July 2010 – Andelin Adventures

Another Climber?

I think most of our kids have gone straight from crawling, to climbing. You would think that they would walk first, and that would be your hint that climbing is around the corner, but most of our kids seem to have had that backwards.

This afternoon, I was in my room working on a project on my computer, when I heard Chloe start crying like she was freaked out, followed by Tyra running down the hall to tell me that Chloe was ON the table. Tyra did not say which table, so as I went out to go get Chloe OFF of the table, I was wondering HOW IN THE WORLD she got on the dining table. She was on the coffee table, not the dining table. 🙂 But when I saw her, she was standing there on the end of the table, holding onto the arm chair for support, and she was just crying like she was scared. I *thought* about going to get my camera, but I didn’t want to be mean and make her stand there and wait for me to take pictures. 😉

LATER I heard her crying like she was freaked out again. So I went to go get her thinking “Oh boy. Here we go again.” This time she was sitting on the other end of the table, and I decided, that since she had climbed up there a second time in the same day, despite her being freaked out, that I would get the camera! And what do you know? She stopped crying when she saw that I wasn’t freaking out.

Going to the Dentist

I hate going to the dentist. I don’t mind taking the kids to their appointments, but I just hate going to mine. I don’t mind the cleanings, or the x-rays or any of that, but I hate finding out what condition my teeth are in. I just have bad teeth. It’s inherited I’m sure of it. My parents have bad teeth, most of my siblings have bad teeth, and I remember my dad telling me that my grandpa had bad teeth as well. It’s just genetic. Usually every time I go in for a check-up something is wrong with my teeth and that means having another appointment (or two) scheduled shortly after the check-up to get those other issues fixed. That was no different today.

I went in and they hygienist took some digital x-rays, then she probed my teeth to see how the pockets in my gums are doing. I have four crowns IN A ROW in my mouth and the gums up there have issues, sometimes the pockets up there have been 6 or 7 mm deep, this time the deepest pocket was 5mm, so YAY some improvement! Not a lot, but some. Then she polished my teeth and proceeded to scrape plaque off. Now I have to say, I don’t have bad teeth because I don’t take care of them. I do brush, floss and rinse with flouride (to help my teeth) in the morning and I brush, floss and rinse with listerine (to help keep my gums healthy) before bed. And I admit that I’m not perfect about it, but more often than not, that is my routine. But really it just feels like it doesn’t matter HOW much I brush or floss, or even rinse my mouth out….my teeth STILL have issues. In fact as the hygienist was scraping plaque off my teeth she told me that there was actually a lot less plaque there than she would usually find on someones teeth. So YAY, again my brushing my teeth is actually doing something and I’m not completely wasting my time. 🙂

After she flossed my teeth it was time for the dentist to come in, and this is the part of the appointment that I always dread. After looking at my teeth, then at the x-rays and then back at my teeth he determined that I have two new cavities, and one area on watch because it looks like it could turn into a cavity. At my last appointment he told me I needed another crown, but we decided to wait on it because our insurance won’t cover crowns. So we’ll wait until open enrollment Kyle will change to a plan that cover crowns and we’ll take care of it next year, so the dentist had patched it up for me so that I can get by until then. This time, I’m up to needing TWO crowns, the one that had been patched last time, and I had a tooth break (slowly because I didn’t even notice it breaking I just noticed the hole) and that one needs to be crowned as well. Dang it! And when I was pregnant with Chloe he had told me that I need to have my wisdom teeth out, but they don’t like doing that when you’re pregnant so that got put on hold too. And really I remember what Kyle went through when he had HIS wisdom teeth pulled out, and I REALLY don’t look forward to having mine out. But they haven’t finished coming up through the gums. They just seem to be stuck half covered by gum tissue and half exposed, so really they just need to be pulled out. Also if they were to finish coming up on their own I doubt that I would even be able to shut my jaw, there isn’t enough space back there for the wisdom teeth, and when I’m “teething” (which happens occasionally) my gums are so swollen back there that I can’t shut my jaw without major pain, so those teeth need to just come out, but that terrifies me.

So my end conclusion, going to the dentist is depressing. And my oral hygiene habits can’t really get much better than they are unless I brush each time I munch on anything, but really how am I supposed to remember to do that? And that might mean me being in the bathroom to brush my teeth for a good part of every day (what can I say? I like to munch!) So maybe I just need to increase my calcium intake…. Because maybe if I increase my calcium intake, my body won’t be robbing my teeth for calcium, and MAYBE that will help slow down the deterioration of my teeth….

But I can’t stand the aftertaste that milk leaves in my mouth (but maybe that would be a good incentive to brush afterward???) So more smoothies made with milk and more ice cream shakes on the menu please? Thank you! 😀

Inspiration?

I believe that I have been inspired. 🙂 Earlier this week bedtime had been HORRIBLE, several nights in a row. It was SO bad one night that I was sitting here in my room at midnight waiting for Tyra and Jeremy to just go to sleep already! Wednesday night I just had this idea! I don’t even know where it came from or why I thought of it, but I just had an idea. I decided I wouldn’t say anything about it until it was time to put it into action and so the kids changed into their pjs, I gave them all a treat for having pjs on before 8 (that’s a rule in our house if you have your pjs on before 8pm you get to pick one candy from the basket), then I proceeded to sing the prayer time song:

Let us gather in a circle, and kneel in family prayer

To thank our Heavenly Father, for the blessings we all share.

Let us thank Him for our meal time, for clothes we daily wear,

For parents home and family, for His kind and loving care.

Oh may we always serve Him, in thought and action too,

And humbly kneel at prayer-time, as so many families do.

(Children’s Songbook pg 189)

Singing the song means that it’s time to come to the living room to pray, and that’s the way we’ve done family prayer for years. But here’s where my idea came into play. After we pray it’s time to go down the hall to brush teeth, go potty and go to bed, but Wednesday my idea was to add something to that. Wednesday after we prayed, I whispered to the kids to be quiet from that moment on and that only whispering was allowed. NO TALKING and NO NOISE at all!

The first night Ethan just kept, kind of giggling at me. I don’t know if he thought I was just playing around or what? Last night went very smoothly and after the kids had brushed, gone potty, and were in bed they were asleep in no time. Tonight even though some of them didn’t fall asleep right away, just the peacefulness of having no talking, only whispering was just WONDERFUL. I feel like I was inspired to initiate the no talking, only whispering after prayer, because it helps to keep ME calm at a point in the day where usually I start freaking out and getting really upset/mad that the kids are just NOT staying on their beds, or just aren’t being quiet, or they think that bed time is still playtime. No talking, only whispering sets the tone and is a transitioning from normal daily life to it’s now time to be quiet and go to bed. It also reminds me of the peace there is in the temple (even if the house is messy). And whispering really forces the kids to LOOK at me when I am talking to them so that they can hear what I am saying. 😉 (Of course that goes the other way too, I have to LOOK at them when they are talking to me so I can hear what they are saying to me.)

I LOVE it and I hope that we can keep this up and that as time goes on that it will continue to improve bed time.

Ethan’s Lost His First Tooth!

Ethan lost his first tooth this morning! I don’t know what he was doing but, I saw him holding something small and at first I thought it was a lego, then I saw that it was a tooth! So I asked him if he pulled it out and he said ‘No, it just fell out.’ It was READY! Ethan was kind of in shock at first so he wouldn’t let me see the space in his mouth where the tooth had come from. But after I had gotten him an envelope to put his tooth in and gave him a chance to ‘forget’ what had happened, he’s back to being himself and I got to see. 🙂

I remember when those same teeth seemed so large in his little tiny mouth! And now they are these teeny tiny teeth in a bigger kid mouth. And it’s time for these teeny tiny teeth to move on and make way for adult teeth! Wow! It’s weird to think that the teeth that will be coming in soon are the teeth he’s going to have for the rest of his life. Just amazing.

Fire Cracker Cake Balls

I saw this idea online a few days ago, and said I can make prettier ones and I decided to improve upon the idea that I had seen. 😉

Introducing Fire Cracker Cake Balls! I couldn’t decide if I wanted to decorate them with sprinkles or with the chocolate drizzles so I did some of each. 🙂 And the insides are strawberry red cake, surrounded by blue plain cake (half of them I did the other way, blue surrounded by red), dipped in white chocolate and topped with red, white and blue sprinkles (or red and blue confetti drizzles).