Rotten Teeth & Rotten Smells

Sam's tooth extraction was short and went well...I think he even helped the dentist pull it out! He brought it home in an envelope and we'll do tooth fairy tonight! He got a little funny feeling in the car...I think he thought he was going to throw up. He said "I don't think we can go anywhere today, Mom" I'm glad I decided to go to the store and get pain medicine and a movie BEFORE we went. Oh, he wore his sunglasses the entire time at the dentist, but forgot the lamb he was going to take to hold. He keeps wanting to go look at his "golden" in the mirror (I keep telling him the spacer is silver but he wants to call it gold). He played a joke on the dentist by putting his rotten teeth on when he got called back--it was totally his idea. We go back next week to get some cavities taken care of. I hope he's not afraid of the dentist after this!

Through this experience I have learned:

--You can double up on Motrin AND Tylenol at the same time. Very important information for a mom to know when her child is crying constantly and can't be comforted. There are little sticky medicine dosing cups all over our house now.

--I'm not the worst mom in the world for letting Sam get cavities...lots of friends had stories to share that made me feel better. Thanks, friends.

--It's hard to be an adult, but this was another lesson in asking questions and trusting my instinct. I am realizing that all professionals are just people like me. Even medical professionals have to trust their instincts, and some have better instincts than others. And some are better at getting things right the first time than others. We dealt with both. (sigh)

--I'm getting old...the dentist was definitely younger than me and had actually been to MOPS before. And, in an unrelated incident, I was called an "older woman" this week. (big sigh)

--For as much of a cry-er Sam can be, he does really well when he needs to act grown up. I am proud of him!

Last night, while getting ready to send Evan to Phoenix with Jeremy to spend the night with Jeremy's parents (in Tucson), a skunk sprayed right outside our bedroom window. There are few times I have seen Jeremy so animated...shutting windows, opening them, setting up fans, hunting around with a flashlight. It was pretty stinky in our house...the kind of stink you can taste. It's not a good taste. I remember that my sister used to like a skunk scratch-n-sniff sticker that we had when we were kids. She also liked the smell of gasoline. Anyways, Jeremy and I slept in Annie's room (which actually smelled like stinky diapers because of the diaper champ that is definitely not as odorless as it brags to be). The boys slept the night away (in their room that smells a little like pee, no matter how many times I wash the sheets/comforters/matress pads) without knowing anything.

I did some work in the yard this weekend, since I let everything die since Annie was born. I am proud of these marigolds that God grew from my grandma's seeds I planted...well, more like scattered really quick one day. She always had marigolds around the porch of her house at the ranch in Utah and harvested the seeds. I am going to try to see if I can save some seeds to keep the tradition going.


Here are some pictures of us having a cook-out in the backyard the night before last (before our yard was taken over by skunks--who dug up the new shrubs I planted, by the way. I wish I had a BB gun.). I guess it's the closest we'll have come to camping as a family this summer. I tried to get Jeremy to set up the tent on the grass for the boys to play with...but he talked me out of it (another sigh). In the end, I was glad we didn't because it probably would have been me trying to dismantle it the next morning, and a skunk would have probably taken up residence in it and we would have had to throw it away (and I would have had to take a bath in tomato juice).





And here's Annie 'cause she's cute. I have a feeling she'll get away with a lot around this house for that reason.