Thursday, July 31, 2014

maddux loses his first tooth

a molar. sigh. but he if feeling SO much better now!

i posted the news about his swollen face and tooth pain yesterday. well, my sweet friend ann saw the post and then contacted me to find out more. she was really concerned that this needed more aggressive treatment (ann is a pa). so i sent her a few pictures and some more info. she strongly suggested that i consider a second opinion. a quick call to matt to see what he thought (since he is the only other person who has seen maddux in person - and his dad). he asked me to send him a few pictures to show the e.n.t.s at work. one of them said that we should get him into the dentist immediately and if we couldn't get in, then we should take him to the e.r. because he might need iv antibiotics!

last night's restless sleep in our bed. this picture best shows his red stripe on the jawline. (notice his baseball medal in his hand.)

the dentist was able to get him right in. the dentist then came back out and said that he wanted to pull the tooth. it has been so much trouble over the past year and is the source of the infection. i agreed. it isn't ideal to have a molar pulled. he will have to have spacers put in at some point to make up for its loss. maddux did have to be numbed, which he did not like at all, but the tooth came out easily and he should feel better almost immediately.

well, he was sobbing when he came out with a huge wad of gauze in his mouth. and he cried for at least 30 minutes straight. i think some of the crying was due to the fact that he has not been able to sleep through the night for the better part of this week. the most pitiful part was how much he wanted me to comfort him. once i had him all buckled into his carseat, he asked me to come back and give him a hug. so i got out of the car and hugged him for 30 seconds. and then did it again. and again. and again until he told me it was okay to drive.

since he could only eat soft foods, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up ice cream for him to eat for dinner. he was still crying and had gauze in his mouth with me carrying him. i am sure we were quite the sight.

finally resting at home
special ice cream dinner

at bedtime he already looked much better and told me with a big smile that his 'tooth' didn't hurt any more - that it was getting better.

if you see something, say something. if ann hadn't have expressed her concern, i would have given the antibiotics at least one more day before calling. thanks, ann!

love.

museum with friends

before discovering that maddux' tooth situation was more serious that we had thought, the kids and i met some friends at the museum. we had a nice time with them and pretty much had the place to ourselves. we got there when it opened and school groups had just started arriving as we were on our way out. sort of perfect. since we were the only ones there, it was a lot easier for us to catch up (this is my walking buddy, but we don't really get to walk when the kids are out of school).

almost a group picture, her oldest jumped up right as i was coming over. the kids are watching a peanuts cartoon about air pollution. i didn't know that peanuts had such a history with the epa! it was sort of an interesting exhibit and the kids liked all of the comic strips.
another attempt at a group shot. i guess sticking your foot in the air for a picture is super hysterical, but it made it difficult to see all of their faces at once...

and then we took a few slides down the monument on our way home.

we had made plans to meet them at the chocolate factory (for a tour and some sampling) after lunch, but we had to cancel when i learned that we needed to get maddux some help right away.

so thankful that our friends thought of us. love.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

poor maddux

after another night of maddux screaming every hour because his tooth hurt, i was already going to call the dentist again. then he got up and i saw his face!
poor maddux. it hurts me just to look at him. he couldn't even eat cereal this morning so i made him a smoothie. the dentist called in some antibiotics for him. hopefully, he gets some relief soon! he looks a lot worse today, he has more contact pain (touching his face) than random pain (like last night) though which has been easier to manage. his chin is now starting to redden with the infection too.

maddux was just unlucky in the gene pool - soft teeth with deep ridges. the dentist said that it has nothing to do with his oral hygiene at all; we can't brush his teeth any better. i am just praying that this won't be true for his adult teeth as well! love.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

tuesday tip - disney magic timer app

we have been loving the disney magic timer app and i thought it was worth sharing. the kids beg to brush their teeth twice a day (the app limits brushing more than that) and it times them for 2 minutes each time while uncovering a quarter of the image every 15 seconds. while it uses crest and oral-b brand toothpaste/brushes, we have been able to use the images from a brochure picked up at the dentist's office and just keep the empty toothpaste tubes to use the image with whatever toothpaste brand i happen to buy next. there is also an option to use a mickey mouse image which requires to crest or oral-b products. if tooth brushing is sometimes (or every time) a battle at your house, give this free app a try. love.

Monday, July 28, 2014

birthday well checks

this year the doctor's office allowed us to schedule all three june birthdays in a single appointment. it is nice to only have to make one trip, but it was a long appointment! we were there for two hours total - and we didn't wait at all, that was solid visit time. here are the stats and summary for each kid:

manning
weight - 35 lbs. (97th percentile)
height - 37 inches (96th percentile) - almost the exact same height as mason at 2 (mason was 37.4")
bmi - 83rd percentile

manning's speech is pretty difficult to understand to anyone outside of our family. he has a few words that are clear (no, yes, thank you, mama, daddy, apple, i do, two), but the majority are more intonation and vowel sounds with no real constant sounds. i am not really worried per se, but i don't think that he is where he should be so i asked about it. he has had a history of super heavy ear wax (almost blocking the ear canal most of the time) and occasional fluid on the ear when there isn't an infection - we have discussed this at almost every appointment. i know that he can hear me. i have no concern at all there, but i wonder if he can hear me clearly enough to repeat the correct sounds. as an example - he can say "daddy" very clearly, but when you ask him to say "dog" he says something along the lines of "eh." no effort at all to give the "d" sound.

so the plan is to take him for a complete auditory screening and if that comes back fine and he still isn't speaking clearly in six months, then we will pursue speech therapy. she did say that he is clearly hearing, understanding, reasoning and trying to communicate but did agree with me that it is worth just checking his hearing. she said that he is really too young to benefit from speech therapy at this point (both a professional and personal opinion - her son started therapy at 2).

mason
weight - 48 lbs. (86th percentile)
height - 46 inches (94th percentile)
bmi - 66th percentile

speaking of speech therapy, mason's teacher had recommended that we talk to the pediatrician about mason being a candidate. i don't even notice his speech any more so i was a little surprised when she brought it up. the pediatrician agreed that mason most likely won't qualify for speech therapy through the school district - it just isn't that bad - and she doesn't think insurance would cover private therapy. what she did suggest if we really wanted to do something was to try and get him to qualify for a "typical" spot. that way, he would get the therapy without qualifying for it as a need. we aren't really that interested in that as an option because we are really happy at our current preschool and mason has been there for three years. we don't really want to move him to a new school when maddux would still attend the old one. we will see. more than likely we aren't going to do anything beyond working on him on the few sounds noted as inconsistent. several teachers have noted that he can make the sounds just fine when he focuses, it is only when he gets speaking quickly or is excited that they become a little less clear. although i did run through them with him this afternoon and he has noticeably improved from when i asked him to repeat the same words when this was first pointed out in february. we aren't really worried.

we also talked about mason's insatiable appetite. he can eat three apples, a sandwich and a pound of baby carrots and then be hungry - to the point of crying - 30 minutes later. she said that since he is growing well and not overweight at all, this isn't a concern. we just have to wait it out.

madelyn
weight - 56 lbs. (71st percentile)
height - 52 inches (95th percentile)
bmi - 26th percentile

there wasn't really too much i wanted to talk about regarding madelyn. but i did ask her about breaking madelyn's thumb sucking. she had stopped but it seems to be increasing in frequency when she is sleeping. madelyn was actually the most honest she has ever been about how frequently she is sucking her thumb and why she does it, which was nice. i don't want her to be ashamed of it but to understand that it just isn't good for her teeth. we had great success with the 'yucky' nail polish a few years ago, but now madelyn will just scrape it off when we put her to bed or cry when we talk about putting it on. the doctor recommended a thumb guard but explained that madelyn needs to want to stop since she can just take it off. and that was when madelyn lost it. she just started crying and wanted to get down off the exam table for me to hold her. it was just heartbreaking. i explained that we were only discussing options because we won't be back until she is 8 and i wanted to know our options. we will see. the doctor suggested that she made have picked up the frequency again with all of the changes from attending school. i had not even put that together before. we don't plan on pushing her to stop. we will continue to educate her and talk about her options.

mason got his kindergarten vision and hearing tests - even though he isn't going yet - and three shots. he passed the vision and hearing tests. manning also had to get one shot. they both watched and neither one of them cried! mason even cheered and offered to go first when the shots came in! crazy kids. so nice to not have any crying though.

it had been an all day doctor fest today. we had to take maddux in after a weekend of screaming that his tooth hurt and even waking up twice in the night from the pain (he won't let us put any ora-gel on his tooth). the pain was with his molar, that i learned today, is half filling at this point! the good news is that he wasn't in pain today and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the tooth or filling. the dentist thinks that he had probably just bit down or hit the tooth in some way that made it hyper-sensitive over the weekend. well, at least it wasn't going to be expensive.

so thankful to have healthy kids. we don't take it for granted for even one second. love.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

cousin skype

every now and then, cousins are around when we skype with big pop and grandma. tonight it occurred to me that i could snap a picture of our super full screens. a whole lot of love here! love.


Saturday, July 26, 2014

let's go fly a kite

today we showed daddy the cool kite maddux got during our recent birthday gift card shopping trip to toys-r-us. i had taken it out to fly with them that day but there had been almost no wind since! today was perfect though. of course daddy wanted to really let out the line and see how high we could get it (after this picture) and we spent a lot of time after that freeing it from trees and bushes. the kids love it - $2 very well spent. love.

Friday, July 25, 2014

lego town


after spending the entire day away yesterday, i thought a day at home would be appreciated. i am not sure what brought up the idea, but we got out the painter's tape and set to creating an intersection of roads on the floor to serve as a lego town. the kids have been working on it all day long. i can't believe how many hours it has occupied. each 'block' is a different theme too.

mason has a superhero block and a villain hideout (the ones laying on the ground - defeated).

Thursday, July 24, 2014

open to close at the cleveland zoo

last week, i mentioned that the weather on thursday was gorgeous and i had thought about going to the cleveland zoo with the kids. today was going to be even better weather and i just couldn't say 'no' again. so off we went. i had packed enough lunch and snacks for twice as many people but they barely got us through the day! it must have been all the walking...

the kids wanted to do the "rainforest" first before going into the zoo (normally we do it on our way out).
i tried to get all of the kids to pose by the waterfall, but mason was the only one willing

we aren't even in the zoo yet and manning is already laying on the ground... this might have been a huge mistake.
after we finished up with the "rainforest" we finally made our way over to the zoo. and the "camera happy" kids were on the move! posing one at a time in front of everything that they thought was neat. i have four pictures of almost every one of these backgrounds.
a "sweet" elephant. (madelyn is wearing one of my old kansas city hats from papa and nana one christmas when we lived there.)


we managed to only stop at one of these photo boards but manning would not give up his spot so it took three pictures to get all four kids.

there were a lot of babies at the zoo - giraffe, meerkat, monkeys, rhino. we stayed to watch the baby meerkats for a while. they were very active and didn't just hide under their mother the whole time (although, they are under their mom in the picture here). plus, they were easy for the kids to see due to the set up of the exhibit.


pretty much from the time we got there, mason voiced his intent on seeing the rhinoceros. we had missed it when we went to the kansas city zoo and it is his favorite animal. their was a zoo volunteer at the exhibit and let us hold a rhino horn (a 'small' one)! they are much heavier than they look. mason asked for his picture in front of the mommy rhino (whose mother is also still on the property). down in the shade on the left side of the picture is her 'baby' - a two-year-old male rhino.
since papa, nana and big pop all love and collect giraffes, we had to stop to take a picture with them. we thought it was neat to see the largest one laying down in the sunny grass (over maddux and mason) and there was also a very young one (well under one year - very difficult to see just over madelyn's head)! the baby almost looked fake. less like a baby and more like a miniature. 

this pretty much sums up maddux - drinking water and being silly. this kid must be part camel.


we got over to the seals and sea lions a little earlier than i planned and had to wait for an hour to see their training demonstration (which i had made the mistake of mentioning to the kids over lunch). madelyn really wanted to see it but there wasn't anything else over there to see so we just sat and waited. the exhibit really isn't set up for viewing. there is a high wall that you can stand next to and look down into the tank, but it is almost impossible for kids to see anything without being held and you are not allowed to have them stand or sit on the wall (even though there is a railing and net to keep them from falling in). not ideal at all but madelyn begged and begged to stay. at least the kids enjoyed the show.

this was a really neat playground where everything was made out of natural wood (not made into boards). they even had a 'kitchen' with log slices as plates.
the kids were thrilled to see that they were all tall enough to go on a really big slide. manning chickened out though because it was a tube slide and had to come down the stairs. the other three had a great time and went down several times. the slide was at the top of a 'tree' and twisted around it on the way down. they had to cross this rope bridge to get there.

we took this one on the way out, mason would have nothing to do with a group picture.
we were only leaving because the zoo was closing! we were there from open until close! i really could not believe that we made it all day. manning napped a little in the stroller, but the kids walked the entire time! and there was a lot of walking. it is a fairly large property and parts have limited access which causes you to have to double back and do a lot of extra walking.

we really did have a great day! i couldn't have planned for much better weather or behavior. there were moments of crying but there was not a single complaint about being tired or about so much walking (which was utterly shocking!).

our plan was to drive the hour home and for me to quickly make dinner (it is daddy's golf night). but i needed to stop and pick up some more milk on the way. i just wasn't sure if it would be pushing my luck to try and stop for milk. so i thought of a 'plan b.' we were going to drive by where our apartment used to be and i remembered that earth fare has family night on thursdays. as luck would have it, we hit rush hour (aka stopped) traffic at that exit which made my choice for me.

i had forgotten how nice the family night is at earth fare. for the cost of my sandwich with chips ($6.49), we got all four kids' meals free! with a $5 purchase you can get up to 6 kids' meals for free every thrusday. can you believe it? the kids all get to choose their entree and the meal come with carrots (with either hummus or ranch), grapes and a water bottle. we used to do this a lot on thursday nights when we lived up there so it was a nice treat. plus, i got to pick up a few groceries while we were there.

when we got back on the road, rush hour was over and the drive was very uneventful. such a wonderful day. we were all sad that daddy "missed out." love.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

the return of the nap

manning has started napping again. it isn't at a set time but when he is tired, he just gives into it. today was a first for falling asleep at the table while eating. i had to check his mouth for pretzels before he moving him to his bed.

but he is so funny about napping! if he is tired, he just goes to his room and goes to sleep. if we are outside, he asks to go in and just goes to his room and falls asleep (i come in and check on him). we only wish that he went to bed at night that easily!

love.

Monday, July 21, 2014

just a sunny day

some sort of 'show and tell' game madelyn had organized (old neighbors moving out in the background. sad.)

maddux decided that he needed to wet and comb his hair

after dinner we headed out for a cool treat with daddy

madelyn's new favorite doll

today we picked up our next american girl doll from the library. meet madelyn's new favorite - molly. she can't wait to spend the week with her! love.

random photo op

the kids are a little camera happy lately. on the way into the ymca, they had to have their pictures taken with these cardboard balls outside (i have no idea why they were there). it was a little bright in the morning light.

and again on the way out. but on the way out mason wouldn't have anything to do with a group picture. he wanted his 'own.' sigh. love. 

Sunday, July 20, 2014

supporting friends

the weather this weekend was such a bummer for most of the activities. we were really disappointed to have our friend's baseball games get cancelled yesterday. he was part of a multi-state tournament and the whole day was rained out! madelyn's school made 500 cards for all of the families from out of town during the last weeks of school. but i got a text during church that his game today was going to happen. we raced over after church and caught the last 5 minutes (but missed him walking to first base - something he has been working on for a while). we did get to see him get his medal and trophy which was nice. so happy to be cheering on our buddy braxton! love.

by the way, i don't know who the boy is behind braxton.