Thursday, September 16, 2010

The calm before the storm?

Can you see how big a smile he has in this picture? We are going to remember that for the next few days.

Because it might be the last big smile we see for a little bit. Tomorrow morning we take Camden in to get his tonsils and adenoids out. You might remember back a little over a year ago when Ainsley and Hudson both got theirs out the same day. That wasn't exactly the greatest 10 days or so that our family has ever experienced. But, thanks to some giant tonsils we get to do it all over again tomorrow morning with #3. No- we are not doing Reagan at the same time. Fool me once... not that she is old enough anyway, we will save that fun for another day.

Anyway- Camden is actually SUPER excited about getting them out. I'm feeling guilty about how he doesn't know what is coming, but not guilty enough to tell him. He is just excited about ICE CREAM AND TOYS! His siblings have been coached to not be buzz kills, so instead they are just talking up the treat part. They are happy because they know it will mean more treats and movies for them, so they are all for it.

Anyway- the fun Camden had today was he finally go to do soccer. It has been killing him to go to soccer games and practices and not get to participate, so I found a little tots class that he can go to. He had so much fun. Every once in awhile he would turn around and yell to me, "Mom, this is really fun!" It was so cute. He ran so hard and was totally focused on soccer the whole time. Once he does something, he does it 110%, so it was awesome. What a cutie.

No one was going to get a ball in his goal!

Reagan was the water girl. Say a prayer for Camden that his surgery and recovery go well!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

The end to the troubled tooth and double the tooth fairy.

I mentioned in my previous post that Hudson was probably getting his tooth pulled. Indeed, that is what happened. Here is the background.

When Hudson was 18 months old we were having dinner at our neighbors house. Nothing strange happened, no collisions, I fed him dinner and there was nothing wrong in his mouth. When we got home as I was changing him into his pajamas I was shocked to notice that his front left tooth had a huge chip! To make a long story short, we had it capped which was a horrendous experience. They gave him (remember 18 months old) some liquid something to drink that was supposed to make him calm and sleepy. Instead it made him a screaming lunatic for 3 hours. The dentist words were, "he will make a really bad drunk." Nice. Anyway, they went ahead and strapped him down on the board thing (hands down my worst parenting experience ever) and capped the tooth. Ever since any little bonk to the mouth is really painful for that tooth. The dentist thought it would last hopefully until he was 3 or 4 and the fall out. Well, here we are at 6 and amazingly we still had the tooth. Until the night before first grade.

Camden and Hudson were out on the jumpy and had a collision that left Hudson with his tooth bleeding and hanging down half way. It was quite a look, and totally impacted his speech. Nice way to send your child off to first day for the first day of first grade.
You can sort of see how it is hanging down in this picture. Fortunately we got him into the dentist (I had to tutor, so daddy took him) that afternoon and he did get it pulled. Unfortunately the big tooth is not very far down so the roots were still there (and he is going to have a hole for awhile) and the extraction required 2 shots. He was amazing and didn't even cry, sweet boy.

The best part of the story though is how our family bounces between complete over-parenting/helicopter-ness and neglect. You see I went to bed and forgot to put $ under Hudson's pillow. Our rule (funny how these things evolve) is you get one gold dollar for a tooth, but if the tooth is pulled or falls out at school (both things that happened with Ainsley, that is how it happened) you get two. Andrew went to bed, and I was already asleep. Before falling asleep it occurs to him, being the awesome dad he is, that I didn't put any money under Hudson's pillow. So he gets up and finds my stash of gold dollars that I keep just for teeth and puts two under his pillow. He then gets up and goes to basketball before I am even awake. I wake up and as I'm walking in to get Hudson remember about the money so run back in and get two dollars and slip them under his pillow. I wake up Hudson and leave his room. I'm in the bathroom with Ainsley and Hudson comes running in saying, "I got four coins!!!" Ainsley starts flipping out, we have broken the rules! I say, "No he didn't, he is tricking you." But then he holds up his four dollars. I figure out what happened and start laughing saying, "the tooth fairy visited twice!" Ainsley thinks I should take the extra two away because this is of course not fair, I'm laughing at how we either forget to leave money, or both do it. But there is no way I'm taking money away from the kid who endured his first day of school with a nightmare tooth and then got it pulled and was so awesome about it. My kids know the truth about the tooth fairy. (have you ever read this story?) So now we have a new rule at our house, you get one dollar for the tooth, one more if it is pulled or lost at school, and an extra dollar for each shot that it takes to get the tooth out. By the time we are on Reagan who knows how many "rules" there will be in this family!
Here is our now tooth-less boy.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

First and Fourth


Is "first and fourth" a football phrase? Sort of sounds like it. Anyway- for us it is this school year. And it is a blessed thing. This is one of my "off" years. Two kids in full day school, two kids in no school. That means no driving anyone anywhere- the big kids ride the bus to and from, the littles stay home with me. Next year will be pre-school for Camden and I'm dreading it. I hate half day school when it involves pick ups and drop offs. Yuck. Anyway- so I'm going to enjoy ever last day this year. Here is the first day run-down. As always, it seems, there is a pretty good story.
Our big first grader. I managed to talk him into this shirt rather than the one he wanted to wear. It also was a Nike t-shirt, but it said, "Don't Cry... I'll go easy on you second half." Nice. Not really a good first impression shirt. I didn't buy it. I don't buy any of his t-shirts in fact.

So my great first day story. When I saw Hudson's teacher I just had to giggle. You see, she is new to his school so I have never met her before. Last year Hudson did meet her. She came and read a story to the kids who were going to be in her class. I peppered Hudson with multiple questions to try and get any sort of information out of him about his teacher, and he had next to nothing to report. One thing I asked what she looked like. His response was, "ummm... I don't know, just like Mrs. Manzella I guess." Okay, Mrs. Manzella was his Kindergarten teacher. Brown hair, very cute, here she is: (if your reading this Amy I hope it is okay I just posted your picture)
Now... if only I had a picture of his teacher this year it would make this story so much better. But remember, according to Hudson she looks just like Mrs. Manzella. So I was pretty surprised to see that Hudson's teacher doesn't quite look just like Mrs. Manzella, see, she is Asian. Keen observational skills Hudson. When I talked to Andrew's mom this afternoon she said hopefully Hudson won't ever have to identify someone involved in a crime. No kidding.
Here is Ainsley in her classroom. She was so excited. She had never met her teacher before, he also is new to the school. This morning as she was eating breakfast she was pretty wound. Suddenly she went off on a tangent where she was convinced her teacher was blind. What??? She thought it would be cool if there was a guide dog in her class. Some days you just don't even know what to say back. Anyway, we met Mr. Moss and he was very nice, and also not blind. Good news.

Anyway- we are off and running with the school year. Camden made it through the day without them, we went to OMSI this morning so he would have something fun to do, Reagan went along for the ride nicely. Ainsley and Hudson are both home now and had great days. Well, actually Hudson is not home currently. He is with Andrew at the dentist, he had a collison last night and is now probably getting his front tooth pulled. But that is a whole other story...