Wednesday dental day

check this out:


The school nurse gave this to Jack after his tooth fell out when he took a big bite of salami at lunchtime today. It says TOOTH SAVER and it's tiny.


Inside was his tiny little tooth, the one on the right of his two front bottom teeth. That's three baby teeth lost now.


Funny that he should finally lose that tooth on the day he was scheduled to see Dr. Gibson for a filling. He's so amazing at the dentist. I'm just in awe. He insists on the special sunglasses to keep the light out of his eyes; he giggles when Dr. Gibson lowers the chair; he opens his mouth wide when told to do so and follows all directions from Dr. Gibson and the assistant. The only time he freaked a little was when Dr. G put the cotton in his mouth. Last time, when he had his teeth sealed, she said to him, "I'm going to put more cotton by your tongue," to which he replied, "No way, Jose!"


We had an M&M McFlurry at McD's as a post-dentist treat. Next week it's my turn, when I get my broken tooth drilled and crowned.

Halloween

The kids were cute for trick-or-treating. The big kids too.


Brock Star and Pirate Brazey.


Headgear lasted long enough for one picture.


We especially love the boots. And the ascot.


The boys were Jawas but refused to wear their masks for trick-or-treating. I can't blame them, really, as it was still in the low 80s when we left to trick-or-treat. The masks are white plastic covered in velour with no mouth holes and wires connecting to a battery pack holding 2 C-cell batteries. They consented to a picture, though. I sure had fun making the costumes.


They had a good night.

submission training

Cassie tried to take food from Brazey the other night. David administered some submission training.


Looks like Brazey learned pretty well.

the treatment

After Jack hopped off the bus he bounced home, shucked his backpack, and ran to the bathroom, where he had a giant pee and a pretty big stinkin' poop. He told me that he'd had diarrhea in the morning and even went to the bathroom during school not because he had to poop but just because he had to wipe his butt.

He told me he wanted water on his butt, to make it feel better. I told him he could have a bath. He said no, just water. Running water. Next thing I knew, he was outside with the garden hose giving himself a good old European bidet-less bidet treatment.

I refrained from photography.

Jack's a big boy now

He rides the bus home. Can you believe it? Me either.

public service announcement

Washing your hands frequently is the Number One way to keep germs from spreading.

The Number Two way to keep germs from spreading is to contain your breathing, saliva, and mucous within a self-sealed cardboard box with a cellophane windowpane.


All protective measures, however, are negated when you share your cardboard box with a family member. Even a family member you swap spit with regularly.


Protective measures are further compromised should your spit swapping partner share your cardboard box with a member of the family whose butt you regularly wipe.


Should your cardboard box be shared outside of your immediate family - even a member of your family of origin - forget about it. You're all getting staph.


For God's sake, don't share after this guy.


Good thinking.


Now incinerate that cardboard box and don't forget to wash your hands!

Evan is seven

Evan's "real" birthday was this past Friday. It's so hard for kids to understand how families celebrate the date of a child's birth, but then host a big party on the nearest weekend. Which day is the "real" birthday? I tried to explain it to Jack but he couldn't wrap his brain around it.


Could wrap his arms around Em for a big birthday bear hug, tho.


Evan had a Science!-filled birthday with lots of experiment-al and astronom-ical presents. That kid's a brain.


Brazey's turn comin' up in just three months.


Evan said, "Dad, are you going to sing in your Birthday voice?"


The answer was "yes." We all sang in our Birthday voices.

Happy Birthday, Em. We all love you.

Wii will, Wii will rock you

photos from the last few days

invitation

I photoshopped this for Evan's birthday invitation. When Mandy showed it to him, he said, "Where was I?" Guess my photoshop skills are better than I thought.

Who am I?

I so love this. Jack brought it home from school today.



I mean, obviously it's Jack. And his two brothers? Evan and Brazey, of course.

Jack and Kismet: Surfing the 'Net

kelp forest

Birch Aquarium at Scripps, 1994


Birch Aquarium at Scripps, 2007

first day faces of kindergarten

I think what surprises us most about the first day of kindergarten is that it's not also the last. All summer I knew this was coming, and I planned for it, and we talked about it, and yesterday we went. And today we're going again. I don't think Jack's too happy about it.

Here he is, ready to go. First day of school! Yay!



We drove to school, parked on a side street, thanked the crossing guard (who happened to be the principal... I wondered if that was a First Day Tradition or if the volunteer just didn't show up), and walked onto the playground through an unlocked side gate. Jack beelined to the monkey bars, climbed halfway up, got excited to see a friend, slipping through the bars and scraping both inner upper arms in the process. This elicited a much-needed bout of sobbing and dancing in pain. I think both of us needed a pressure release: Jack needed to wail and I needed a crisis to deal with. I'm much calmer in crisis.



Daddy held Jack for a few minutes. Jack comforted himself with an in-depth photographic study of Dave's shoes.



He explored the playground a bit before it was time to go in. I hobnobbed with the preschool families I saw there. When it was time to go in I left him lined up with his classmates.



After my day with the new kids in my classroom at the preschool I went to pick up Jack. His class wasn't out when I got there and I stood talking with another preschool mom when Jack burst through the school doors and threw himself around me. "Can we go home now?" he asked. I said, "Did you have a good day?" He said, "Not so much. Did you know? We only got to play a little bit at the end of the day." When I talked to Mrs. M a bit she told me a lot of the kids asked, "When do we play?" and she told them, "This is kindergarten. We have a lot of work to do." She also told me she had three talkers and guess who was one of them?

It's nothing I didn't expect. I was hoping Jack would be in love with kindergarten and thrive in the academic atmosphere of a public school but I've always known he doesn't enjoy center time and paper-and-pencil work. There's a lot of that in school. At least he knows he has to go back today. And the day after that. And the day after that... and the day after .... well ... you get the picture

firsts

Brazey J got his first high chair on Thursday. Mandy chose a booster with safety straps and a tray. He seemed to like it.



And Brazey J got his first Biter Biscuit on Thursday. Bishop seemed to like it. (Brazey gummed it for a bit before dropping it on the floor. Those suckers must be pretty hard because it took Bishop some time to chew it up, and this is the dog who inhales rawhides.)



Baby Boo also tried some pears mixed with cereal. I'm not sure how he felt about that.



The big boys played in the background while Mandy and I gave Brazey all our attention. Thank goodness Evan and Jack have each other.