Too Much in One Day

Yesterday was a wild day.  It all started with the dentist appointments.  We left the house at 7:50 in order to get there in time for our 8:30 appointment time.  I cut it WAY too close, as in, we walked into the office at 8:30.  After the appointments wrapped up, I decided to swing by Cole's office and surprise him with a short visit.  As luck would have it, Cole was in a meeting.  Shucks!

But, we had more things to do.  We headed out to the mall to meet up with my mom who happened to be in town.  The boys got to play at the mall playground while we waited for mom, and then we ate some pretzels and did a little shopping.  After we wrapped up all of that business, we went with mom to the credit union to wrap up some business.


We then parted ways with mom, got some gas, tried to visit Cole (still no luck), and headed for the indoor playground.  We got to the playground at 1:08.  We met up with my friend and her daughters and played until 3:50!  We then headed back to Cole's office for a quick visit because Cole was working late last night and I wanted the boys to get to see him and vice versa.  After we left Cole's office, we got some milkshakes at Sonic and came on home.  We got home well after 5:00 last night.

Last night when bedtime rolled around, Ian tucked his and Eli's super heroes from the dentist's office into bed on the couch.  He gave me strict instructions not to touch them because they needed sleep.  I told him that I needed to move them, but I would make sure they had a nice bed to sleep in.

We received some sweet Christmas treats in this box, and I almost threw it away the other day.

 It's a good thing I kept it.  It is the perfect place for super heroes to recover from fighting plaque and tartar all day long.

It was a good day, but it was WAY too much for one day for the two chums.  They were exhausted last night, and the extreme fatigue is not biting us all in the heiny today.  YIKES!!!

So, today we aren't going to do anything.  I mean nothing!  We are skipping Mom's Group today.  We are just going to chill out, play with toys, and lounge around in our jammies.  (That jammie part isn't that unusual.....but it sounds better to pretend as though it is.)

5th Time's the Charm

There are two days of every year that I absolutely, positively DREAD.  I mean, I'd rather go through childbirth again with no epidural.  I hate these two days so much, that I begin dreading them six months in advance.  As the day gets closer, I begin dreading it even more.  And in the last month before The Day, I think about it non-stop.  It becomes all consuming.  Of course, I am talking about Ian's and Eli's 6 month dental check-ups.

We go to a pediatric dentist and the staff and Dr. Hemann are FANTASTIC!!!!  I can not stress this enough.  The staff is incredible and know how to deal with children.  I first took Ian to the dentist when he was 14 1/2 months old.  It was right before Christmas, and Eli slept through the entire appointment.  It was one of my first two-kid adventures.  And it was horrible.  Ian totally freaked the hell out.  It was unbelievable.  But we went back six months later, and this time we put Eli in the chair as well.  (Yes, Eli cut teeth at six months.)  This appointment was again hellacious as far as Ian was concerned, but Eli was fine.  Then we came back six months later, and that appointment was beyond disastrous.  BE. YOND.  DIS. AS. TER.  I had to hold the boys on my lap one at a time, and an assistant had to hold them down on top of me in order to get ANYTHING accomplished.  NOTE:  Ian has "sticky spit" and needs to be seen on a regular basis to keep his teeth from discoloring.  We took plenty of breaks, and the hygienist was so patient, gentle, and kind.  But it was still absolutely horrific.  There was out of control screaming, yelling, kicking, thrashing, bawling, dry heaving, etc.  Keep in mind, the boys only get their teeth cleaned.  They don't have any decay or problems of any kind.  The next time was just as bad only Eli clamped down on the hygienist's finger and wouldn't let go.  She could not get her finger out of his mouth.  It was absolutely wretched.

Today was Ian's 5th six month check-up and Eli's 3rd.  I had been obsessing over this appointment for weeks. I never even mentioned it to the boys; I kept it all inside.  Some parents dread immunization day.  Hey, I don't like it either, but I would rather sit through 1,000 immunizations before sitting through a cleaning.  A shot is quick and easy.  A cleaning?  It's an hour, MINIMUM, of restraining/consoling thrashing, screaming children who may or may not puke on you at any moment.

So, when we were called back for our appointments I told the hygienist, who was new to us, "I have to warn you, my kids hate this.  I don't mean, they don't really like this; I mean, they absolutely HATE doing this.  It's bad."

She replied, "Uh, yeah.  I saw that in their charts."

Yep.  My boys hate it so much that they have been "tagged" in their charts.  Honestly, it's probably why we had a new hygienist.  Our regular hygienist probably saw today's schedule and went home "sick."

We decided to let Eli go first.  I climbed into the chair and snuggled the little man on my lap.  We got all into position, and I braced myself.  Then something weird happened.  It was the easiest doctor's appointment, of any kind, that we have EVER had!  He never flinched, thrashed, shed a single tear, jerked, yelled, whined, or anything else.  He was absolutely perfect!!!!  I was so shocked at the end of the cleaning I couldn't even put into words how surprised I was.  We finished our appointment 10 minutes ahead of schedule because we never needed a single break to douse Eli with holy water.  I was blown away.

Ian was up next.  When Ian came over to the chair, he just hopped right up into it.  I asked if he could get up so I could sit down first, and he told me that he wanted to sit by himself.  Uh, pardon me Ian?  Speak into my good ear?  No, he really wanted to sit by himself.  So the hygienist got him a booster seat, and the rest was history.  He never flinched, thrashed, shed a single tear, jerked, yelled, whined, or anything else.  He was absolutely perfect!!!!  I was so astounded by the end of HIS appointment that I talked to the hygienist about it for a very long time while waiting for the dentist to come check things out.  We finished Ian's appointment early as well, and we were out of the office 20 minutes ahead of schedule!!!  HOLY COW!!! I have been walking on air ever since.

Since the boys were such champs, we came home with lots of goodies!  Brushing charts, tooth brushes, floss, Flosser Man, stickers, and super heroes.....  You can make personalized brushing charts for your kids, too!

 The Loot

This little dandy is "Flosser Man."  Kind of looks like a person, right?  Well, Ian's teeth are starting to get closer together in the back, so Cole and I have the distinct privilege of flossing his teeth every night.  You have to wind new floss everyday, and the winding/wrapping/threading routine is slightly ridiculous, but if it keeps me from getting bitten, then Flosser Man to the rescue!  He really didn't mind it today, so I think we'll be fine.

So, all in all, we had a FABULOUS day at the dentist.  No decay or any other problems of any kind.  We go back in July, and I'm hoping that the appointment will go just as well as today.  But talk to me in June and we'll see if I'm still as optimistic.

Big Lubble

Last night was my turn to rock with Ian at bedtime.  As we snuggled in the rocking chair under a blanket of stars, Ian pointed in Orion's general direction and said, "Where's big lubble."

I was sure I didn't hear Ian correctly, so I asked him, "Where's what?"

He again said, "Big lubble."

I still had no clue what he meant so I started pointing out the major stars in Orion: Betelgeuse and Rigel.  I thought Betelgeuse has some of the same sounds as 'big lubble.'  This kind of pleased him and he told me that Cole had shown him these stars, but he was still trying to get me to understand "big lubble."

When Cole was done rocking with Eli, he came in to give Ian one final goodnight kiss.  I asked Cole if he knew what Ian was talking about, and a light bulb went on in Cole's head.  He got that wide-eyed "Ah-ha" look he gets when a thought suddenly hits him and said, "He's talking about the Hubble Telescope.  Is that what you're talking about, buddy?"

Ian was thrilled.  Yes, this was what he was talking about.  We all talked about outer space for a couple of minutes, and then Ian went to bed.

While I was getting ready for bed last night, I noticed an empty toilet paper roll in the trash.  (Don't worry; that was the ONLY thing in there)  I pulled it out, and took it to our bedroom.  I told Cole, "I'm going to turn this into the Hubble Telescope for Ian's room."

This morning I got started on furthering Ian's space interest by crafting the Hubble Telescope.  I used the toilet paper roll, aluminum foil, a shish kabob skewer, black adhesive foam, shiny silver scrapbook paper, black scrapbook paper, and scotch tape: all things I already had in the house.  The foam and scrapbook papers were left over from making the invitations for Ian's birthday party.  See, there really is benefit in spending four hours crafting invitations instead of just buying them!

Here is the end result with a picture of Hubble in the book Planet's!: Discover our solar system! by TIME for Kids.  It really is a great book in case you also have a little space nut.

Not the fanciest thing in the world, but I'm still proud of it.

After Hubble was all put together, it was time to launch him into orbit so he could send back valuable pictures of the stars on the ceiling.

Right in the center of Ian's ceiling

And so Hubble shall remain on the ceiling until we need to repair a lens or Ian or Eli rips it down.  I tried to tie the thread so this wouldn't be an issue, but with those two, who knows how long it will last.

CAUTION: Imaginations Running Wild

My favorite toy for the boys is building blocks.  I l-o-v-e, LOVE building blocks!  In my opinion they are the perfect toy because you can create anything you want.  Want a garage for your cars?  Build it!  Want to see what Santa's workshop looks like?  Build it!  Want a dragon with a hinged jaw and flapable wings?  Have dad build it!  (Seriously....Cole built one)

So this afternoon we were playing with our Trio building blocks, and I decided to build something with lots of open space.  This is what I came up with... 

Cole came in and started quizzing Ian, who was busy building a telescope, about what it was.

Cole: Did you build this?
Ian: No, mommy did.
Cole: What is it?
Ian: A museum.  (pauses)  A scallywag museum.

Yes, a Scallywag Museum.  I couldn't believe the answer.  It was SO off-the-wall ridiculous, but that's just the mind of a three-year-old.

Ian's New Interest

Ian has always had a great appreciation for the moon.  In fact, he refers to the moon as "Mr. Moon."  Here lately his fascination with the moon has spread to curiosity about the stars and planets.  Cole and I have pointed out the constellation Orion to him, and while I'm confident that he has no clue exactly what stars we are talking about, his obsession with Orion rivals his obsession with the moon.  He knows that a constellation is "a collection of stars" (his words not mine) and is truly fascinated by them.  This new interest absolutely THRILLS me!!!!  I wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger.  I have always loved science, and to be quite honest, I have no clue how to foster a child's artistic abilities so let's pray Eli isn't into Monet.

To encourage Ian's desire to know more, I did what any mother would do and hauled him to the library to check out books about the planets, constellations, and the solar system because I had NO answers to his questions.  It was very odd to come home with an armful of non-fiction books, but I want to do whatever I can to help Ian learn more about a topic he has chosen all by himself.  (I still checked out plenty of fiction for Eli)  We read the books at bed time, and even though they were a bit advanced for Ian's age, he was completely transfixed.  He was totally engaged and asked questions about all of the pictures in the books and wanted more detail than the text provided.  I was positively glowing with pride.  We are so going to raise a little scientist!!!

The day after our trip to the library, we went to the local Children's Museum as a nice little family outing.  While we were there, Cole picked up a canister of 135 glow-in-the-dark stars for the boys' ceilings.  This was also pretty awesome because I had stars like these when I was a kid.  I mean, who didn't?  That evening we flipped through one of the books about constellations and Ian picked his favorite ones and I arranged his glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling.  Orion is positioned directly over his bed.  We also chose Aquila: The Eagle, Bootes: The Bear Driver or Herdsman, Lacerta: The Lizard, Sagittarius, and Ursa Minor.  I totally screwed up Sagittarius by making him face the wrong direction, but I doubt that anyone is going to come check the accuracy of my arrangements with any star charts so whatever.

Orion

After I had all of the stars in place the boys climbed up on Ian's bed together and laid down.  When I flicked the lights off it took a couple of seconds for the stars to come into focus, but once they did the boys started giggling and oohing and aahing.  They were in heaven.  Well, laying under a heaven of stars created by a factory in China.

Aquila: The Eagle (the stars in it's "head" are too spread out)

It's hard for me to believe that Ian is already old enough to be developing his own interests.  It's so incredible.  While we were reading his space books AGAIN today, he stopped me and said, "I am going to ride a rocket ship to outer space.  I am going to go around the moon.  And I am going to go to Mars."

Lacerta: The Lizard

In reply I said, "If you work really hard, you will get to do all of those things."  And I didn't just say that because I'm his mother; I said it because I truly believe it.  If you want something badly enough, you will find a way to make it happen.  I hope to instill in Ian a work ethic and drive that let's him accomplish all of his wildest dreams.

Sagittarius (Facing the wrong direction)

Ian made himself a telescope.  How clever!!!