Macey's Photoshoot

After atleast a hundred shots, here are our results. It was VERY difficult trying to get the "perfect" shot. We didn't manage to get one, but here are some of my favorites.

Macey Blaire - 1 month

All is Lost

Brandt officially lost his tooth yesterday afternoon - just about an hour before we took the boys' pictures. He also managed to swallow it. Grandma helped him write a card to the tooth fairy explaining the situation.

Monday morning we headed in to the Pediatric Dentist - to find out "things don't look good" when reviewing Brandt's Xrays. His tooth that was jacked backwards and was then hanging lower than the rest - will fall out (and did the next day). As if that wasn't enough, its compardre - the other front tooth - also shows significant root damage and will need to be pulled out as well.

The dentist spent a considerable amount of time consoling us - well, me.. that is. He will be loosing both of his front teeth. Something positive to hang on to = he may get them back when he turns 7 or 8 years old. That is only 5 years away from now. The dentist greatly down-talked an expensive permanent retainer to place false teeth there for those mere 5 years, but I would be lying if I said that I am not still considering that option. They wanted to schedule his tooth removal for the next morning - but I had pictures scheduled that I decided not to change since I wanted to get one last picture of my son with teeth. The photographer later cancelled for family reasons. But we decided to try some of our own since we were so prepared, and I really wanted to get some pictures of Brandt with his teeth in tact. But as you already read..Brandt took care of that before we took a single snapshot - much to my dismay.

We still took our pictures with toothless Joe Jackson, my other fully teethed son and Charee's little Grady (who does have a few teeth now). I am currently loading them to see if there was anything worth our efforts.

Not a good span of days for me.

Catastrophe Update

After consulting with our dental connections (thanks for the phone support Carrie & Eric), Brad talked to Adam Harker (a dentist who Brad used to go to school with) who gave us some good insight and was willing to have Brandt come over and take a look. Now that's what a good dentist does on a Sat night!

They were able to push it forward - much to Brandt's discomfort although a lot of swelling had already set in. It would have been much easier and crucial to have that done right after the accident. We did try to push it forward on our own at that time- but let's face it, we didn't know what we were doing and probably weren't using enough force. Plus it was causing a lot of pain on our child - we were unqualified for such a feat.

Now we are just hoping the tooth stays strong and in place. It could just decide to fall out or become discolored - that's out of our hands. I'll update you on what we find out come Monday.

Our little catastrophe

At the park last night, I caught Brandt out of the corner of my eye stumble while running on the concrete path and land (without any hands there to break the fall) on his face. He was bleeding profusely and as I lifted his upper lip, I was horrified to see that one of his front teeth was jacked straight back. The pictures are not for the faint of heart so scroll down at your own risk. We conveniently were located right next to an Icee stand where they were quick to supply us with a bag of ice and paper towels to control the bleeding (Thanks for your help Lisa). Of course he is crying, and I am beside myself upset while holding and caring for him. I certainly wasn't saying the terror that I was thinking but I wasn't saying much at all. I'm so glad that Brad was there helping. Brad carried him up to the car and he was crying the whole way. Brad told me later that he kept asking him if it hurt and finally Brandt just said that he was scared. He cried himself to sleep in the car on the ride home.

This is where my failure as a mom comes in. Although I was there caring for him, I wasn't comforting him and telling him everything was going to be alright. Because it was not. It is not alright! That was all I was thinking. This is terrible! How can we fix this! So instead of calming and comforting, I was in sheer panic and shock. I was terrified that my 3-year old child might lose his front tooth and have to go the next 5 years (atleast - both my boys were really late in getting their teeth as babies) with a missing front tooth. I'm thinking of his first day of school and all the pictures he'll take during his childhood. Then my thoughts quickly remember the photo shoot with Mandy McDonald that Charee had scheduled for my kids and hers at the pond this coming Tuesday. (**Which confirms that I am seriously plagued with bad luck. I just bought them their new picture outfits the night before.)

After calling the emergency line for our Dentist on the ride home, I spoke with a no-brainer lady who said that I would just have to wait until Monday and that it will probably just fall out or they would be able to fix it then. I was very insistant with her that that was unacceptable - I needed someone to fix it RIGHT NOW! But finally consented to her prognosis. I just really wanted to atleast speak to my dentist and see what he thought - but no go.

I then called my mother who was quick to COMFORT me and tell me that everything was going to be alright. Exactly what I needed and wanted to hear - although we aren't sure yet that she will be correct. Why couldn't I do that for my son, just tell him it was going to be alright. I was just freaking out in my mind.

We still don't know yet what is to become of this poor little tooth but I pray that "everything will be alright!"

The graphic details.

The morning after - he seems to be chipper and back to his usual self.
Tooth or not - he is still a cutie! Right?!

Kidzui.com

As my life is now run by the nursing schedule, I have found myself watching the television a lot more; this includes infomercials (that I am completely sold on, good thing the phone isn't in reach) and lately I have enjoyed the morning news shows. So I feel I should share my latest discovery from the Today show - http://www.kidzui.com/

They were talking about kid friendly sites and raved and kidzui.com. What it is is a browser you download that features only parent and teacher approved sources for the kids to view all for free. Each child can customize their own person (if you want to pay a monthly fee you get more options that you can get by without). Their own hairstyle, clothes' colors, etc. My boys had a lot of fun setting their person up. And then when they enter their age it suggests websites and web videos that they may enjoy.

Instead of going to the "e" (Internet Explorer) they can click on the "K" that will be downloaded on your desktop and go to all the child friendly sites that they were already used to playing (like webkinz, pbskids and nickjr, etc) without you having to worry what they were mistyping in. Not that I let them go free for all on Utube, but they can watch videos from their without seeing any of the nasty videos that they might stumble upon. My boys love the cats/animals that sound like they are talking...they laugh their heads off. They can rate videos with preapproved comments that they can click on. Everything is protected (a lot like webkinz). Plus the site emails the parents and lets you access what they have been viewing so that you can see what they are interested in.

Anyway, so this is my infomercial for kidzui.com If you are going to let your kids go online, this is a great safe way to control what they could be exposed to. I'm really excited about it and so are my boys.

My Unique Beus Boys

The other night, the children (all 3 of them now) and I ventured out to Toys R Us in order for Kaden to spend some of his B-day cash. It was at this store that I was struck with the realization of how VERY different my two boys are. Brandt was so excited to see the action figures, trucks and weapons available there while Kaden had a really hard time finding anything that he was remotely interested in. Probably because I was trying to stay away from the girls' section and the Littlest Pet Shop toys. He was only interested in the stuffed animals (which we really didn't need), but we finally found a swimming turtle to blow his money on. The store that has every toy for any child's heart's desire...and he really couldn't find anything for about an hour.

Kaden is a sensitive animal lover who cries crocodile tears for almost an hour when the new kittens have crawled under the house and may never appear again. He has always clung to one toy his whole life and is really not interested in anything else that doesn't involve that particular toy or animal. He's loved Nemo, elephants, Thomas the train and he seems to be just getting over his Webkinz, Ruff Beus. He does love to draw very detailed pictures of cartoon like animals and really does a good job at that.

When Brad was dropping him off at the bus stop the other morning, a plastic bottle fell out of the pickup as Kaden was shutting the door. With all his body weight, Kaden re-opened the door while the bus sat waiting and tossed the bottle back in and said "Dad, Recycle!" Brad continued to tell me that previous to that there were a couple of bottles down at the barn that had ricocheted off the burning barrell when he was trying to "shoot" them in. When Kaden saw them lying on the ground the next day, he said "Dad, you are making the earth sick!"

Brandt is my rough and tough boy who I feel has magicially become HUGE once we brought home his tiny little sister. He loves super heroes and playing with his friend Cole (Lisa's little guy) and are often heard saying something like "Let's go save the world!" as they run out the door. But really he loves all boy toys and doesn't cling to any one thing. Although he is deathly afraid of spiders. His speech is improving, but he tends to drop words from sentences and use bare bone sentences, for example he would say something like "Let save world!" as he would run out. On a sweeter note, he often tells me "Mom, Macey my girl. Macey my girl." They both love her. And I love my boys, as totally night and day different that they are.