Toothy McTootherson

We were in Baltimore for ten days, and am just getting back to our normal routine - which is why I haven't posted. We had a wonderful time! Saw my grandfather and father, my step-grandmother. Packed a lot into ten days - absolutely exhausting. Aside from the kids being way keyed up the whole time, they were little troopers! I ate like a pig. We all did. Had steamed crabs four times, crabcakes twice, crab dip, crab pizza (the dip and pizza from a local restaurant called DeSantis' Pizza and Grill in Parkville, MD - best crab dip I have ever had, hands down), pizza sub, inside-out pizza (stromboli), and an egg-custard snowball with marshmallow in the middle and on top - that satisfied a 15 year craving! Hawaiian ice and snow cones are NOT the same, and you can't find egg custard flavor OR marshmallow topping out here, as far as I know. I'm on a mission though!

And now for the post title... Natalie had two loose teeth. She lost the first one (left center, bottom) last Monday night - we were at my friends' house (Lynette and Derek) for our final night in Baltimore. She worked and worked that tooth - it was pretty loose and finally twisted and pulled it out - the new tooth is already on the way up! She was so proud of herself! She was so excited to lose her first tooth in MD - "You lost your teeth in Baltimore, Mommy! Just like me! We're lucky! We're twins".

Speaking of teeth, I was sure I broke a tooth our last weekend in MD - was spitting shards of tooth, and had a fair amount of pain, that got worse through the end of the trip. What are the odds of both of us having teeth issues? Went to the dentist Wednesday... Painful visit. I have one tooth on the upper left - last molar - that is my problem tooth. It shredded 8 years ago while I was eating pasta. My dentist at the time was able to do an onlay - basically a huge filling that is cemented in - has to be created in a lab like a crown, but isn't quite a crown. I was eating really soft bread and crab dip this last time. Apparently, the onlay was fine, but there was a gap between the gum and tooth/onlay. So I had to have the onlay cut out, the area cleaned out (my dentist found nothing broken, he thinks what I spat out was tooth from 8 years ago that got trapped up in there when the original onlay was put on), a temp on, and the new onlay will go on in about three weeks. Good times. The only good thing was, I was so tired from the trip, the nitrous put me completely out, so I got a really nice, 1 hour nitrous nap. lol Woke up to lots of pain though. The damn retraction cord they have to use to cut off blood supply to the area is so painful.


Then Thursday night, I was getting the kids to bed (Jon was OOT), and went downstairs for a minute to grab Oliver's lovey. When I got back upstairs, she handed me the other tooth (right center, bottom)! Apparently it was very loose - she was able to get it almost completely perpendicular, and used one of Oliver's hardcover books to knock it out. When asked why she used his book - "I didn't want to get germs on one of mine". The stinker!

Grammar Patrol FAIL

Conversation in the car last night -

Natalie said "I seened _____" - we couldn't figure out what she was saying she "seened".
Mitz - "Natalie, I never SAW it before"
Natalie - "Me neither!"

LOL

The Karate Kid

Natalie finally started karate tonight! She's been dying to learn for a couple of years now, but I've had a hell of a time finding a place. Her school sent home a flier for Young Champions of America - and karate was one of the offerings. She did two classes (2 hours!) back-to-back tonight, and had a blast! The classes started last week, but she was sick with a stomach bug and couldn't attend, hence the make-up. The kids get an award for perfect attendance, and perfect attendance is required for belt testing at the end of the 10 week session. Her instructor said she did really well. She even won a contest in class, and brought home a ribbon! She was so proud of herself, and loved showing me what she learned tonight. Next week we're going to get her a uniform (wanted to wait to see if she liked it before buying one - the classes are paid on a weekly basis, so we could cancel if we wanted to), and she can't wait for that! They are teaching Stranger Danger and techniques for handling those situations as well, which I really like!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there - especially Mitz, Grandma, Elizabeth and Sara!

My MD started off with a bang. I got out of the shower, to find Natalie standing there, swinging a bucket of vomit. "I threwed up Mommy". So I did what any stellar mother would do, I recoiled in horror, and directed her to take it down to Daddy. :-P Poor kid threw up most of the morning, but appears to be on the mend now. We've had a lot of fun with the whole "Natalie gave me a bucket of vomit for MD", but she doesn't find it nearly as amusing - "I did NOT get you throw-up for Mother's Day, Mommy". I tried explaining to her that it was just the timing that made the whole thing classic, and everyone knows that she didn't really get me vomit, but she's too young to understand. But some day, she'll likely have a similar experience, and we can dredge up this memory and cackle away.

Had a nice day though. Went to church, went grocery shopping. Stopped by Mitz's house to give her some flowers (she and Pops decided against coming over for dinner, given the diseased status of our house). Jon cooked an awesome dinner - bacon wrapped scallops with a maple/orange glaze, and a cream/dijon/maple sauce for dipping. And he made me Tollhouse cookies, but in a jellyroll pan (per my request) for dessert. Natalie made me a lovely card at school, and colored a picture for me at home, Jon and the kids gave me some clothes (gee, how DID they know just what to get and even the right sizes to boot?! ). Natalie insisted on putting a candle in my slice of cookie bar, and Oliver started trying to sing "Happy Birthday" - it was the funniest/cutest thing.

My kids rock.

2 year stats!

Oliver had his two year well-visit several weeks ago.

Height - 38.5 inches - off the charts
Weight - 34.6 pounds - 97th percentile
Head - 21.5 inches - off the charts

He's such a big boy now! He continues to crack us up - he is constantly goofing around, making us laugh, has the funniest expressions! He's been on a climbing kick lately, and appears determined to turn my hair completely white.

He's also Mr. Helper lately. He likes to find things around the house that each person uses, then hand it to them with a "here", but the way he says it almost rhymes with "fur". It's pretty cute!

He's also learned to say "excuse me" after he burps (and of course after I applaud for him with a "good one") - it's the cutest thing - he'll burp then chirp out a really cheerful "excuse me". Natalie actually taught him that!

Happy Birthday, Oliver!

2 already - it just doesn't seem possible... So happy, happy birthday my sweet, funny little imp of a boy!

Happy Easter!

We had a nice weekend!

Saturday, we took the kids, and Natalie's best friend and her older sister to a local farm that was having an Easter egg hunt. I took Natalie to that farm for Halloween/pumpkins and we had a wonderful time, so I thought we would all be in for a really good time. Stood in line for an hour and a half. Got up to the register to check-in, and was told that there wasn't any candy left, so they were discounting admission, and the kids could still hunt for eggs. I asked the cashier (the poor girl. I was not amused by that point, and it was obvious) what was the point of hunting for eggs if the kids weren't going to get a prize? She repeated "They can still hunt for eggs". To which I replied "That isn't going to be much fun either, considering we were in line right next to the area where the egg hunt is being held, and I see that you all just dumped the eggs in a pile in the center of the area - there is no 'hunt'". So she said something about being able to go on the hay ride, get faces painted, see the animals. So, OK, we went in. Do the math. We stood in line, an enormous line, for an hour and a half. One face-painting booth. One hayride. One bounce house. Care to guess how long the lines were for those? So no, we weren't able to do any of that. There were a few animals out to look at, and I mean a few. The girls were thirsty, so I took the kids, and Jon stood in line for water. All those people. One concession stand, two people working it. He stood in line for 20 minutes, progressed about 5 feet, maybe. At that point we said "eff it" and left. Very disappointing. But, we went back to the house, got pizza. O napped, Natalie and Trinity played together all afternoon, and her sister went with me while I ran some errands and grocery shopped.

Later that night, after dinner, we got out eggs and dye. The kids had a blast dyeing the eggs - this was Oliver's first time. Although the PAAS kit came with stickers. Oliver put some on his eggs, then noticed that some of the stickers were of balls. He stuck a basketball sticker on his egg, yelled "BALL" and launched the egg across the table, aiming for and missing the egg carton, as opposed to reaching over and placing it in the carton. We were dying. Too funny. I had him do it again, and got it on video.

Easter itself was wonderful! The kids loved their loot from the EB. They got all sugared up, then we went to church. Oliver wouldn't eat breakfast, as he filled up on candy. After mass, they hunted eggs with the kids at church. Then we went to the hall for coffee hour/cake. Oliver threw up chocolate. So gross. Poor kid. But he rallied and tried to go for more chocolate, but we put the kibosh on that. Went home to grab some comfy clothes and my Easter dinner (I hate ham, so I bring my own dinner to my mom's on Easter lol), got some lunch in the kids. Then we went to Mitz and Pops. More Easter baskets, and the kids had an egg hunt at M&P's - they had a great time! Oliver kept dumping his basket all over the floor. As soon as we'd clean it up, he'd dump it again. Had dinner, hung out for a while, both kids passed out in the car on the way home. They were asleep before we hit the freeway - and my mom lives about a mile from the freeway - that's how tired they were.