Choot* kids

I sat down today in an attempt to capture the essence that is Reina, but as usual, time is getting away from me.  Dinner needs to be cooked, laundry put away and I'm sure Trigger needs to be scolded about something.  Glenn has spent a long weekend in Kansas turkey hunting and he's due home in a few hours and since it was his birthday yesterday, I should really have a little bit more of a celebration planned than I currently do.  BUT I'm happy that Glenn could turkey hunt.  In February, when he was still in the hospital, the doctor told Glenn that his hope was that Glenn would be 80% recovered by his birthday.  I'm so happy that he appears to be at least 80%, if not more.  Hooray!

Okay, so back to Reina.  She's been a little bit of a handful recently.  She came down with an ear infection week before last, stayed home for a few days last week, made a repeat trip to the doctor for a new antibiotic and is still fighting something off today.  I've said this before, but some kids get quiet or droopy when they don't feel well.  Reina just gets well... mean.  Her hair trigger temper becomes even shorter and while she's very affectionate and wants to snuggle a lot, in a minute it can turn to "You are giving me too many kisses mommy!"  Sigh.  *It's a good thing she's so choot (Reina's word for cute.)  It's become a part of my vernacular now.  One of Reina's most common refrains besides STOP DAT BOBO! is "I'll do it myself."  Whether it's getting dressed, putting on shoes, picking out a bandaid or taking her medicine, she insists on doing it by herself.  She's also not a big fan of delayed gratification.  Glenn brought both kids fishing poles from his trip this weekend and Reina proceeded to grab hers, match out the backdoor and want to fish.  "Iwanttofishrightnow.  Can we go to a pond after dinner?  Can we go to a pond right now?"  One of her other Reinish characteristics right now is "I like you shirt Mommy."  "I like you book Bobo."  You instead of 'your.'  It's contagious. 

Reina, modeling her Minn Twins dress from (great) Aunt Mary.  I was trying to send a picture to Aunt Mary and this was as good as it gets.  Reina adds a very Top Model quality to this picture that scares me beyond belief. 

The Force is strong in these two (below).  Saturday night the kids and I went to a benefit dinner at church.  It wasn't completely altruistic on my part.  I figured for a few bucks, someone else could feed all of us dinner and it wouldn't be McD's.  Win-win-win!  The dinner was good and there was also a pie auction.  Will kept raising his hand and bidding on apple pies, banana cream pies, chocolate pies and one tin of brownies that he was very disappointed not to get. I finally let him "win" a peach pie, but I was really the winner because neither of them liked it.  More for me!  They were distracted towards the end of the auction by taking turns wearing my sweatshirt.  Will was pretending he was a Jedi.  Reina was pretending she was me.  She had all of us in 'time out' rather quickly.  Apparently that's how I sound to her. 

 Look!  I have tulips that Reina hasn't picked yet!  She finally seems to understand that the flowers are prettier when they stay in the ground.  Except for dandelions and a few grape hyacinth that she insisted she didn't pick but no one else was there and (maybe it was the rabbits mommy?), she has left these pretty tulips alone.  We've had an usually warm but DRY Spring.  Usually these bulbs don't bloom for a few more weeks but instead of worrying about drought, I'll just enjoy the pretty flowers.  And look, smirking pirates enjoy tulips too. 

We really need to do something about the pirate outfit.  In this picture, he's wearing two shirts, plus that fleece thing, long pants and snow boots.  Luckily this was one of the cooler mornings, it was probably only about 59 degrees.  Yeah, I know.  Reina was probably a little chilly but you tell her to put a jacket on.  I dare ya.  So back to Will.  The kid has a tendency to barf when he gets overheated.  It's happened a few times now, most recently a few weeks ago when we just happened to be in the drive-thru for McD's.  We try to explain that pirates can also wear short sleeves and shorts but he's not buying it.  However, he is starting to make the correlation between being too warm and that gurgling feeling in his tummy.  Maybe in a few months, he'll be obsessed with southeastern Native Americans or Olympic swimmers or other people who around in summer-appropriate clothing.  We can only hope.