Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Look, Ma! No cavities!

OK, when I was a kid, I went through dentists like most people go through well, I don't know. Something they go through really quickly. My parents, I am led to believe, switched dentists nearly every visit because they were always so mortified by my absolute hysterics. Oh, and my teeth were rotten hotbeds of decay.

Finally, when I was 7, we moved to California and we settled on a dentist whose sole qualification, as near I can tell, is that he overcharged the insurance company and then let his patients off the hook for their portion. That is the only reason I can imagine anyone would go to the sadist. On one of my first visits, he slapped me because I was crying for my father. Then during the drilling, filling and torturing I overheard him complaining to his assistant that he had to do two extractions and he wasn't looking forward to it. Not knowing exactly what an extraction was, I was nervous -- remember, I was 7. So you can imagine my relief when he told me we were all finished. As I started to get up, he reached from behind, pushed me back in the chair and proceeded to extract two molars. I can still picture the tool he used.

So fast forward a few -- ahem -- years. Eddie and Chas went to the dentist today. In the past, Eddie's had to have two fillings. You'd think the kid would be hesitant. But no way. They were actually excited to go. Because you get to pick out a prize at the end. And because mom waits in the front room and boys get to feel very grown up. Oh how I wish I'd had a Dr. Gallegos in my childhood.

Anyway, the boys have no cavities. (Yay!) They're doing a great job of brushing. They were able to get x-rays of Chas and I saw his great-big-honkin' adult teeth already nestled against his front two baby teeth. The Tooth Fairy should expect to have to start making payments in this house before their next dentist visit, I'm told. Sigh. They really aren't babies anymore.

Oh, and I had to go to my own dentist today. I got chastised for not flossing regularly enough (I know!) and not wearing my night guard religiously. (I know!) AND I have cracked a filling that will have to be replaced. My danged kids are showing me up.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Heartbreaking .. or so I thought.

OK, so clearly I fret a LOT about Chas and his allergies and how it makes him feel. Last night I came home from a meeting and Steph was fixing his MedicAlert bracelet. It had gotten snagged and one of the links broke.

She looked sad and said he told her while she worked on fixing it that he really liked not having to wear it. I felt so bad. He hates his bracelet -- it's a nagging reminder etc. etc.

So I took him in and we looked up the MedicAlert site so I could order him a sport band version etc. and I asked him why he hates wearing his bracelet.

"Because it says I am allergic to soy. And I'M NOT ALLERGIC TO SOY ANYMORE!"

Turns out, the bracelet doesn't bother him. Its inaccuracies do. So we're ordering him a new bracelet sans mention of the outgrown soy allergy. And probably with sporty zoo animals on it.

Oh, and Eddie wants one, too.

She's officially "the Dad"

Today Eddie came to me with one of his beloved Nascar cars whose wheels were not turning satisfactorily. I looked and told him I thought the axel was bent pretty badly. "How do we fix it?" He ased. I told him I wasn't sure we could.

"Oh. Mama will fix it. She can fix anything."

Monday, April 07, 2008

HUMPF!

This is Chas' latest little expression of displeasure. (It's like a shortened version of Harumpf.) It is frequently delivered in an angry tone -- but often the tone is not enough to express the severity of his displeasure, so he needs to describe it. So we get this. "Humpf! A very, very big HUMPF!" I try not to laugh or smile when he does it because he's already pretty angry/disgusted and I don't want to belittle him. But it's just danged funny. We have no idea where he got it. This is a slightly less angry phrase than his classic angry, "Too bad to you!" When he says THAT, he sounds a bit like the Soup Nazi. And again, it's hard not to at least smile. Because he is always so filled with righteous indignation, and it's usually over something trivial.

Anyway, I'm going to start using Humpf! in my conversations. Because it's a pretty good sound and conveys a lot. Especially when it's a very, very big Humpf.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

When my son the racist becomes sexist, I don't wanna know...

Today Eddie announced to his Mama that he felt a little racist. Cue spit take. Of course, he meant that he felt like racing. So she told him he should probably say that a different way because that's not exactly what racist means. So he said he was feeling racy. Better. Sort of.

All I know is that if he announces that he feels sexist before heading out on a date in a few years, I'm taking the car keys.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Not the question I expected to be stumbling around with...

So I figure at some point the whole issue of "where do babies come from" is going to arise and I'm sure I'll having a stumbling, fumbling answer. But as a preamble, tonight we got "where do elephants come from?" Sort of.

The boys got these woolly mammoth excavation kits for their birthdays. Essentially it's a plastic skeleton and select innards of a woolly mammoth. You put it in a mold, cover it with water and freeze. Then you use tools with warm water to excavate. They love them. Eddie told me that the woolly mammoth is his favorite ice age animal, better than even a saber tooth cat. So far, so good.

Then he asked how woolly mammoths turned into elephants. And thus began my attempt to explain evolution and natural selection to a couple of very intrigued 5-year-olds. They weren't letting me off the hook, either. They asked follow up questions about the evolution of humans and more. Frankly, I'd rather answer the whole sex question. And you can remind me of that when they ask it.

Nothing to fear ...

Eddie announced today that he is NOT afraid of the dark. "It just startles me," he said.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Allergies suck.

So I got the call I'd been waiting for from the allergist today. Last week, I was eager to hear the results. Now I think I could have waited a long time without hearing this. Basically, I had Chas tested for treenuts just to see if we could slip him a pecan or an almond. The results were worse than I imagined. He's allergic to all tree nuts except pine nuts. (Pesto is now OK, which is a blessing I suppose.)



Yes, that's a tear you see.


But wait. It gets worse. His egg allergy seems to be persisting. And worse yet, his peanut allergy has gotten dramatically worse. When he was diagnosed, he was at 40.60 for peanut. A year and a half later that had dropped to 8.5 -- a dramatic drop that led us to hope he would be in that minority that outgrows it. A year after that, it was up slightly to 12.9 -- still in the same "class" and no reason to lose hope. This year it's 45. Higher than ever and way past the point where you let yourself dream of outgrowing it. What I don't know is what this means. Is he more sensitive? That seems to be a resounding yes. But will his reactions be worse? That seems to be a resounding maybe. Severity of reactions does not seem to correlate with sensitivity, which is what the blood tests measure. However, peanut reactions have a nasty tendency to get suddenly worse. Which means we may use the epi-pen yet.

I know it's not cancer or diabetes or any of the other awful, horrible things that can happen to children. But it's scary and it makes my boy sad way too much. I keep thinking about a study I read when he was diagnosed that said essentially that children with diabetes have a better quality of life than children with peanut allergy because diabetes gives them a level of control while peanut allergy means you never know when something life-threatening and scary as hell is going to happen. Also, kids with diabetes have darned few times when they absolutely cannot have something. This was Chas' reaction when a mom brought snack to a field trip in violation of the no-nuts rule chocolate granola bars with peanuts and almonds.)

Today I gave a small child a bloody nose.

Not a mean kid or anything. He's a perfectly nice child, as far as I can tell. His only mistake was in landing on a t-ball team for which I am the assistant coach. Today was our first practice and I was tossing balls (gently, but clearly not gently enough) at kids to catch. He didn't. His nose, however, stopped the ball quite well so no one had to run after it. My first instinct, which I followed, was to hug him. Upon reflection, this was probably not real "coachy" behavior. But he's 5 and I'm a better mom than a coach anyway. I also grabbed a cold pack I had packed just in case. I helped him hold that on his nose. I felt terrible until I saw the blood. Then I felt worse. I mean really, the first freakin' practice? His dad tried nobly to make me feel better. But come on. I just bloodied your kid's nose. And right after joking about bringing the high heat. Oy.

The sad thing is that I'd hit Eddie in the nose with a ball during a pre-practice session of catch. His nose didn't bleed at least, but clearly I'm doing this wrong.

So before the next practice, I need a new cold pack. (I tossed the one that had blood on it -- go ahead, call me wasteful.) And rubber gloves.