many scenes as you can remember and spinning elaborate story lines with your Lego pirate collection. You fall asleep listening to a cd of sea chanteys and nautical songs, which have permeated your subconscious and I'll hear you singing them to yourself as you work on stuff.

We had your birthday party on Saturday, a pirate theme obviously, and a great time was had by all. I'll put more pictures in the next post, but I wanted include a picture of your great birthday cake this year --- two rice krispie treat pirate ships shooting whoppers as cannonballs at each other and guarding a treasure chest full of gold candy corn. It was a big hit with the 4- and 5-year set.

So Will, you are five. You are a delight. You are still strong-willed and stubborn at times, but you also have a great sense of humor and are very caring. When your dad first came back from the hospital, the only place in the house you'd play was right at his feet. The den was a whirlwind of Lego parts and pirate paraphernalia because you didn't want to be too far away. You love your dog and your sister. The last time you had to stay home from school with an ear infection, you told me by lunchtime that you missed Reina and wanted me to go pick her up. You fight with her like crazy, it's not all sibling adoration, all the time, but you two do like each other an awful lot. It's hard for me to believe that you are getting so big. I can't wait to see what the next year brings. We love you Will-will!

A month ago today

One month ago today, I took Glenn to the hospital after a bad night of what we thought was the stomach flu. In my wildest worst-case scenario imagination, I could never have imagined where we would be today. The last month has seemed like a blur and I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around all of it. The good news is that Glenn is making great progress. He's getting stronger every day and he starts physical therapy this week to help with the strength and flexibility in his arm. I've probably mentioned this in previous posts, but the doctors think he can be 80% by his birthday next month. Turkey season starts the week after that, so Glenn's counting on those words.

The day before the hospital visit, we celebrated Reina's birthday at the Old West Museum in the Kid's Room. With a horse crazy 3-yr old and cold Wyoming temperatures, where else could we go? The kids' room has fun hands-on activities and as you can tell by the smiles, everyone had a good time.

'Horseback' riding with Daddy. She asked about fifty times, "Daddy can I ride a horse when I'm bigger?" Eating an ol' timey meal of chicken nuggets, juice boxes and fruit salad in an old schoolhouse desk.

Singing "Happy Birthday" to the 3-yr old.

Cupcakes and ice cream and friends!

Speaking of cupcakes, here's this year's entry into the Baking Hall of Fame. For the Old West theme, Aunt Vicky found cute horse and cow cupcakes and I attempted to follow the directions and make them myself. You can see how that turned out. They were yummy at least.

The Kids' Room has a bunch of dress-up clothes and Will and the gang had fun acting out a variety of scenarios. Here he's wearing a bull rider's arm protector thing. I think he also had knee pads and cowboy boots on. I have no idea what he was supposed to be, but I really hope it wasn't a bull rider. Reina found great entertainment in the leadrope. She drug it around for about half of the party. Who needs fancy presents? Get that kid some rope!

Finally, the night before the day before we went to the hospital, we had a small family celebration at home, on Reina's actual birthday. We sang the song, she opened some presents and we ate more cupcakes.

Capt Jack Sparrow graced us with his presence. How fortunate for the birthday girl.

Next time, pictures of Glenn recovering. Yeah!

Today was a good day

I have so much to write down and remember from this weird time period in our lives but I have so little time in which to do that. Between work and kids and Glenn and Trigger, there's not much time for anything else. So this will be a short update but I know I'll be back to blogging with pictures someday soon. Anyway, back to the point of this post. Glenn is still recovering but he's making a little bit of progress every day. Since coming home from the hospital last Thursday, he's been pretty tired but diligent about walking and trying to regain some of the strength he's lost.

He started to have a lot of pain a few days ago and we both worried that perhaps the infection was coming back. He didn't have any of the other indicators like fever or redness but the pain was pretty difficult to control. Glenn saw the orthopedic surgeon today and the good news is that the pain is normal. It's a result of inflamed tendons in his hand and with some different pain medication and a few exercises to try, it should resolve itself soon. He also had the wound vacuum taken off today, which we were all pretty excited about. Me - because it's yucky. Glenn because, psychologically and physically, he doesn't feel as 'sick' by not being tethered to that thing. The only drawback is that I am now in charge of checking the wound and reapplying the dressing when necessary. I think I'm going to rely on my handy-dandy brother-in-law who's comfortable handling all sorts of animal parts to help me with that one.

Glenn is still receiving the IV antibiotics and will probably continue that for at least another week or more. The doctor also wants him to eat as much as he can and gain some of the weight back and he's instructed Glenn to stop worrying about eating healthy and just eat whatever I put down in front of him. I'm excited to take on that challenge. It would make my job a lot easier if Glenn liked chocolate but I'll see what I can do. It's going to take a while for Glenn to get back to 100% but I feel like we are finally starting to see that light at the end of the tunnel.

There's been a lot going on with the kiddos and my goal is to get some of that written down this weekend. Reina's been a hoot. She's suddenly come up with all sorts of weird pronouncements and opinions. Me: "Have a good nap, sweetie!" Reina: "I'm not fweetie, I'm Reina!" Will is equally entertaining but came down with a double ear infection and general guckiness yesterday. He and Glenn have been negotiating over the remote and who gets their medicine first. He's counting down the days until the 0-5 next weekend.

So we're still chugging along, trying to get people healthy and keeping the chaos down to a manageable level. More soon.

Not how we thought this week would go

Glenn and his space-age, Jiffy-Pop, pre-surgery, head cap thing on Monday night.

Well, after writing what I thought was the first and only chapter of the saga of "Glenn and the Beta Hemalytic Strep Bandit," he ended up back in the hospital on Monday night. The infection came back, but was thankfully just isolated in his elbow. He had surgery Monday night to clean it out again (yes, that is as gruesome as it sounds) and then spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the hospital for observation and IV antibiotics. He's home tonight but we'll be making daily trips to the Infusion Clinic at the hospital for more antibiotics for a few more weeks. He has also this handy-dandy device delightfully called a "Wound Vacuum" that's attached to his incision and gently vacuums out the infected fluid from his arm every few seconds. It makes kind of a loud gurgling, purring sound and I like to imagine that we have adopted a lion and it's curled up at Glenn's feet, purring happily. This positive imagery keeps me from dwelling on the fact that just a few feet away from me, my husband's infected elbow fluid is being extracted from the giant (to me anyway) incision on his elbow and draining into a device that looks a lot like some of the purses I've carried recently (black, kicky, compact).

But he's home and we are all happy about that.