August 14, 2011
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8-13-11
The kids are out in the little swimming pool on the deck. We filled it up this morning and now the water is really warm and they’re having a great time. Madeleine is excited that she has toys that float; Grant is excited that he himself can float. I’m not sure if he really is floating, but he thinks he is, and that’s good enough for him.
Grant had his two top front teeth pulled yesterday at the pediatric dentist’s office. They had gotten cavities (perhaps from nursing at night) and then he kept hitting them on furniture and they chipped out. Then the remaining bits were turning black, and it was an ugly mess. So they got pulled. Hello, mommy guilt. But anyway. He was really great at the dentist’s office. They took us to the room and said Grant could sit with me on the bench for awhile, but he just climbed up into the big chair and looked happy. I offered him yellow bear or the black pod (iPod touch), but he said no and was just happy. Then they had me give him some medicine in a small cup, and he drank it perfectly. (I ask him how many sips he thinks it will take, and then we count the sips to see if he’s right, and it makes the whole process really easy.) The medicine was Motrin mixed with the stuff that makes you really loopy and forget the whole experience. Then they sat him in the chair with an oxygen reader on his finger and also a blood pressure cuff, and put a blanket on him. They put the chair back and gave him headphones, and there was a TV on the ceiling, showing Diego. (Later it went to Wonder Pets and then Blue’s Clues, all favorites.) So he just sat there (for 20 minutes) watching shows while the medicine started to work. Then they gave him some laughing gas over his nose. (He did do some funny smiles after that; perhaps it really is a “laughing” gas?) After that the dentist has some banana flavored cream that took three minutes to numb the gums. Then it was time for the shots to deaden the whole area. Grant jerked a bit for those, but it was over fast. That’s four layers of different medicine things they gave him. Then it was time to pull out the teeth, which was fast. I was a little sad to see the leftover holes with the blood welling up in them. They put in a foamy substance to clot the blood, and then they were pretty much done. They said he might be like an angry drunk as the medicine wore off, and that he might not walk the rest of the day (the nurse said that; I’m not sure if that was completely correct). The nurse walked us to the car, perhaps a policy because the kids can’t really walk when they’re done? She carried my bag for me. As I put Grant into his chair she was telling me that if he took a nap, make sure to keep him on his back and perhaps use a small pillow under his back to keep his airway open. And then Grant said, “air-way” in a really drunk sort of voice, and it made me feel like laughing.
All the way to my mom’s house he was doing okay, telling me about things he saw (which he always does… listing things like grapes, tractors, trucks, corn, straw, straw stacks, “bumpy!” (the canal bridge), airplanes, etc.). When we got to my mom’s, he started getting mad, because he wanted to walk. I told him he couldn’t and he really fussed about that. So I put him down (with support) and he collapsed to the ground (gently, as I was holding him), and he was really mad. The next hour-and-a-half weren’t fun. He kept wanting to walk and was mad that he couldn’t. He wasn’t happy. My mom held him a bit while I got towels on our bed, so he wouldn’t bleed on the sheets. (It didn’t work that well; there were still pink spots later, but oh well.) After a bit I took him to bed and tried to give him milk, but he was too numb to latch on and was soooo mad. He kept saying “hard to do!” angrily, and then tried to go to my other side, but he couldn’t even roll by himself, and he was angry angry angry. I was starting to think it was going to be a very very long day. After awhile we went downstairs and I turned on the TV to Strawberry Shortcake (it was the first kids’ show I found, and Madeleine likes it, what she’s seen of it), and it calmed him for slightly longer bursts. He’d fuss, want milk, have troubles, get angry, and then be calm for a minute looking at the TV. And finally he fell asleep. I moved him, and he woke up and yelled all over again, but after I took him upstairs to bed he managed to fall asleep again. After that he slept for three hours. Then he was like a different kid. Suddenly everything was pretty fine again. He could walk, he was pretty happy, he ate some pear baby food that Brogan had left at my mom’s. It wasn’t too long before he was running around, chasing Madeleine and trying to whack her, which is their new favorite game. Well, it’s his favorite game, and Madeleine likes it for awhile, until she doesn’t. She whacks him, too, because I gave her encouragement to defend herself if Grant was getting her and I wasn’t there immediately. Then it was a game they both liked, but then sometimes Grant doesn’t know when to stop and Madeleine starts screaming. Later on we came home and the neighbor was walking by, so we talked to her a bit. While I was doing that, the kids got their scooters out, and Grant was scootering back and forth on the sidewalk, with no indication he’d recently had his teeth out. By night time he was asking to eat pretzels. I told him it would hurt, but he kept asking. So I gave him one to eat carefully, and he did fine. So I gave him a few more. After eating a few, one got him in the sore spot, and he started crying. I took him up to bed then, and once we got there, he said in a very hurt tone, “pretzel hurt Grant!” Of course, this morning he was asking for pretzels all over again, and I had to remind him that they hurt him. “Remember, pretzel hurt Grant?” And then he seemed to remember and understand.
Grant wasn’t supposed to eat or drink anything for 6 hours before getting his teeth pulled. I worried about this because he wakes up a lot at night and wants to drink stuff to go back to sleep. I was afraid he’d scream about this and not sleep. But it worked out that he had a late nap, and then we stayed up till 12:30 a.m. Then he went to sleep, hoping he’d sleep through all the time of no drinking allowed. But he woke up at 3 a.m. (but went back to sleep immediately), and the same at 4 a.m. At 5 a.m. he wanted a drink, and fussed about it. I explained about waiting till after we went to the dentist. I don’t know if he understood at all, but it calmed him a little. But he didn’t go to sleep. So we watched videos and played ipod games and got up to make lego creations. Then I cleaned the house for the housekeeper and got the kids ready and finally we got to leave to take Madeleine to my mom’s. He kept asking for milk, juice, water, pop, anything… and I kept saying after the dentist. Of course, after the dentist he could hardly drink.
What else? We all went to the park to play pickleball tonight, with Matt and his friend Tony. The kids bring their dirt digging toys and dig next to the pickleball court, and we bring chalk and draw pictures. There is a playground there, too, though we didn’t go there today, because Madeleine was having too much fun building sand castles. She had some broken sand dollars that we got at the beach, and she put them on her sand castle with some sticks, and was really pleased. The full moon rose, much to the kids’ delight, and it got dark, much to Grant’s chagrin. He does NOT like the dark. I had to turn the light on in the van on the way home, because he was fussing about it. It’s okay when we’re in bed, but not outside.
I know I had more to say, but I got interrupted in the writing of this, and now I don’t remember so much. I guess I’ll be done for now. I’m grimy and need a shower, anyway. Pickleball mixed with digging in the dirt will do that to you!
Oh, and a few links for my mom:
http://godbricks.blogspot.com/2011/08/star-and-crescent.html
http://remocable.blogspot.com/2011/08/blog-post.html
http://roomthily.tumblr.com/post/886768067/7-31-10-007-by-eilonwy77-lego-illusions
http://one-theme.tumblr.com/post/8579060740
http://legoleaks.blog28.fc2.com/blog-entry-1383.html
http://remocable.blogspot.com/2011/07/flowers-i-hate-flowers-i-paint-them.html
http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?s=781ff46f77da2eec31612786fd00b5fc&showtopic=58412&st=0
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