Traumatized

This is Ben.  Well, Ben minus a tooth.  His lost his very first tooth on Saturday.

His world will never be the same.

Maybe because insisted on having a wet paper towel shoved in his mouth for the next two days.  (Yes, we have changed it out several times; we aren't complete barbarians over here.  But still, it was gross.)

Oy.

It all started with a wiggly tooth.  Ben was so excited at the prospect of losing a tooth.  Oh, and the money.  He was very excited about the money he knew was coming from Daddy.  (Yes, the tooth fairy died a while back, but the money keeps showing up.)

So we started talking strategy.  A string tied to the tooth and a door knob.  A good yank.  An apple.  Ben settled on an apple.  And I went upstairs to give Isaac a bath.  A few minutes later, Ben arrived upstairs sans tooth and a little upset.  Little did we know where that was headed.

Anyway, I asked him where his tooth was and he didn't know.  It turns out, not only did he lose his tooth, he lost his tooth.  I went to tell Jason about the MIA tooth.  I was fairly certain that Ben had swallowed it while eating the apple, but given that he was already looking upset I didn't want to tell him that.  Luckily, we still have Josh and Michael's first lost teeth for their baby books, so Jason came down and "looked" for the tooth and "found" it near the chair Ben had been sitting on.

Hooray!  Problem solved!

Or not.  It turns out Ben really, really, really doesn't like the sensation of having a hole in his mouth.  Really, really.

I had given him a wet paper towel for his mouth and he decided that was the solution to all of his sensory problems.  He spent the rest of the day with a paper towel in his mouth.  We thought he would maybe forget about it in the night.  Nothing doing.  We had multiple nightly visits from a child close to tears in need of a fresh paper towel.  He was up more often than Isaac.

As a side note: I am convinced we will never, ever get a full night's sleep again.  Ever.

On Sunday, he wore the paper towel in the bath and to church.  He was rather unintelligible talking through the paper towel, so communication began to consist of a series of grunts and pointing.

Monday morning dawned with a limp paper towel hanging out of Ben's mouth.  But not even piping hot pumpkin pancakes could entice Ben remove the paper towel and eat.  I eventually exchanged the paper towel for a 20 minute snuggle and then sent him off to school with tiny tears in his eyes but no paper products in his mouth.

And then his teacher worked her magic and got him to eat his snack and lunch.  He came home talking funny (definitely don't want that tongue to touch the gaping hole), but confident that he doesn't need a paper towel anymore.

1 down, 19 to go,  I get the feeling that we have some long years ahead of us.

Then and Now

I got this idea from Pinterest (gotta give credit where credit is due).  I got a kick out of these recreated pictures and thought maybe we should try to take one.  I took this first picture back in 2009 and figured it has probably been long enough for this to be amusing.  Not bad for a first time. 

Kewpie Doll...now with Eczema

This is not our first time with eczema.  Ever since Josh was a baby we have been a Dove cleanser, All Free & Clear laundry detergent, no dryer sheets, Aquaphor/Eucerin kind of family.  Poor Josh had eczema so badly on his knees when he was little that he scratched them until bled.  This is, however, our first time with facial eczema.  

Poor baby cheeks.  

Poor red, crusty, blistery, oozy baby cheeks.  

Several lotions and an obsessive rewashing of his clothes later, it turns out that hydrocortisone is the wonder cure and if we stop using it for a couple of days the eczema flares again.  We stopped using it a few days ago and learned our lesson.

Okay, his eczema doesn't look too bad in these pictures.  And no, I didn't do his hair - that is all natural kewpie cuteness right there.  He was happy and not horribly rashy yesterday, so I decided to do a little photo shoot while Jason worked on pinewood derby cars with the older boys.

Still got the froggy leg action going on sometimes.

Mellow man.

He is not quite sure what the black rectangular thing is that I keep putting in front of his face that sometimes flashes him.

He has a wicked right hook.  Or is that a jab?

And, to keep it real, this is angry face.  Often associated with a wet diaper, hunger, exhaustion or just general overall crankiness.

The (Not So) Dream Team

This is what is on the counter in the bathroom on the main floor these days - also known as "the sick bathroom."

And why do we need a "sick bathroom" you may ask.  Well, when you are a family of 6 and one of you has the stomach bug, the sick person gets his (and yes, I can say "his" in this house and be safe that I am using the correct pronoun) own bathroom.  And Jason and I screech like banshees at the luckless child who accidentally enters the sick bathroom without actually having vomited in the previous 24 hours.

Ugh.  There are many illnesses I am happy to host.  Well, not happy but at least am not bothered by.  Runny noses, coughs, even fevers.  Even an old school case of chicken pox.  But the stomach bug is my arch nemesis.  The poor child who is afflicted gets placed on a chair in the living room that is covered with a sheet and then given a bowl as his closest companion for the day.  And then I don the gloves and start spraying with bleach and wiping with paper towels anything he may have touched and the bowl.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

And hope/pray for the best.

Sometimes that works.  Sometimes not.  This time not.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.  And repeat. And repeat.

Two Months

I like to celebrate the small triumphs these days.  While life with a newborn has its perks (precious snuggles), the terms "blob" and, if one breastfeeds, "parasite" could apply to a newborn just as easily as "sweet bundle of joy".  

Luckily, our blob sweet bundle of joy has started becoming more interactive and smiley.  Which makes life so much more fun.  

So, here is Isaac at two months.  We haven't caught any of his precious, toothless smiles on camera, but here are some pictures of him with his smiling brothers.  Oh, and of some quality nap time with Daddy.

V-Day

Happy Valentine's Day!  Or, as my sister likes to call it, Happy Single Awareness Day!  The acronym for the latter, I realized yesterday, is SAD.  Which is, you know, kinda sad.  

Anyway, we ended up having a packed day with some special visitors at the end.  I tried to be all creative and crafty and make fun pancakes for breakfast.  So, I snuck downstairs after Isaac's morning feeding to make the batter.  This is partly a Pinterest inspired idea and I was happy with how they turned out.  Except, Michael got a peek at them while I was making them and mistook the pink batter for pepperoni.  At which point he pulled a Paul Revere and ran through the house yelling, "There's pepperoni in the pancakes!  There's pepperoni in the pancakes!"  Nothing tops pepperoni in the boys' opinion, so when they got to the table with chocolate chunk pancakes with pink hearts on them, it was a bit of a let down.

Next it was off to the church for a morning of cleaning.  Nothing says romance like church building maintenance, eh?  Actually it was all good.  The boys did a pretty good job and worked for about 1 1/2 hours or so.  Isaac lasted in his carrier for an hour while vacuumed and then he was done.  He communicated this by screaming and soaking through his diaper and clothing.  That boy definitely doesn't beat around the bush.

Later in the afternoon Nana and Uncle Doug and lebnah and hummus arrived.  I almost spoiled my dinner with the lebnah, it is just that good.  But I showed some self control because our dinner was my attempt to recreate a burger that Jason and I had several times on our honeymoon in Canada.

Still need to tweak it a bit (or maybe just go back to Canada), but Jason seemed happy to chow down.

And the highlight of the day for the boy - Valentine's Day dessert!  Cranberry ginger ale floats with twizzler straws.  Nothing says love like SUGAR!!!!

Tiny Dictator

Have you ever had someone in your life who is incredibly demanding, has no respect for your personal space or time, and thinks he/she is the center of the known universe?  Oh and is only 21 inches long?  If yes, congratulations, you either have/have had an infant or a puppy.

So my Mom told me that this blog has been pretty boring lately.  She is right.  But really, I am not sure that me complaining about lack of sleep would be all that more interesting.  And since lack of sleep also affects brain function, I might not even be able to complain about it coherently.  Not to mention that the culprit behind all of this is the tiny person that most people coo over, most people would rather talk about how cute and cuddly he is than how he is ruining my ability to even approximate being a normal person.

So, yes, he is cute and cuddly.  And a super sleeper during the day.  Not many social smiles so far, but lots of smiles and even laughing as he drifts off to sleep.  He does seem to feel rather entitled to having his every need attended to immediately and is extremely impatient if we take care of the wrong one.  Which is all normal newborn stuff and also why I call him the tiny dictator.