our two front teeth.

Well, I figured after yesterday's traumatic events....it'd be a good thing to blog about it to 'record' so we can look back on it someday :) I don't promise any regularity to my blogging again, but it is a goal this winter to get back on track!

Starting Monday night of this week Connor started complaining about his teeth hurting. Being five and a half, I assumed that it was just his baby teeth finally starting to come in and the pressure of the new teeth was maybe bugging him. So in my nicest mom voice...I told him to suck it up :) It didn't help that about a week ago I woke up with horrible tooth pain and the following day I had a wisdom tooth pulled out. I assured him, no one was going to pull his teeth out.

Oops.

Tuesday and Wednesday morning he complained again, on and off, again, we just talked about how it's normal to lose teeth, etc. Wednesday we get a call from the school nurse that he's been crying for about 15-20 minutes about his tooth. So, I made the call to the dentist who fortunately was able to get him in right away.

Right away turned into 40 minutes of waiting in the chair...moaning, crying, etc. We were 'that' kid in the dentist office probably ruining it for the rest of the children. Didn't help that shortly into our wait there was a kid in the 'back room' NOT having a good visit. This didn't help Connor's mood. Little did we know we'd be 'that' kid shortly.

Finally the dentist arrived and after just a brief check (yes, Connor still screaming, yelling, crying), she said there was an infection and the best/only thing to do would be to remove the teeth. Of course she didn't say that loud enough for Connor to hear, but I will admit I nearly started crying.

So, enter the torture chamber. I had called Bryan in for reinforcements by then. I finally got Connor settled down while we waited for the dentist to be ready, which was a welcome 5 minutes of silence. To sum up the following five minutes, the dentist had Connor in a headlock, Bryan was on top of his chest and I was on top of Connor's legs to restrain him for the extraction. He refused the sleepy gas (wasn't going to go under, but just get sleepy), so we just did local. In between screams and yells, Connor shared the following:

WHY CAN'T I CLOSE MY MOUTH!
WHY ARE YOU ON MY LEGS!
GET OFF MY LEGS!
MY ARM!
WHY CAN'T I FEEL MY TONGUE?!
GET OFF MY LEGS!
MY LEG HURTS!
I'M SO HOT!

While we were waiting for the novocain to set in, he ripped his shirt off, he was nearly dripping sweat from trying to get out of our restraints.

I will admit, at times, the four of us (dentist, hygienist, Bryan and I) were borderline laughing. We all know what it feels like to have numbness in your mouth and so his reactions were fairly normal, and obviously there wasn't a whole lot we could do.

The actual extraction took like 5 seconds, it took us a little bit to calm down afterwards, and then we were on our way home. See picture below, and yes, I was concerned that he was going to choke on the gauze when he fell asleep 2 minutes into the car ride home.

A few hours after we were home, he started to perk up, eventually agreed to look in the mirror, laughed at himself, thought his teeth were cool, etc. Of course every now and again he'd remember that he should be taking advantage of his condition, ie making me spoon feed him his mac 'n cheese, provide a few peanut butter cups, his friend Gwyneth brought him an ice cream treat, it was Schwans man night so he got something there, etc....we figured he did deserve it, it was quite the day!

Bode Easter 2013

3.31.13

The Easter bunny was good yet again to the boys out at the Bode farm! We had fun with eggs and then of course the hunt for the Easter basket. The bunny gets pretty clever out there, we have clues we have to find and riddles to solve!

Off to the shop for the final clues... 

Success! Silly bunny hid the baskets in the tractor. 

Oh Grayson. What other child would need to be talked into digging into his basket? 

 a bus!

drives just like his...

grandma Ruth? (kidding, mom...)

Let's just say, Grayson might not have the coordination (yet?) that Connor seems to have. When we gave Connor this gator for his 2nd birthday, it was about 20 minutes (who knows what it really was, compared to how long it's taking Grayson to figure it out, it feels like 20 seconds) before he was already shifting into reverse, driving everywhere, etc. And mind you, he was not, running into anything. Anything.

Grayson, well, he's stubborn. Heaven forbid you tell him to STEER [enter meltdown] or try to show him the correlation between the tires and turning the sterring wheel [enter meltdown]. So, I just let him drive in circles. The other weekend during the garage sale he decided to hop on and seriously just drive and crash into everything at the sale. I would have loved to see a video tape of the scene as I jumped out of my chair and literally superman dove for the tailgate, ripping the tailgate off, trying to stop him. [enter  meltdown].

Thankfully, he's just been content letting Connor drive him around lately. We'll try again in a few months. Maybe a year.

hallway racing

3.15.13 (getting closer to being caught up!)

Our hallway takes a beating. You should be thankful I didn't get this on videotape, it's ridiculously loud. But, they're having fun and I just love seeing them play and interact as brothers should :)

Picture overload. There were too many expressions I liked!

update on Grayson

Well, it's been about 6-7 weeks from Grayson's surgery, doesn't feel like it's been that long at all (and not in a good way?).

We saw his surgeon about two weeks after the surgery to see how things were going and to make a plan for the rest of his recovery and beyond. At the time, Grayson's diaper rash was out.of.control. Nearly bleeding it was so bad. Add in the fact that he poops like every 15 minutes, it was horrendous those first 3-4 weeks. Literally, one day at daycare he went 17 times. With a two hour nap in there. No lotion we tried worked or did anything miraculous. We stopped giving him miralax against doctor's orders because seriously, 17 times in a 6 hour period? That's about every 20 minutes. And considering it took him a good 30 minutes to recover from a diaper change, it wasn't good.

Thankfully...the diaper rash is finally under control in probably the last 2 weeks or so. He still doesn't like diaper changes, but he's to the point now of telling me when he's dirty and asking that I change his diaper. I suppose that's good! Although everytime I ask him if he wants to wear big boy underwear like Connor he says NO. And if you know Grayson, he's tough to argue with.

He still is going about 3-5 times at school and 3-ish times at home. Down from 20+, but still a lot. Doctors say this is normal for up to six months post-surgery. So, we will just wait this out!

Oh, and daily dilations have stopped. Thank God.

Oh, and since returning to school from surgery. Drop offs are a nightmare. Every.single.day they have to essentially remove him as he's clinging for dear life to me. Seriously not a fun way to start EVERY day of work. :(

Other than all that...he's our happy, silly and adorable little guy! Still can't believe he's two already! He started referring to Connor as 'brother' today. When I picked him up, he went running towards Connor's room yelling "get my brother" and then when he got outside in the pre-school playground, he yelled, "brother, where are you". So cute. Love those boys to pieces.

six years

Celebrating six years today! (although we'll have to probably celebrate on another day when we're actually together, ha)

my all time favorite shot from our wedding day

vday mini-shoot take two

After the first somewhat unsuccessful shoot...we tried again. More success this time, although still not a group shot, ha :)

As always on this blog...unedited (well after the first few).