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They’re Coming….
Years ago my sister was sitting on an airplane and struck up a conversation with the man seated next to her. Now, what is about to follow should explain why I, on the other hand, keep my nose in a book when flying.
Mr. Airplane Companion was more than eager to tell her all about his hobby: mushroom hunting. Yes, it’s true. Apparently mushrooms are crafty little creatures and one must sneak up upon them, zapping them with a specially devised fungal stun gun and then quickly covering their caps with a blanket to keep them calm. Okay, I’m joking. It’s not quite that difficult to catch a mushroom. Apparently what is difficult is knowing which little guys will make a nice steak sauce and which will kill you within hours to days.
I’m not kidding. Nibble a Calocybe gambosum and you’re fine. Lick an Amanita phalloides and you might find yourself on the liver transplant list. Which wouldn’t be so tricky if an Amanita still encased in its universal veil didn’t look so darn much like a puffball, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, it means you have to be pretty brave in my book to go around foraging for portabellos. Which this guy apparently was. He finished up his story of vegetable heroics but telling my sister that he not only hunts mushrooms, but he also communicates with aliens on Earth. What’s even more fascinating is that these hobbies are closely linked. “Because,” he whispered conspiratorially, “you know why they come, don’t you?” He waited a moment before sparing her any further embarrassment at her clear lack of superior understanding. “The mushrooms. They come for the mushrooms,” he finished, nodding authoritatively.
Now this story is just bizarre on many levels. But I was reminded of it last week when I got a photo of my one year-old niece wearing a hospital gown, her face stained black with the activated charcoal she’d been forced to drink.
It turns out we’ve got a burdgeoning mushroom hunter in our midst: her three-year old sister. Olivia must be smarter than the average fungus forager, though. Rather than test her harvest herself, the little stinker fed them to her baby sister.
And so another fine day was ruined. Good news is that Annie checked out okay. They even went so far as to consult some kind of mushroomologist who examined photos of the specimen my sister had fished out of her kid’s mouth and declared it highly unlikely to be dangerous. Of course, she still had to choke down the charcoal, meant to absorb any bits of poisonous material sitting in her gut. And then there’s poor Olivia, who’s trip to the zoo was abruptly cancelled.
I’m going to see them in a couple of weeks and I can’t wait to give them both a big hug after what must have been a pretty traumatic few hours. And then I’m going to pull Olivia aside and ask her if there is anything I should know. Like maybe there is life out there?
The Aftermath: Snaggleteeth Edition 2
So as I already said, our trip to the dentist was a lot of fun for the girls and moderately stressful for their Mommy. They have been playing “dentist” for the last two weeks, singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” while examining each other’s mouth. And I have been getting more and more stressed about our trip to see the hygienist. Because I knew what she was going to say. I knew because I say it myself: little kids need lots of help brushing their teeth, usually up until the age of 8 or 9. And it turns out that is a big problem for me. A big problem.
Ever since I was a child, I have had a strong physical reaction to the sound of someone else brushing her teeth. When my sister would have hers brushed, I would run screaming from the room, holding my hands over my head. Even today I can’t sit through a toothpaste commercial without getting chills and feeling like I’m going to vomit.
I know. It’s weird.
So I carefully weighed my options before our cleaning appointment and decided to go with the truth. After all, one kid’s got 6 front teeth. How much weirder could we get?
“I brush their teeth while screaming ‘Happy Birthday To You’ at the top of my lungs. Last weekend I had to stop because I started to gag,” I confessed. The hygienist just stared at me for a minute.
“Well then, we’d better think of a plan, hadn’t we?” she recovered quickly, the consummate professional. (You have to love the English. They just swallow their tongues and get on with it.)
And so we did. The plan is that our babysitter or their father (or me, under duress) will brush their teeth as instructed twice daily. And I mean brush. Each tooth on the outside in a circular motion. The tops of the back teeth get scrubbed. The inner surfaces get brushed in an upward motion. The front ones get a back and forth. Two full minutes. Two full, horrifying, skin-crawling minutes. Ugh. I’m shivering as I type.
Then at bedtime I will allow them to brush their teeth themselves while I stand at the other side of the room shouting encouragement. The idea is that at least twice daily they have the plaque removed. The final brushing is to allow a little of their kid’s toothpaste to neutralize the acids and sugars in their mouths before bedtime. Which is the most dangerous time for developing tooth decay I was informed. It’s not ideal, leaving the occasional cookie that accompanies their evening milk there but really, it’s better than nothing.
Also on the list: no juice (duh), no raisins, no dried fruit, no smoothies and no sticky candy. Chocolate with a meal is fine. It doesn’t stick to the teeth, you see (whew!). Oh, and all of these rules are meant to be broken at a birthday party but that’s okay. Assuming they don’t have unreasonable social calendars.
And there you have it. We’re weird but at least we’ll be weirdos with awesome teeth.
My Daughter the Snaggletooth
Just got back from our first trip to the dentist! Advice varies as to when a child should first visit the family dentist but I usually tell people before her second birthday is a good idea. However, this is England and they recommend waiting a little longer. I was trying to be a good sport and go along with the rules in my adopted home country. But then I saw Zoe’s snaggletooth. Okay, let’s be precise: Zoe’s snaggleteeth.
Now I have always been a bit of an overachiever. And I expected some of this to rub off on my kids. But Zoe has taken this is a bit further than I intended. Because why have 20 baby teeth when you can have 22?
I really thought she had most of her baby teeth and we were only waiting on her second molars. But then these very sharp looking pieces of bone showed up, right between her central and lateral incisors (the front 4 teeth). To add insult to injury, the kid has developed a bad habit of sneaking up behind me and biting me on the tush when I’m least expecting it. Which means that the thought of extra dentition was upsetting to me on so very many levels.
Anyway, off to the dentist we went. And it turns out that Zoe does in fact have some extra teeth. This led to a heated discussion between me and the dentist about whether this makes my kid “weird” or “special.” Frankly I see nothing “special” about two teeth coming in sideways in a mouth that seriously doesn’t have room for them. But what am I going to do? Put my 2 year-old in braces? Of course not. So I’ll just have to get used to her “specialness.”
The bigger problem here is that about 50% of kids with extra baby teeth will go on to have extra permanent teeth. And these don’t have to be in the same place as the extra baby teeth. So for all we know when she’s 7 or 8 we’re going to be seeing teeth popping out all over the place. Yay for us.
Naw, I’m just kidding. We’re going to wait until she’s a bit older (around 5) and have her mouth x-rayed. If extra “special” teeth are in there, then we’ll have to make some decisions about whether anything needs to be done about them.
But in the meantime it turns out that Mommy here sucks at brushing Eva and Zoe’s teeth. We’ve all been invited back for a cleaning. I’m reportedly going to see a “demonstration” and then receive a “kit” for home. I’ll be sure to report back here. Because this sounds like lots of fun: 42 sharp and sparkling white teeth to watch out for.
Seemed Like A Good Idea…
So there I was standing in my kitchen and wondering how I got there. Not literally. Not like I suddenly opened my eyes and found myself in another part of my home. More figuratively. As in, “Hey Mommy, how did potty training turn into you standing in the kitchen, holding Eva half upside down over the sink, your finger pressed against her left nostril and yelling, ‘Blow! Blow now!?”
Right? It doesn’t seem like the most logical progression, does it?
But, alas, I am here to tell you that this is exactly what I was asking myself last week as I held my daughter over the counter, my hand pressed against her left nostril. Because there was an M&M lodged in the right side. A blue M&M to be exact.
Eva is rocking the potty training. And as a reward for telling me she needs to go to the toilet, she gets a little chocolate treat. In the beginning it was after every potty. Now it’s more an “end of day” sort of thing. I had to change tactics when I realized she had mastered the ability to go several times an hour and deliver a tiny and well-controlled volume of urine. Anyway, back to the point.
So there she was, sitting at the table, finishing her dinner when her poor dumb mother gave her a few M&Ms for staying dry all day.
The next thing I saw was a trail of blue running from one side of her nose.
Now, there are some things that are an emergency to get out of a nose or an ear, such as a disc battery, sets of magnets, or any organic material that might swell and become nearly impossible to remove hours or days later. Popcorn and dried beans are good examples of that. Most other things need to be removed but won’t cause any permanent damage while they linger. Which is good because little kids like to stick stuff in weird places. Lego’s, Barbie shoes, money, hair beads, you name it, I’ve pulled it out.
But back to the point. This isn’t a funny story about some silly kid. This is a story about my kid. So while I wasn’t panicked, I was most definitely highly annoyed. I mean, how inconvenient is a trip to the Emergency Department? Right?
Which is how we found ourselves in the kitchen, me occluding the open nostril and Eva doing her best to blow her misplaced piece of candy out before Mommy got mad and went for her bag of “Doctor Toys” that I keep upstairs.
It only took a few seconds for our teamwork to do its trick and Eva was soon back in her chair, seemingly no worse for the wear. She kept saying, “Funny!” and laughing. Clearly the message did not sink in.
However, for this old bird, I got it loud and clear. We are temporarily off M&Ms. But I’m still deeply dedicated to her success on the potty. Fortunately I still have a big back of goodies left over from Easter. Chocolate eggs seem like they’d be more of a challenge, don’t you think?
Mommy: There’s One Born Every Minute
There were lots of things that I found surprising when Dr. Zibners took on the title of, “Mommy.” Like the fact that newborns actually have their own personalities. Or that you can spend an hour going in circles in an airport looking for an elevator. And then there is learning that you can tinkle on the potty while leaning forward and pinning a child to a restroom changing table. Yes, it’s a lot of learning I’ve been doing the last couple of years.
Lately I’ve been reflecting on my astonishment at the degree to which small children can ruthlessly manipulate adults. I sort of thought that deception and dishonesty to this degree were skills that adolescents honed. Not that a barely two-year old would master.
Silly me.
The other day my kids came home from play group and it appeared that Zoe was suffering greatly. She stared at me with big, round eyes and put her arms around her tummy. Then in a quiet, almost tearful voice, she said, “Don’t feel well. Need medicine.”
What could it be? My own viral yuck? A urinary tract infection? Appendicitis? Meningitis?
I dragged her into my lap and began pressing gently on her abdomen, examining her face for color, oxygenation and signs of illness.
“Stop. She’s fine,” interrupted my babysitter. “Look.”
And she then proceeded to show me photographic evidence that only a half-hour earlier Zoe had been singing, laughing and dancing. Her mysterious “sickness” began at the top of our street, when she suddenly began whining about, “need medicine.”
Turns out the kid has developed a taste for ibuprofen.
Shocked, I looked at her and said, “Absolutely not.”
The little darling then literally cackled in my face and dashed off to play with her sister.
And I now know that what I’ve always said, that you can’t trust a toddler, applies to more than just whether she fed some of Grandma’s lithium to the baby too. It actually extends all the way across the board.
To the point of drug seeking.
Which means they are no longer to be trusted. With anything. In fact, I nearly broke my neck flying down two flights of stairs the other morning when I heard a conspiratorial whisper across the baby monitor, “It’s okay. I take it off.”
As if they care if their mother spends an hour cleaning poo off the cribs. The cribs that are keeping their sides on for now.
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"WHAT I LIKED: This book is written in a funny, down to earth way that doesn't make you feel like an idiot. I really would have appreciated something like this when my kids were really little and I freaked out over everything they put in their mouths. It has a scenario/question and answer format, with clear answers on when not to panic and when to call 911."
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