Will is 2!

Well, this post is a little late in coming–Will had a wonderful 2nd birthday celebration last week, and right afterward, Mommy came down with the flu and was in bed for three days. And, yes, I had a flu shot. So far, God has kept the rest of the family healthy (with the aid of doses of Tamiflu for all!).

Anyway, Will turned two last Thursday! I decorated his door with streamers and a poster with photos from the year (an idea stolen from my dear friend, Ashley Escue), and Christopher, Noel and I went in to wake him up, videocamera rolling, ready for an adorable birthday moment. Someone must have filled Will in on the role of a terrible two, because he threw one massive tantrum from the time he got up until we arrived at mother’s day out. (By that time, I was feeling a lot less guilty about taking him to mother’s day out on his birthday!) We took fire truck plates, napkins and hats with cookies to school for a party with his buddies. That evening, we went to dinner at Fun City, which is kind of like Chuck-E-Cheese. It has cars to ride in, tunnels and slides to climb on, balls to play in, and then a ton of arcade games that the boys were thankfully oblivious to. They had a great time playing and eating pizza! When it was time to go home, I bought some cotton candy to take with us. I showed it to the kids and said, “Look what I got!” Christopher said, “What’s that??” Noel and I felt like rotten parents that our almost-4-year-old had never had cotton candy! But when we got home, the boys LOVED it! We had a great time eating cotton candy, opening birthday presents, and taking phone calls from family and friends. It got to the point where we would hand the phone to Will, and he would start saying, “Happy Birthday!” just like he’d been hearing all day!

On Saturday, we had a bunch of family and friends over for lunch and birthday cake. It was a construction theme party, because Will love trucks! I made a cake to look like a construction site, along with the construction party standard–the dump truck filled with cupcakes that are supposed to look like dirt. The kids put stickers on yellow construction hats, ate dump truck-shaped sandwiches for lunch, demolished the cake, and had a great time playing with Will’s old and new toys. And Will is a pro at being the birthday boy–as soon as we were done singing to him, he blew out the candles right on cue! One blew out right away, and the other took some help from Mommy after he got his face way too close to it trying to blow it out. Then he threw a small tantrum when the cake was taken out from under his face, even though I had assured him we would bring him a piece right away! He ate his chocolate cake mostly using his hands, pausing occasionally to use a fork. The party was definitely chaotic, but we all had a great time. It was fabulous that all of the grandparents, Aunt Laura, Uncle Garland and Caroline could all join us–another great benefit of being back home! (Especially when it was time to clean up!)

Here’s some photos of all the birthday events (you can click on them to enlarge them):

Will’s birthday poster

Playing at Fun City

Will playing with one of his gifts from us–the ageless colored cardboard blocks.

The kids decorating their hats and the grown-ups chatting at Will’s party

The birthday boy in his hat

Christopher had a great time, too!

Eating lunch

More eating lunch

The birthday cake!

Listening to everyone sing “Happy Birthday!”

YUM, YUM, YUM!

Opening presents with the help of all our friends!

Pop-tarts, please!

Will is obsessed with pop-tarts.  Now that his expanded vocabulary allows him to request specific things, he has started demanding pop-tarts every morning.  In fact, he often says “pop-tarts breakfast” when I say it is time for lunch or dinner.  Aside from the tantrums that result from not getting pop-tarts three times a day, it is so fun to hear what is going on in his head.  Like his brother, he has a fabulous memory.  He starts saying “Grandma!  Grandpa!” when we turn into their neighborhood, and he was asking for Grandpa recently when we went into a coffee shop where we’d met Grandpa once a month earlier.  He also knows that when Dre comes, it is time to play football, and when Grandpa comes, he leads him to the pantry to get him a snack.  (The handing out of bedtime snacks by Grandpa is becoming legendary now.)  For some unknown reason, Christopher taught Will to say “Uh, uh, uh, I don’t think so!” with some attitude, and Will loves to make it a family affair.  He says it and then says, “Fer fer (Christopher), uh uh uh!” “Momma, uh uh uh!” “Daddy, uh uh uh!” until we have all repeated it.  He LOVES this game.

On Tuesday, I got my first call from the school principal’s office.  (Okay, the preschool director’s office, but it’s close.)   Christopher fell while running around playing a game and had a bloody nose and mouth, so I had to go get him.  Here’s how Christopher described the incident:  “I was running very fast in my tennis shoes, and I fell, and the floor just smacked me in the face!  And I was not very brave.  I was sitting on Mrs. Burris’ lap, and Dawson came over, and he was being quiet, and when he stopped, he said, ‘I know that you have red snot!’”  Christopher seemed to think his friend’s comment was pretty funny.  He’s included it in every telling of this that I’ve heard.  Christopher’s teacher called that night to make sure he was okay–one of the many reasons I love our school!  And don’t worry–he’s fine, and he didn’t even look beat up the next day.

The other night, we were reading from our children’s Bible (The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones, I highly recommend it) about Adam and Eve and Satan in the Garden of Eden.  Afterwards, we were going to pray, and I asked Christopher if there was anything he wanted to pray for.  He said he wanted to pray for Satan.  I’m not sure what he meant by that, and I found it pretty thoughtful and a little strange, so we decided to pray for protection from temptation and evil.  On another night before bed, I was singing “Jesus Loves Me” to Will, and after the last line (“The Bible tells me so”), Will said “Bible!” and went to his shelf and got one of the children’s Bible and brought it over to me to read to him.  It might have been a stalling technique, but I couldn’t refuse that!