Logan's Teeth Saga

A little over a month ago, I had the worst night of sleep since Lexi was just born and up every 2-3 hours. In fact, this may have even been worse. See, Logan tends to crawl into our bed just about every night. Sometimes we make him go back to his bed, but we usually just let him stay, because we're too lazy to get out of bed ourselves. This particular night, however, the kid would not stop moving around. So, we'd take him to his room, and then an hour later, he'd be back in our bed, wiggling around. He finally settled down early in the morning, at which time Lexi decided to wake up. Not a fun night for Jon and I.

One of the times Logan crawled into bed with us, he said that his cheek hurt. Whatever, right? Lo and behold, in the morning (after I was already up with Lexi and Jon had already left for work) Logan comes down complaining about his cheek again - and he has proof. His left cheek was all swollen. So, I'm getting ready to call the doctor, when my Mom (who was still here, thank goodness) told me to call the Dentist instead. So, off we go to our family dentist Dr. Walker. (note: this was now Logan's 5th trip to the dentist an account of the root canal he had and the 8 cavities he already had filled. Needless to say, he his not fond of going Dr. Walker's office). One look inside his mouth and the doc says he's got an abscessed tooth. It appears that a filling cracked and got infected, or something like that. Dr. Walker knows that Logan is very anxious now about getting his teeth worked on, and kids are not his specialty, so he decides to send us to a peds dentist, Dr. Rogers (Roy Rogers, actually-ha ha). After an x-ray and quick peek in Logan's mouth, it's determined by the doc and myself that Logan needs surgery. Even after all of the work done on his teeth, the doc can see even more that needs to be fixed, plus there's an excellent chance the infected tooth needs to be pulled. Rather than make Logan even more anxious about visiting the dentist, we decide putting him under and doing all of the work at one time will be the best thing.

So, five days later, we go to the hospital. He had to put on a gown, which he hated. He kept saying he wanted to put his clothes back on. But, they did give him 2 lizards to play with and he liked that. Before they took him away from us, they gave him some medicine that made him loopy, so he wouldn't have separation anxiety. It was funny to see him like that...he was obsessed with that thing on his finger. It has a red light on it that was apparently utterly fascinating. He was in surgery for about an hour and half. When we went back to see him afterward, he was still a little out of it, but he started crying a little, so I held him and rocked with him. The first words out of his mouth were "Where are my clothes?". I wonder if that's what he thought about the whole time he was under.

The result? The infected tooth was removed, his front two teeth were separated (they touched, which gives a greater chance of getting a cavity), his teethed were cleaned up and - get this - he got four crowns. I was in shock. Four crowns!?! On my 4-year-old, who just had 8 fillings, who had to cut way back on juice, soda and all other forms of sugar, who was finally doing so good at brushing his teeth not once, but twice a day?!?! So now he's got a bunch of silver 'bling' in his mouth.

Logan did great during the recovery. So great, that it was hard to get him to lay down and rest the rest of the day. He kept wanting to go out and play and eat everything in sight. It was hard to find soft foods for him to eat. He's not a big fan of soup, and there's only so much yogurt, pudding and ice cream you can give a kid in one day. The good news is that he says he likes Dr. Rogers better than Dr. Walker, and that next time he goes to the dentist, he wants to go to Dr. Rogers.

One month later, we still battle all of the time about juice and sugar and brushing teeth. In fact, the other day, after the 3rd or 4th time I asked him to brushed his teeth, he says something to me about don't I remember that he likes Dr. Rogers and wants to go see him? Sure, I say. "Well, then, that means I don't need to brush my teeth." (Because he needs to have bad teeth to go to the dentist, or something?) I'm not really sure what his exact reasoning on that it, but any excuse to get out of brushing teeth, right?

Joining the music club

So I finally figured out how to added music and join the club. Like many others, I chose some "old school" music. However, this music is from Elementary and Junior High. Boise has this radio station that is comparable to 99.9 in Phoenix. It plays a lot of current pop music, which I am so not into, but the station is one of my pre-sets. (which should tell you a lot about the radio station selection up here) Anyway, a few weeks ago, I heard some songs I remember liking in grade school that I haven't heard in a very long time. One of them was 'Right Here Waiting' by Richard Marx, and I couldn't find that one to put on the playlist, but it was definitely one of my faves. I'm sure I'll add more as I remember them. Enjoy the flashback.

Lexi updates

It's been a while since I've done a Lexi update, so here you go. Back in the second week of October, she started getting the goop in one of her eyes. When it didn't go away after a day or two, I took her into the doctor, and lo and behold, she had an ear infection. A pretty bad one, according to the doc, but other than the eye goop, you wouldn't know it. She was not fussy or pulling at her ear, or anything. I just hope she doesn't follow Logan's path and have 7 of them in 5 months and end up getting tubes.

She had to go back to the doc 10 days later for a follow-up and since she was within a few weeks of being 9 months, we went ahead and did her 9 month check-up, as well. She weighs 22 lbs and is 29 inches long - about 94% in both categories. While we were at the doc's, I noticed her first tooth had finally popped through.

She's just taking her sweet time with things. She sits great - she will sit and play with toys or watch a video for a long time. She can roll, but she hasn't figured out continuous rolling. Once she falls down, she can't get back up to sitting. She's not crawling. She is starting to get in the crawling position, though. And, I have seen her scoot backwards a little. Really, though, I'm totally okay with her not being mobile yet. I can definitely wait to have to keep an eyed always glued to her.

We are pretty sure she said her first word on Saturday - Mama. It was kind of hard to tell if she actually said it, or was still babbling and happened to stop after 2 syllables. But, she did look at me when she said it, so we think it was for real. She's said it again a few times, but it's still hard to tell if she really knows what she's saying. I noticed today that her second tooth popped through. Both are on the bottom.

She eats baby food really well, now. I've started giving her table food (oatmeal and fresh cooked veggies). She basically threw them both up. She really didn't even swallow them, but made herself gag until they were out of her mouth. Oh well. She sleeps around 11 hours at night, so that's excellent. She's still having trouble napping in her crib during the day, but we're getting there. I still think it's a little funny that she has no problem sleeping in there all night, but fights it during the day.

So, there you have it. She is just an excellent little baby, and we all adore her. And, she just thinks Logan is a riot. He can get her to laugh at just about anything he does.

Another little break

I took another break from blogging while David and Laura visted us for a week. With this visit, I got shelves in my garage, a ceiling fan hung up in Logan's room and 3 electrical outlets in my new craft room. We also got lots of homecooked meals and the kids got lots of Grammie and Papa time. Logan was just devestated when they left. Well, we were all pretty sad, really, but Logan did cry the hardest and loudest.

Also, while they were here, we had our annual pumpkin carving. It was a little early, and the pumpkins are already in the trash - mainly becuase I caught Logan and his friend throwing them into the street and smashing them up. Here are the pumpkins carved by Jamie, Jon, Logan and Laura - can you guess who did each one?

1. 2.

3. 4.

Spencer and Chloe

A few weeks ago, Jon took Logan to eat and play at Carls Jr. While they were there, Logan found an abandoned name tag that said 'Spencer' on it. Several times since them, Logan has referred to himself as Spencer. For example: In primary one day, they were asking if anyone was new. He raised his hand. I happened to be teaching his class that day, so I pulled his hand down and said he wasn't new. He says, "But, my name is Spencer now, and that means I'm new."

Today, Logan was playing with my jewelry - something he loves to do, but I don't let him as often as he would like. He was taking all of rings and stuff out of my jewelry thing and he says, "Don't worry. I won't let any small pieces get near Alexa - I mean Chloe." What? I guess he still remembers when Jon wanted to name the baby Chloe!