I'll take tooth troubles for $600, Alex...

Picture taken first thing in the morning yesterday with glasses and no makeup to intensify the dramatic effect. Fortunately for me and, unfortunately for aforementioned dramatic effect, the swelling has gone down today so there are no "cleaned up ready to face the world" photos. Today it looks more like I have a wad of chewing tobacco shoved into my mouth. Hey, I went to a public high school. I know what it looks like.

• A root canal done through your gums, rather than through your tooth. Involves cutting and stitching of the gums, follow-up appointment to have stitches removed, chewing on one side of the mouth, icepacks, pain meds, and begging your children to listen the first time so you don't have to repeat yourself. What is an apicoectomy?


• Red and itchy bumps which necessitate the taking of Benadryl which necessitates the taking of a 2+ hour nap which necessitates sitting around on the couch for hours after saying, 'huh?' [perhaps I was already a little tired and thus the effects were exaggerated] What are hives, likely caused by a delayed allergic reaction to the antibiotic I had to take before the apicoectomy?


• Five hours. What is the approximate time my "take every 8 hours" pain meds work.


• Egg noodles w/butter and cheese. What is a soft food that I can consume with minimal pain?


• A chipmunk or, in my hubby's words, a bulldog. What does my jaw resemble?


• Betrayed. [insert laughter, unless your mouth hurts and then just lamely half smile] How does one feel after being asked to schedule her follow-up appointment and pay her bill before her procedure because, "you'll have an icepack and won't want to mess with it," when in reality she will be smuggled out a side door with her icepack so as not to scare all the happy people in the waiting room?


• Sneezing, tilting my head back to rinse the shampoo out of my hair, bending down to pick things up off of the floor. What are painful experiences?


• Ten. What is the number of times I anticipate having to mention that I had some dental work done this week while hanging with my hubby at a work function tomorrow evening? [Don't want anyone to think their banker is hurting his wife! I've debated sitting this one out, but I really want to go. Selfish, I know.]

Morning...

Sunday morning Luke got up at 5:30. I will admit to being a bad parent who toted him down the stairs, to the couch, covered us both up with a blanket, turned on a kids' television channel and I nodded off for the next couple of hours. Only later did I discover the beautiful hives (on me, not him), but that's another post. Monday morning. First day of spring break. Seth and Luke got up at 6:15. Why both of them? Because if Seth gets up first he grabs his puppy, wakes Luke, and heads for our room. If Luke gets up first he grabs his favorite things from his bed (currently Koko the train, Pretty Lightning, Rescue the dog, and his moon remote - don't ask as the moon remote is completely useless separated from the moon, but he brings it along anyway), heads to my side of the bed, waits for me to pull back the covers, climbs in with all of his stuff, and cuddles with me. For approximately 3.2 seconds before he then starts chatting, elbowing, poking out my eyes, and pulling at my hair. Tuesday morning. [Well, let's begin with Monday night when Luke was SO exhausted that he couldn't sleep. That's Luke's gig. He refused to nap Monday, even after getting up early and then having a playdate. So, by Monday night he was a crying mess. But he still got up, screaming (and coughing) a couple of times during the night.] So, 6:15 he brings all his stuff and climbs into my bed. To let me know he would like for me to go to the store and buy some smoothies. Just like the ones we had last year. Pronounced 'lah-ast yay-err', as though he will momentarily be saddling up his horse and riding off to milk the cows. After a discussion of not going to the store at this early hour just for smoothies, he crawled over me to the middle of the bed so he could cuddle Daddy too. Perhaps he thought he could persuade David to head to the store? If so, he doesn't know his daddy so well! Then he started coughing. A lot. So, I said to him, "You sound awful." He sat up in the bed, tilted his head, leaned into me and said, "I'm a waffle?"

If you're wondering, this post has no meaning and is going nowhere, but instead was written with the express intent of re-reading when they are 14 and 16 and want to sleep until noon and I am trying to drag them out of their beds.

Soccer-tastic!

Last Sunday we went to the sporting goods store to buy [better, aka not 'mommy-chosen'] shin guards for Seth, as well as some shoes and a soccer ball. I was helping him try on the shoes with the shin guards and he looked up at me and said, "Mom, do I look soccer-tastic?" He is so funny!


We let Luke carry the soccer ball so he didn't feel too left out while watching Seth get all this new gear. He was very excited about carrying the ball. Until he saw the football helmets. He ditched that soccer ball and took off like a crazy child. Dave helped him get a helmet on his head and then Luke found a football and he was ridiculously excited. I guess my dreams of "pretty" sports like tennis and golf are not shared by my boys!

more daily pix...

The messiest baby food ever - ick!

A double rainbow - thanks for the phone call telling me to go outside Mom!

Dave's birthday cake - a day late since he felt a guys' trip was more important than celebrating with his family on his birthday. Just kidding, honey. Kinda. The boys enjoying their book recorded by Daddy, for while he was gone on his trip. They listened to it 2 or 3 times everyday.

A quick trip to the zoo on a warmer day.

One of my favorite (clearly non-healthy) meals ~ paninis and onion strings.

The boys are taking swimming lessons, and a smile rather than crying is BIG progress!

10 month old Max...

It's hard to believe Max is 10 months old! I'm starting to obsess think about his first birthday bash as a way to distract myself from being a little sad that he's almost one. I'm thinking about skipping all the character/animal themed party supplies and just choosing a couple of colors and carrying out more of a color based theme with lots of '1's' and 'M's' everywhere. We'll see how this shapes up.

Anyway, Max has grown up so much this month. He's really taken off with the crawling. Just the other night he was up on his hands and knees, very still. He looked all around and just took off, like his plan was to see how fast he could go. It was so funny to see him look like he was planning it all out!

He has two teeth now and loves to feed himself anything that he can pinch between his finger and thumb (puffs, tiny pieces of food, dirt, lint). He's also pulling up on anything he can find. And he's into everything - especially his brothers' favorite toys. Already he's fulfilling the "littlest brother into everything" role. He really loves attention from his brothers - he smiles and laughs and reaches for them. He's a pretty good shopper, at least for a little while - hanging out in the front of the grocery cart now.

He finally said, "mamamamam." He waves a lot and says "hi" and "bye." I think he says "hi" everytime he sees the phone. I say "gentle" to him a lot and rub his face, trying to get him to be more gentle with all of us and I truly believe there's a word he says back to me that sounds A LOT like gentle - obviously, he's not saying gentle but he is mimicking the word in his own way.

He is definitely the easiest baby of my three! I think knowing how fast it all goes is really hitting home for me and I'm trying to just really take him. Happy 10 months, Max!

Things which I do not enjoy...

Sick kids. Since mid-January someone has been sick in this house, nearly nonstop. Not the same someone, just everyone at different times. Ugh.

Coughing babies. I absolute cannot stand to hear Max coughing in that crib all alone. I leave him there because he's a great sleeper and I don't want to ruin that. But I have been known to sneak in after he calms down and, if he should maybe sorta almost notice me, I flee the scene like an elf on Christmas Eve!

Participating in a conversation about how my newly 3 year old sat with his older brother and older cousin on his first Sunday in the big kids' class and wasn't very well-behaved. Having to have my sister hear parts of the same conversation [There was a bad little kid who tried to sit with your son...].

Middle of the night ER visits with a screaming child whose ears hurt so badly that he can't stop screaming. Or an earache that doesn't begin until 10pm, after said child has been deposited back into his bed repeatedly.

A new computer system at the hospital with the ER that has every member of the hospital's staff angry and confused and unable to locate the information they've just gathered. THEN hearing them call for a computer support tech (at 2:30 in the morning) to figure out why the computer won't work to spit out both prescriptions, only to find out that the printer was out of paper.

Finally (!) leaving the ER to drive to the pharmacy at 3:30am and being told that they are backing up their computers and it will be at least a half hour before they can fill the prescription.

Picking up a very fussy baby in the nursery at church and asking, "was he upset the whole time?", only to have them respond, "No, he just had to be held." HAD to be held? Correction, you had the privilege of holding my baby. Okay, I suppose when the nursery is full that's unreasonable.

Hearing the words, "I do it myself" when I'm really in a hurry.

The sound of the drive thru employee screaming as I hit the gas rather than the brake, nearly taking her arm with me and spilling an entire large drink all over the drive thru lane.

Having your 4 year old tell you, "You make every day worse." And thinking he might be onto something.

Running on a treadmill in the middle of the shoe store to buy new running shoes. Yes, that's right, running shoes. In which I plan to actually run.

The grocery store. Ever. Solo. With my entourage. In the middle of the day. Late at night. I do not enjoy the grocery store. Period. In fact, I am protesting it at the moment and only cooking things that I have in my pantry or freezer. Unfortunately, we're going to run out of milk and this little experiment will have to come to and end. Because milk, that I do enjoy!

Pix and a peek...

Here are a few recent pictures of the day: Max, two fisted.

Seth and Luke, post-dentist appointments

Umm, yeah - that's mold. Inside one of my very favorite treats - chocolate covered cherries. We won't discuss that any further!

The daily album is coming along quite nicely. My process goes something like this: Download pictures often - every couple of days. About once a week go through and pick each of my daily pictures for that week. Edit them and send to snapfish, shutterfly, whomever. Then journal on the card in the album while the details are still fresh. Then I just let the pictures sit in the cart on the shopping site for awhile. As long as the journalling in the book stays caught up the pictures are the easiest part. By Friday afternoons I'm ready for the weekend and need something more fun to do while the boys rest so I seem to find myself working on the book then - setting up for the next month or embellishing the couple spots for the week that need some prettying. Each month has its own theme, or at least a color scheme, so the 4 or 5 layouts for that month are very close to identical. And my parents gave me a scrapbooking diecut machine for Christmas so I'm using it quite a bit too for the layout titles, etc.

Then eventually I order the pictures. I like having them printed at the super store where I prefer to grocery shop. Snapfish is an affiliate so I order through them and then just grab them when I'm in the store. Plus, they have volume discounts so I hold off until I have enough to order that the prices are reduced. Then I get to bring them home and match them up with the journalling cards and watch the book take shape!

The whole layoutLeft side

Right side