Memoirs of a Gishi: Busy 2 Weeks Part 1

We have a busy 2 weeks at the end of March/beginning of April and this year it's even more busy than usual. (The pictures are below the description of the week)

It started on Friday with Jacob going to the dentist. We took him in 6 weeks ago because it was very apparent his teeth were in horrible shape and he was very uncooperative with the x-rays because it kept gagging him. The dentist finally just got in there and looked at his teeth and said from what he could see, there were at least 6 cavities, with one molar that may need to just be pulled. Because Jacob's so little and was having a hard time, plus because of the amount of work that needed to be done, he recommended Jacob be put under, which means an anesthesiologist needed to come in. To schedule him would be 6 weeks out. I was worried the tooth that had the worst amount of decay was going to start hurting pretty bad, but he seemed ok with the occasional dose of advil at night. So Friday finally arrived and the anesthesiologist came out to the waiting room and gave Jacob a shot that would take a minute or two to take effect. While he was giving him the shot a nurse was showing Jacob some little toys and letting him pick one. He decided on a monster with 3 eyes and after the nurse left I showed Jacob the eyes and said it was silly he had 3 eyes. Jacob giggled and giggled and giggled, then just dropped like a rock in my arms. It was hilarious.

They took him back and it took 2 hours for them to do everything. He ended up needing 7 cavities filled and they pulled a molar. He needed one cap and has a spacer where the molar was. Next time we won't wait so long to take them in. Me and Bryan both have genetically inferior teeth, so our kids are basically screwed. I can already see some problems in Gus's teeth too. Oh well. I asked the dentist if there was anything I could do while I was pregnant that would help the baby teeth be stronger. He said the only thing I can really do is prevent the bacteria from me from getting into the baby's mouth, so not feeding him from my spoon or sharing food with him. But he said there's a lot of studies showing if a mom chews gum with xylitol in it, the kid has better teeth. So from while I'm still pregnant up to 2 months after he's born, if I chew xylitol gum it'll help his teeth - and mine. He said xylitol helps prevent harmful bacteria from transferring from me to him. Orbit is the only gum you can get locally that has it in it, but there's a lot of brands online as well. So we got me some and Bryan is telling me to chew a pack a day (I'm not going to do that, but I do chew a piece after I eat).

So that was Friday. Saturday we had a family Easter egg hunt. This was the first year Jacob kind of got what was going on and collected 15 or so eggs. Gus knew what was in the eggs because he saw me filling some, so as soon as he got his little hands on one he opened it and ate the candy inside. Bryan picked up some eggs for him and he was always surprised when he finished eating the candy inside one egg that he had another one waiting for him. Not surprisingly, both kids had a pretty major sugar high that hit hard later. (As I read over this, I realize I just talked about Jacob's cavities, then we threw a bunch of candy at him the next day. We're basically awesome). We had pizza for lunch, which is Jacob's absolute favorite new food, so he was begging for pizza even when he knew there was candy to be had. As soon as the hunt was over he got his pizza, so his sugar crash wasn't as bad as Gus because he had some food inside of him.

Sunday was Gus's 2nd birthday and Easter. This time I made sure they ate breakfast, then put out a dozen eggs in a path that led to their baskets. They didn't care - they just ran over to the baskets. Gus realized the eggs were there a minute later and went from one egg to the next eating the candy inside. I put mostly toys in their baskets and a couple of bags of chips because I put candy in the eggs, but they were still pretty hyper before church. We had candles and cake and presents before church because Bryan went to work after church. For a couple of days before I'd been talking to Jacob and telling him it was Gus's birthday, not his, and Gus got to blow out candles and open presents. He was not convinced. When it was time to blow out candles we gave Jacob a blower that made noise so he blew on that while Gus attempted multiple times to blow out his candles, so that worked out ok. Jacob did steal a couple of Gus's presents after he opened them, though, but we got that worked out later.

Today we went to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. We decided last year since the boys birthdays are so close together instead of making a big deal on each day, we'd do cake and whatnot on their birthday, then do something bigger in the week between their birthdays. They loved the dinosaur museum. It was fun to see them get so excited about different parts and they loved that they could touch some stuff. Jacob got some birthday money from my mom, so we let him pick out a couple of dinosaurs from the gift shop - he got 2 Brachiosaurus' that I named Ted and Steve. We pulled out a water table Bryan's mom got them in the afternoon and then had pizza for dinner - Jacob was in heaven.