July 19, 2009

I wanted to quickly post this because I wanted to be sure that you knew how proud I am. Today, was a very trying day for you. Your first tooth finally came out with a little help from GiGi, and so enacted our agreement to end the figure sucking. A few months ago, after a visit to the dentist, we made an agreement. The dentist has been mentioning that your teeth are getting pushed out of place because you suck your finger, so we agreed that when your first baby tooth fell out then you would have to stop sucking your finger. It's something we had talked about for a while and this seemed like a good opportunity to have an end point. Well, the tooth finally fell out and you were very upset because your are very attached to it. You have been crying on and off all day, but you haven't not been sucking it. During bathtime, you had another burst of crying because you were sure you would not be able to fall asleep without the finger. We talked about habits and how hard they are to break. We also talked about that once you do break this habit, that you wouldn't miss your finger anymore. You seemed relieved that you weren't going to be this upset all the time about it. So before bed we painted on the nasty tasty polish and Mama laid down with you. I read you a book, then spent another 30-40 minutes reading to you out of my book. I had to put a sock on your hand because you kept accidentally putting your finger in the hole where your tooth used to be to feel it and then getting the bad taste from the polish. At one point, you said the sock was making your hand hot, but then decided to put it back on, so you would remember not to suck your finger. You were very calm and I just told you that I was sure you would be able to fall asleep and miraculously I think you believed me. And you did, you fell asleep without much fuss. You still have the sock on your hand, and I'm hoping that stays on the rest of the night.

Tomorrow I think will be a brighter day. You have your first day of day camp at Camp Manitou-lin, and I think that you will feel much better having your first night without out the sucking finger under your belt. It will help to know that you can sleep without it. I'm very excited to see your face. I am a little sad that this has completely overshadowed the excitement of loosing your first tooth. That wasn't good planning on my part. I put your tooth in your tooth pillow and put it under your pillow, but really I think you could have cared less. You had way bigger things on your mind that the Tooth Fairy, and I don't think you'll even remember to look under your pillow in the morning.

July 7, 2009

We found a really cool place to visit this summer. It's called the Critter Barn. I signed you up for a class there after I heard one of my friends talking about it. It's a children's farm where they let you molest all variety of animals. You got to bottle feed a baby goat, wash pigs and a goat, ride a donkey, hand feed Mr. Chops, the pot bellied pig, take goats for a walk, brush sheep, and play with cats, bunnies, and baby chicks and ducklings. You were in heaven. Unfortunately, the first day you were there, you started itching your eyes. The teacher mentioned it to me, and I didn't think much of it until we got the car and your right eye swoll up so much you almost couldn't open it.
Luckily, we happened to have an appointment with your doctor that day. When I brought you into the office, everyone kept saying, "Oh Sweetie!" You just looked at me and said, "Is it that bad?" I told you that we might not be able to go back to the Critter Barn because you were obviously allergic to something and you were very upset. But Dr. VanZee said that I could just load you up with Benadryl and see how it went. So we got some antihistamine eye drops for you eye, and the swelling came right down. We went back the next day, and you were fine. At the end of the class they gave us a free pass to come back and bring two friends. You want to bring Maddie and Nathen, so I gave it to Karrie to use sometime this summer. You just love to mother those animals. Just ask Rossi, the other day you had her strapped to the baby stroller with a bonnet on!