How did your year rate?

You Had an Average Year

While you had some setbacks, your year also brought some good things. All in all, things mostly evened out. That's just how life works. Focus on what went well for you - and what you can improve. A new year is a perfect reason to give yourself a fresh start!

How Did Your Year Rate?

Bad Bad Mom

I’m such a bad mom. My poor kid, Red Boy (4 years old) goes to day care/preschool during the week. When of course I’m not sooooo late for work that I actually bring him and not leave him at home with his Dad (who works nights and is home during the day).

My poor kid.. we usually do this little thing where he watches me from the center’s window and I stop as I’m driving out of the lot in front of this window. I roll down my window and then give him a tumbs up, and he returns it, I motion the number 5 with my hand to let him know that I’ll pick him up at 5 and he nods. When I wave and give another thumbs up and he does the same. We thought up this little ritual because the child was having issues with me leaving him there and he wanted to be with me instead. As well as for when he gets older and a kiss and a hug isn’t Cool anymore, this way when I give him a thumbs up in front of his friends, he’ll know it means “I Love You”, and others will think it’s just a thumbs up ‘OK’ type of thing.

Well, seems this mom forgot her duty to give the thumbs up on Wednesday morning, come to find out that my little guy was not too happy about it either. Actually he was quite upset and cried for a bit. When one teacher turned to the other that knows him better, and asked if she should call me, she said he’ll be ok, he probably just missed his mommys wave goodbye.



HE didn’t miss it, I Totally forgot to give it when navigating the little parking lot and didn’t remember until I got to work. I felt bad when I realized that day at work, then to find out after picking him up yesterday that he was crying too? Oooff! What a doof I am! I know it happens, but he’s the one of the 2 boys we have that I like to call our “sensitive” one. That boy is soft spoken and can cry at a drop of a hat. He lets his 2 1/2 year old brother take charge sometimes. Meanwhile Red Toddler is “Extreme RT”. Total opposites.

Anyway, I’ll have to play with him this weekend, some board game or video games just to make up for my missing our ‘thumbs up’. Might not make a difference to him, but at least I’ll feel better

Routine

Thankfully we've gotten into a better routine at night with the boys.
We get our little half cup of drink of choice, use the bathroom, then we brush our teeth.
Now if you'll remember RT had major teeth issues not long ago, and we've been working on making that not an issue in the future.
All three of use gather in the bathroom with the door closed to hamper any escape, and believe me the littlest guy does try!
I prep the toothbrushes RB uses his battery operated Spider man brush with his Spongebob toothpaste, and RT uses his little tooth brush from the dentist office with his special toothpaste until it's time to use the rinse and then we use a different toothbrush for him with the rinse on it. Basically adults would use the rinse like mouthwash, but since he's only 2, I use the toothbrush in the rinse to brush his teeth and gums/mouth.
RB starts the process of brushing his mouth (of which I noticed he likes to brush just one side, dunno why, but there ya go). So I help him out after his first spit and brush the rest of his mouth, once done he does his rinse and spit with his cup of water and he's done.
I sit on the toilet (lid down) and gather up RT and set him on my left thigh with my left around around him so that if I need to hold his head to my shoulder in order to brush, my hand is ready. My right hand has the toothbrush and a washcloth in it.
I sing the Dora song very loudly to distract him as I get him to open his mouth. Now he opens his mouth on his own when he sees the tooth brush coming, but if he doesn't then I kinda maneuver the tooth brush in between his sealed lips and get him to open it.. it's when I have to do that, that he'll wiggle and I'll have to use my left hand to hold his head to my shoulder while I brush his teeth.
After I brush his teeth a bit and he'll spit some (hence the washcloth), I announce that we are "All Done" and he says it with me and he's set free.
This tends to work for us at the moment and with any luck his teeth won't be an issue next dentist visit.
Next we'll have to take RB to the dentist and I can see from just looking that he's gonna need some fillings as well on his uppers.
Hopefully he won't need the 300 dollar oral anesthetic that isn't covered with the insurance, but we'll see.

Hellloooo ??

Dialing from work, calling daddyjunk's cell phone to check in before Red Toddler gets put down for a nap.
Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring....... "HewwoO!"  Comes a tiny voice over the phone..
"Hello?"
I hear a shuffle and a sigh and then click.
I must have dialed wrong.
Redialing, I get directly into voice mail.
My work phone rings, it's daddyjunk, Red Toddler reached the cell phone off of daddyjunks desk before he got there and just Flipped that phone open and answered it completely correct.
I was stunned, that was a very clear and strong Hello.  Nice!
That kid is quick on his feet when he wants to be.


--
Come visit us for all your gift shopping at
http://www.antceecees.com

The DENTIST! Dum dum duuummm...

We took Red Toddler to the dentist for some work today, apparently he needed more work than we thought.
Soft teeth run in the family so he's starting the process of having mom and dad paying out of their asses for the rest of their lives for cursing him with such a wonderful gift.
He had to have 4 baby teeth removed, 2 silver crowns, and 5 fillings.

Funniest quote of the day, "Does he even have that many teeth?"
That came from daddyjunk.

Well after the laborious process of giving him the oral anesthetic through a syringe, taking 5 of us to hold the boy down and get him to swallow it all without spilling it, then waiting the 45-50 minutes for it to take affect (making a 2 year old playing in the dentist waiting room wobbling around like a drunk), they took him into the dentist chair (which by the way, he doesn't like, and I don't know why, oh wait, yes .... yes... it's coming back to me now.. the drill, the smell of smoke.. yeah.).
They put him in the chair and as they wrapped him in this elaborate "papoose" body wrap, the Dr. put the gas over his nose and helped settle the poor little kid down.  We watched as they strapped him in and his eyes started to look like he was falling asleep. Which they don't do, they didn't want him asleep, but he was out of it enough that he wasn't too aware of what was going on.  As for feeling pain, well, he doesn't actually speak so we can't know that part of it all.  But I'm sure it didn't fucking tickle!
We left the room at that point and went out to the waiting area to try to act like we were OK with what was going on and not worried.  When in fact I was super worried and I'm sure daddyjunk was as well.

We got the bad news that more work than was expected needed to be done.  The OK was given and the work was done.  We got him back woozy and with a bloody drool, not to mention very unhappy that he couldn't feel his mouth and face!  My shirt paid the price with the kids blood, but he needed familiar hugs and calmed down a little after being held.  He was loopy for a bit longer, and continued to Not enjoy the numb face deal.
Daddyjunk ran to the store to get some soft foods for RT to eat, and he ate his pudding and ice cream happily.
Yeah I know.. just got back from the dentist and here we are giving him sugar filled stuff... it was the easiest foods to give him and the Dr. suggested as much as well.   We now have the expensive rinse and toothpaste to be used for RT for the next 4 months till the next visit.  Hoping this will help clear up some of the bacteria in his mouth that has caused so much damage.
Brushing his teeth is MURDER!! on me!  He can't stand it.  I've wrestled this kid like you wouldn't believe just to brush his teeth best I can.  Now with the new toothpaste and rinse process we have to do morning and night, I'm going to age RAPIDLY!!
Anyways.  He took a nap and woke up hungry and feeling his usual self.
I tried some waffles and he was able to eat that with vigor, he looked at me and yelled for something more. So I heated up some chicken noodle soup and drained the broth and chicken (in case the chicken was too tough), and he ate the whole thing.  Noodles, carrots, celery, all of which was nice and Campbell's soup soft.  Then he finished the last half of his two waffles that he didn't eat prior. 
Did I mention yet that he hadn't drank or eaten anything since 10pm the night before.  So when we got home and he finally got something in his belly it was about 12:30-1PM.

He seems OK right now, he's messing with DVD cases that he's not supposed to be messing with, but he's quiet so I'm not about to get a headache from his yelling over him wanting to play with DVD cases that we don't even keep DVDs's in anymore. 

Now, thanks to the dentist ... we are penniless, but hopefully it will help the boy and his teeth in the future.

I'm just hoping that his speech therapy which starts in September (Thank God it's free for now!), will go OK.  
Hopefully the therapist is trained enough in what to do or how to deal with a child that will not have any upper front teeth.  The top front four are what was taken due to infection.  He won't have a lisp or any speech impediment according to the Dr., but I'm sure he'll have to learn to speak differently when the adult teeth do finally come in years from now and that will be a whole different capsule in his life.
Till then, we'll work with what he's got and getting him to speak a little more and a little clearer.

Anyone with any advice on kids and speech therapy, please feel free to post in the comments.

Well, back to kid duty.




--
Come visit us for all your gift shopping at
http://www.antceecees.com