It's not his most natural smile, but I love the photo nonetheless!  My favorite thing is how it shows his missing tooth.  Of course two weeks after this photo was taken, he lost *another* tooth (right next to the first one).  At this rate, he'll need dentures by the time he turns six!  : )  It's so funny, all of his friends at school are so impressed that he already lost some teeth because none of them have, yet.  I guess this is the Kinder-version of flexing muscles!  

You know how some kids have a lovey?  Or a blankie?  Well Felicity has her "sherts," which consist of five of my old shirts in various colors.  She carries them around with her everywhere, cannot leave the house without at least two of them, sleeps with them, and rubs them on her face when she's upset.  It's utterly weird but totally endearing at the same time.

So lately she's been putting them on and stuffing her head through the arm hole and walking around like this all day.  I call her my little Russian nesting doll...

Sometimes she'll cover her whole face and get tangled up and then walk into a wall.  Which of course she thinks is hysterical.  ; )

The medicine saga continues.  We tried a half a dozen more methods today to see if he could get the medicine down.  The good news is (knock on wood) I think we finally cracked his code.

He WILL take this medicine, but only if it is in *extremely* small amounts over a long period of time.  I'm talking small, like .5 mL, which I think is the equivalent of about 4 drops.   Anything more than that and he will gag it up -- trust me, I tried .6 ml and upchuck we went!  So .5 ml it is...

I sat him in my lap and we reclined back, sort of like a luge position.  A .5 ml squirt of the plunger thingy right through the hole where his missing teeth are, and then lots of water.  Then we would break for 5 minutes.  Talk about other things to get his mind distracted from the stress, do math equations, talk about luging at the Olympics.  Then start all over again.

It took two hours.  It was painstakingly, excruciatingly sloooooow.  But it was methodical and most importantly, IT WORKED.  He got the entire dose down, and kept it down.

The problem, I think, was what he considered "too much" medicine at once (making him gag), and then you combine that with all the water he is drinking to get through it -- his tummy would fill up and he would feel bloated like he was going to barf.  Plus repeating the plunger thing over and over right away would stress him out.  Giving him the breaks in between -- and him knowing that he would get a break -- I think made it easier for him to swallow, both literally and figuratively.  

It takes A LOT of patience, patience that I'm not even sure I will have after today.  But if that's what we have to do, we'll do it.  He still had the high fever and ear pain today, so I know he needs the antibiotic.

And with that, I'm going to bed for some much needed sleep!!

P.S. Does that plunger thingy have an actual name?? And does anyone know what it is?

I am so exhausted and frustrated I don't even know if I have the mental fortitude to write about it.  Here is the Reader's Digest version:  Tate. Double ear infection. Bad. 104 temp. Miserable, miserable, MISERABLE.  Oh yeah, and he's not very happy either.  : /

So the damn ear infection isn't even the issue here; the issue is that I have spent since 3:00 this afternoon trying to get him to take a teaspoon of medicine.  It's now 8PM.  That's FIVE BLIPPIN' HOURS trying to get the child to take ONE BLIPPIN' TEASPOON of medicine.  I tried disguising it in juice, disguising it in chocolate milk, disguising it in a chocolate shake.  I tried room temp, I tried chilled.  I tried tiny sips and alternating ice cream.  I tried the little plunger thing and alternating french fries.  EVERY TIME: BARF.  He literally could not keep it down no matter what I tried.  

I tried pleading, begging, talking calm and rational.  I tried bribing with a new toy.  After two and a half hours of that, I got angry and tried yelling and forcing it down.  Jeremy held his arms and I shoved it in and covered his mouth.  Sounds brutal, huh?  Still managed to barf it up.  I tried putting him in the car to drive to the ER and telling him if he didn't drink the medicine, he would have to get it as a shot.  That was enough to get him to promise to drink it, but still.  BARF.  He could not force it down.

I finally looked at Jeremy after five hours of this and said, "How many adults have been involved in trying to get this 5-year old to take this effin' medicine today?"  There was one visit to the doctor's office, two trips to the pharmacy, one after-hours' call to the Dr. to get a second prescription for a different antibiotic after he barfed up all of the first.  All so ONE child could take ONE teaspoon of medicine.

It's enough to make a person homicidal. 

So five hours to take one dose, and he has to take it twice a day -- that equals 10 hours.  He's only awake for 12 hours a day, so I guess that's a lot of time killed. : /

I just don't know what to do.  I know he *can* take it; it's just these mental gymnastics he does and convinces himself he's going to barf.  And I know it's not fair to compare kids, but I just kept thinking if this were Felicity -- of ANY other human for that matter -- it'd be over.  They would take it, maybe make a face, maybe spit it out once or twice, but the whole thing would be over in 10 minutes max.  It's so hard for people who don't have kids like this to understand.  It's so easy to think, "Just take it!"  But the mental barrier is impossible to get past.  I don't know what to do.  How do you force someone to keep something down?  You can't.  This picky-eating, medicine-taking -- basically anything oral -- problem of his affects EVERYTHING: his health, his sleep, my mental state.  I mean, the child gags at the sight of a Snickers bar fercryinoutloud!  There is something very, very wrong here.  I just don't know what to do.

So I guess he just goes without his medicine.  And I just have to hope and pray that his ears don't get worse and we have to go to the ER alongside the 8,000 flu patients where it's practically a guaranteed first class ticket to Oinksville.  

I hate this.

Today is my official start day of my Invisalign treatment.  I haven't really told many people that I'm doing this, but I'm excited about it and thought I would try to document my progress here on my blog.

Invisalign is a series of clear, removable retainers that work to straighten your teeth.  I had braces as a teenager but was never entirely satisfied with the results.  To add to this, I stopped wearing my retainer at night, and as a result, my teeth shifted back into a crooked overbite.  I've been really self-conscious about it for a long time, but I knew I would never ever EVER be willing to go back to braces again.  So I figured this was the smile I was stuck with.

I heard about Invisalign about a year ago but didn't really start to learn about it until I realized my dentist is an Invisalign doctor.  When I brought the kids in for a cleaning last summer, I heard the office was doing a promotion and offering 25% off the cost of the Invisalign treatment.  I thought now was as good a time as any!

They started by taking pictures and impressions of my teeth and sending them to Invisalign.  About two weeks later, Invisalign sent a computer simulation to my dentist that shows exactly how my teeth will move during the treatment.  This part was REALLY cool.  I sat there at my dentist's desk and saw frame-by-frame, week-by-week, exactly how my teeth will move -- from start to finish!  And I saw it from every angle -- front, side, inside.  This was really motivating.  I wish I could show you exactly what it looked like.   To give you an idea, I did a search for "ClinCheck" on Youtube and came up with one computer simulation.  I can't even tell you how cool it was.

At this ClinCheck appointment, there was one area of my computerized teeth that I wasn't happy with and wanted changed.  My dentist took notes and sent them back to Invisalign.  A few days later I went back for a second ClinCheck appointment and again saw the computerized simulation of my teeth movement, but this time with the corrections I wanted.  This time it was perfect, so my dentist clicked the "approve" button and I was on my way to straighter teeth!

So fast forward two weeks to today.  Today I received my first set of retainers, or actually they call them "trays."  I wear each set of trays for two weeks and then move on to the next set of trays.  I have about two months' worth of trays in my possesion, and then I see my dentist about every 6-8 weeks so she can check my progress and do any necessary adjustments, and then give me my next set of trays.

I'm supposed to wear the trays all day and night and remove them only to eat and brush my teeth.  My treatment calls for a total of 16 trays, so if you do the math, my entire treatment will last about 8 months.  And after that I just have to wear a retainer at night to keep my teeth from shifting back.

I have more to say, but Jeremy needs the computer to do some work, so I will save all the details about today's appointment -- and maybe pictures too if I'm brave enough! -- for another post.  

I'll fittingly end this post with a smilie. : )  (Where's a crooked smilie??)

...you find yourself at the end of the day downing three Motrin and a fistful of Halloween candy with a glass of pear cider.

The kids have been driving me nuts this week.  Aside from fighting over everything including air space, they are getting to the age when I am feeling more and more like a personal servant instead of a mother.  

They demand things every two seconds, and yes there is usually a "please" at the end of each demand, but somehow it still comes across as, well, demanding.  They get hysterical if I don't produce results IMMEDIATELY.  God forbid they actually have to wait five seconds before getting their drink/food/toy/whatever it is they can't live without for the moment.

Finally, in a moment of exasperation I yelled, "Kids, you need to wait! I am only ONE PERSON!" Felicity took a beat and then replied, "You're not a person...you're a mama!" 

TRUER WORDS HAVE NEVER BEEN SPOKEN BY A TWO-YEAR OLD. They don't mention in those "What to Expect" handbooks how you relinquish your personhood and entire sense of self on the delivery table!

So by now -- November 3 -- Tate has sifted and scoured his way through his (and Felicity's) entire Halloween treat bag and managed to pick out and eat all of the little M&M bags.  Which means he is now left with 5 pounds of "other" types of candy.  For a normal child, this wouldn't be a problem.  But for Tate, who I once referred to as having Preschool Anorexia, this is nothing short of devastation.  Our conversation after dinner went as follows:

"Here, Tate.  Why don't you try a Kit Kat?"  He bit off the tiniest bit of the corner and made a face.

"Okay, well then, how about a Twix Bar?"  A bite, and then gagging.

"Well.  How about Whoppers? Those are round, like M&Ms."  A bite, a crunch...and then throwing up in the trash can.

Sigh.  That's Tate for ya.

In some ways this makes me feel better because he has the exact same reaction to vegetables.  But in many, many, many other ways it makes me feel exasperated because I know this is just one more pit stop down the long road of Picky Eating.  Honestly.  I never even realized just how stressful it is having a picky eater until I had Felicity.  Felicity -- the girl who will try anything you put in front of her, the girl who thinks edamame is the greatest snack on earth, the girl who prefers fruits and vegetables to any form of meat or carb.  And then you have Tate, the boy who eats only five things on earth which all happen to be the color beige.  

Oh Tate.

And to think I used to pat myself on the back when he was a toddler, thinking how great it was I was raising a child who didn't eat candy.  PPFFFTTT.  Um, no.  That wouldn't be due to excellent parenting skills, Einstein; that's just his general dislike of FOOD in general.   Reality check!

So now we're stuck with all this candy that no one except Felicity wants to eat.  I just learned from some friends about this Halloween Candy Buy Back program where they buy back the candy for $1 per pound and then send it to troops overseas.  Sounds like a win-win if you ask me!

Halloween was a little different this year, a little more subdued and relaxed, but I think I like it that way!  The biggest change this year was the fact that neither of the kids had a big Halloween parade or Songfest to participate in -- Felicity isn't old enough for preschool yet and Tate's elementary school doesn't do a Halloween parade. 

WHAT?!?  Wait, back up.  THERE IS NO HALLOWEEN PARADE???  You have got to be kidding me!! --- were just a few of my initial thoughts.  The annual Halloween parade was always one of my absolute favorite parts of the school year growing up, so you can imagine my devastation at finding out that our school -- the educational facility where I will be sending BOTH of my children, meaning NINE years total of precious formative years-- does not do a Halloween parade.  CRUSHED.

I don't know the exact reasons why our school doesn't do a parade, but I hear that many schools (unfortunately) don't do them anymore.  It's either too scary or too un-PC or takes up too much time thanks to No Child Left Behind which leaves no time for fun things because everything is standards-driven...or wait, is that me just projecting my own biases???  ; /  Anyhoo, Tate's Kindergarten class did get to wear their costumes to school and had a little Halloween party plus Halloween-themed centers -- better than nothing. 

Speaking of costumes...Tate decided long ago that he wanted to wear his robot costume again -- you remember, the robot costume that took us two months to construct?  Needless to say I was THRILLED to be getting two years out of this costume!!  Well DUN DUN DUNNNN, then comes to news about no Halloween parade, along with the newsflash that the costumes kids wear to school must be comfortable -- in other words, they have to be able to sit, move around, do P.E., etc.  WHICH MEANS NO ROBOT COSTUME.  I was once again, crushed!  Jeremy quickly reminded me that HEY!  It's not about me!  (He's right.)  And Tate was only disappointed for like a millisecond until he realized he could just wear one of his Star Wars costumes.  Problem solved!  

So!  On to actual Halloween!  Wonderful, fun-filled Halloween!  Like I mentioned previously, having Halloween on a Saturday was like the best thing ever.  It was great having Jeremy home for the entire day.  Tate had a soccer game that morning and we carved pumpkins that afternoon.  We went for a food chain theme with our pumpkins this year...

I had a small glimmer of hope when Tate said he wanted to wear the robot costume for trick-or-treating; we even replaced the broken bottle cap button with super glue.  But in the eleventh hour he changed his mind again and opted for the Star Wars costume.  He was happy and that's all that really mattered!

The kids could NOT WAIT until it turned dark and played outside in their costumes until the sun went down.  The bumble bee and the storm trooper battled it out with their Halloween glow sticks, a.k.a. light sabers...

(If Tate could read, he would correct me right now and tell you he is NOT a storm trooper, he is a bounty hunter.  Get it straight, mom!)

He kept his helmet on for all of three seconds and then decided he'd had enough of that.  

Once it FINALLY got dark, we hooked up with our neighbors across the street to go trick-or-treating.  Tate was in heaven -- not only are the neighbor boys a little older, but by sheer coincidence they were also dressed as characters from Star Wars.  Tate led the pack of trick-or-treaters the entire night, while Felicity just tried to keep up as fast as her little legs could carry her.  By about the tenth house, she stated, "I have enough treats," and she was perfectly happy just to ride on Dada's shoulders for the rest of the night.

After an hour and a half of trick-or-treating, the neighbor kids were complaining about sore legs and wanting to go home; Tate on the other hand kept exclaiming, "Just one more house!"  He was like the Energizer Bunny.  We finally coaxed him into going home with the promise of letting him eat some of his candy.   He ate one little bag of M&Ms and then CRASHED.  Felicity took a little longer to settle down, but eventually both kids were asleep and Jeremy and I got to order some take-out from El Cholo -- the last of the green corn tamale season!  

All in all -- a GREAT Halloween!

I can't believe it's already November.  I can't believe the blog-a-day challenge is here again.  I also can't believe I went the entire month of October (and most of September) without blogging, so maybe this is just what I need -- a swift kick in the blogging arse! -- to get it in gear again.  I don't know if I will be able to keep it up every single day, but I will definitely commit to blogging more often this month.

We had a fun Halloween yesterday (pics to follow) and can I just say how much I LOVE having a Halloween on a Saturday?!?  No rushing around, school, work, stress, etc.  We had a nice leisurely day and were actually ready on time this year, not rushing and carving pumpkins as the sun is setting.  It was SO nice.  And to top it all off, the next day is Sunday -- no school or work -- AND we get an extra hour thanks to Daylight Savings.  I would like to submit my request to the Calendar Gods that we do Halloween like this EVERY year!  

And it happened on 09/09/09!

And ironically, it's also the first tooth he ever grew.  *sniff*

The tooth had been loose for about 10 days.  When he first told me it was loose, I immediately assumed it was the result of him knocking his face into something.  But no, this was a naturally-occurring loose tooth!  I thought age 5 was a little young for this, but apparently not since I've heard from a few people that their 5YOs have loose/lost teeth, too.  

So all I have to say is THANK GOD the tooth is finally out.  It had been hanging on by one little ugly thread all day -- SO CREEPY.  And it became a point of obsession with Tate where he wouldn't listen or even hear anything I was saying because he was so infatuated with wiggling the tooth.

Then, right before dinner, he went into the bathroom to wash his hands and took an unusually long time.  I  had just said to Jeremy, "What is taking him so long??" when Tate came marching out of the bathroom proudly displaying the tooth in his hand.  Me thinks the tooth had a little "help" from someone whilst he was in front of the mirror.  : ) 

So we took the commemorative pictures and put the tooth in an envelope and Tate put it under his pillow.   The Tooth Fairy is still in deliberation.  I really want to leave $5 because it's a first tooth, a rather special milestone!  But knowing Tate, he will remember and keep track and expect the same every tooth here on out...so maybe we will stick with $2.

I love his little jack-o-lantern face.  Just in time for school pictures on Monday!!  : )