Thursday, July 15, 2010

Dylan's Dental Appointment

If you remember a while back when I took the kids to the dentist that I mentioned that Dylan had one cavity and would need to get it filled but the dentist wanted me to wait to schedule that appointment until after I his echo so I could talk to his cardiologist and make sure he was fine with them doing the sedation in office. I did ask and after a quick roll of the eyes said he had no problem with it and also said (after I asked) that he doesn't need to take any antibiotics before dental work. Which is actually a nice thing considering it wasn't very long ago that they wanted people to take antibiotics before dental work even when they hadn't needed surgery to repair a chd.

Anyway, I have been putting off scheduling Dylan's dental work because of his needing to be sedated for both the echo and then a couple of weeks later the MRI. Just didn't think he needed to be sedated a third time so quickly. I finally broke down and called the dentist to schedule it when Dylan started putting his hands in his mouth like his teeth were bothering him. I looked closely at his teeth and noticed that he had a couple of other cavities on his front teeth and the one cavity was looking worse.

With kids like Dylan who do have health "issues" they use an anesthesiologist to administer the sedation instead of their usual quick sedation with a pulse/ox monitor. That meant that the times they had available were fewer so I was surprised when I called and they could schedule him within about a week. Unfortunately, the appointment was a later appointment. Which meant that Dylan was going to need to go half of the day without eating and a good portion without drinking anything either.

I worried about what I would do when I needed to get the other kids lunch and try to keep him from wanting food and drinks. Luckily I have a very nice mother who offered to let me take the kids there and leave with Dylan before lunch so that he wouldn't be bothered with it. She was tending four of my sister's children so I thought it was very nice of her to offer to watch four more.

Fixing the cavities took a little longer than they expected even after they knew all they would need to do. He ended up with caps on his front two teeth and they had to grind them down to make them look okay. Said the size that fit looked too big and would have just looked bad. Because of the grinding his mouth would be sore. And from how cranky he was the rest of the day, I would say they hurt. Even after getting some Tylenol in him.

I am very glad to have it done. He was very cranky again all morning and I thought it would be a very long day. When he gets cranky like that he thinks I'm the only one who can do anything for him or with him. And gets upset when his siblings even touch me. He did get happy (about the time I took the kids back down to my parent's to let them play with their cousins and so Jimmy could mow their lawn) and has stayed pretty happy the rest of the day. The one exception being when Lys decided it would be a good idea to grab his sore front teeth. No idea why she thought that was a good idea.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Independence Day Stuff

I seem to keep forgetting that I actually know where my camera is. At least that's what it seems like with how few pictures I've been taking lately. I keep thinking I should be taking more but rarely pull out the camera to do so. So in a way I'm amazed I got what pictures I did from the Independence Day celebrations. Well, at least from the local parade. Didn't get a single picture taken when we did fireworks with the kids. Or from the barbecue we had. Or even from eating lunch after the parade with some wonderful neighbors. Didn't even get any pictures of the water fights that went on with the parade this year. And since that's mostly what Jimmy did, I somehow managed to miss getting a single picture of him from those days. I keep telling myself that was a case of self-preservation and to save the camera from the water. Not quite sure I believe it though.

We did have a lot of fun for the holiday weekend. The only downfall being the motor going out on our air conditioner the afternoon we had the barbecue at our house. Luckily it was a cooler day than it had been. Another good neighbor and friend came over and helped Russ get it working the next day after work. Which was another time I thought I should pull out my camera and didn't. He brought along his three daughters and they had a good time playing with my kids. His youngest is about 6 months older than Dylan and they played really cute together. Dylan would kind of give her a hug and look at me and say, "Gracie nice."

The parade seems to get longer every year. For our town not being all that big, the parade is large. It was scheduled to start at 11:00. Always at the end of the parade is a giant water fight along the parade route. That part was actually shorter than it has been in the past. And even then the parade didn't end until quarter after 1. Of course, that meant more candy that the kids were able to get at the parade. Knowing full well that the parade ended with a big water fight didn't stop Russ and Jimmy from being drenched before the parade even started. I think they almost wished it had been a hotter day than it was after that.

One nice thing about being the main photo taker in the family is that means I am in very few pictures. Russ did get the camera at one point and made sure he took a couple of me. I'll get one of those here first to get it quickly out of the way.
Here are the girls at the parade with their sacks ready to grab more candy thrown their way. Jimmy didn't watch a whole lot of the parade but still managed to get a bit of candy.
You can kind of tell how wet Russ got in this picture. I was actually surprised Dylan didn't mind being held with how wet he was.
Going back to being the main photo taker, sometimes Jimmy gets a hold of the camera. Sadly on my part, some of the best pictures we have are ones he has taken. This is one Jimmy took in the car as we were headed to my parent's house recently. Totally unedited, I should note. Decided to throw it in this post because I think it's cute. Not sure how he got Dylan to stick his tongue out at him for it.