Four Thumbs Up!

This week, we had our semi-annual trip to the pediatric dentist for check-ups!

I was a bit apprehensive about the trip. last time we went, they called both girls at the SAME time. Little A was 14 months old (i.e. adult supervision required) and Sassy decided it would be a great time to freak out at the dentist for the first time. Fun times, let me tell you.

Well, this time, I came prepared. I brought reinforcements (i.e. Graycop). Sure as the sky is blue, Sassy and Little A were called at (nearly) the same time... and brought into separate areas. I love our pediatric dentist. Really, I do. But, honestly... who does that?!?

This time, Sassy acted like an old pro (as she should... she's been going twice a year since she was one). She sat perfectly still and content watching Horton Hears A Who as the hygienist counted, polished, flossed, and painted her teeth (with fluoride). Side note: hallefreakinglujah for kid friendly dental offices and emergency rooms that see the value in individual TV's with bendy arms that can be positioned in multiple ways to distract toddlers. Genius!







Meanwhile, Little A was raising hell in the other room. Surprise, surprise. Did I mention that she totally woke up on the wrong side of the crib? 'Cause, oh yeah... she did...

She hates having her teeth brushed. Part of it is a power struggle. She wants to do EVERYTHING by herself. Well, letting my 20-month old brush her own teeth is not something I am willing to give in to. Actually, letting my 4-minus-TWO-day-old brush her own teeth is not something I am willing to give in to, either. I am a fanatic of sorts when it comes to dental hygiene (unless you are comparing me to Lynzee... girl is CrAzY... remind me to tell you the Listerine story later...) and it's really important to me to make sure that the kids are taking the best care of their teeth. So, we brush for them. We plan to for a while. They both get to take turns, allowing them to assert their independence, but it's just one of those things around here.

I digress.

The other part has to do with the fact that Little A's teeth are rather hard to brush. First of all, she has a thickened superior labial frenum (the skin flap above your top front teeth that connects to your lip) just like Sassy. Actually, Sassy's has gotten better over time, and Little A's isn't quite as severe as Sassy's was, but it still makes brushing those front teeth a challenge. We have to find the balance between brushing vigorously enough to get the teeth clean and brushing gently enough as to not irritate the frenum and make it bleed. Ouch.

Little A also has really thick lips and cheeks, and her muscles are very strong (hello... she works them out all.day.long eating). So, as soon as we insert a toothbrush into her mouth, she purses her lips and clamps down, allowing no real brushing to take place.

Anyway, she wasn't overly cooperative while getting her teeth brushed, counted, or examined. Even Cars blaring from the TV didn't help.



Despite the troubles, her teeth checked out fine. Dr. Brown reassured me that brushing her teeth should be a 2-person job if our family situation allowed, which made me feel a bit better. (I felt a little ridiculous having to bring in reinforcements to brush her teeth). He also gave me a great choke hold technique to try out, and told me not to be afraid to get my fingers in there and pull her cheek away for better access!

Sassy's teeth looked great, as well, so the official verdict: 4 thumbs up!!!!

Now, who would have thought I could be so winded about a simple trip to the dentist?

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By the way, there is still time to enter Sassy's giveaway! We will take entries up until Saturday, May 1st at 6:09 PM (Sassy's EXACT birth date)... Good luck!

All Things Three...

Only three links remain on Sassy's paper chain.

We only have three days left to enjoy Sassy in all her wonderful three-year-old glory. So, today, I thought we'd celebrate all things THREE!

Here are three pictures taken of Miss Sassy this morning before preschool:







I also conducted a formal interview with Sassy just moments ago, and I thought it would be fun to share the results:

Favorite Colors
1. Pink
2. Black
3. Purple

Favorite Books
1. Llama Llama Mad At Mama
2. Llama Llama Red Pajama
3. Tiana aka The Princess and the Frog: The Essential Guide

Favorite Songs
1. The Itsy Bitsy Spider
2. Clap Your Hands, Stomp Your Feet
3. The Wheels on the Bus

Favorite Movies
1. Alice in Wonderland
2. Beauty and the Beast
3. The Princess and the Frog

Favorite Cartoons
1. Little Bear
2. Olivia
3. Max & Ruby

Favorite Foods
1. Broccoli (HA HAHA AHA HA! Yeah, riiiiiight...)
2. Chocolate Cheerios
3. Pizza

Favorite Things to Do
1. Play outside
2. Play my Leapster
3. Play with LMB

Favorite Animals
1. Hippos
2. Giraffes
3. Lions

Favorite Places to Visit
1. Chicago
2. Minnesota
3. Colorado (I was impressed she remembered these all on her own...)

What She Wants to Be When She Grows Up
1. Princess (Wait... I thought she already was one...)
2. Ballerina (HA- so evident by her passion for dance class...)
3. Care Bear (No comment.)

And, in honor of our "All Things Three" celebration, we will be doing a giveaway! THREE lucky readers will win a homemade gift from Sassy and I. She is oh so excited about this. I can't promise anything fancy, but it will be special nonetheless. And, considering Sassy has her hands in it, it will likely be fancy, as well. To enter, just leave a comment on this post. Please don't disappoint Miss Sassy- comment away. If we don't get at least three comments, I will hunt you all down. You know who you are...

Hair: The Trial

Remember when I clued you all in on the hair woes around the SPH?

Well, I am happy to report that we have been experiencing some mild success in these parts.

Mild, people. Don't get too excited.

Exhibit A: April 12th, 2010. Subject was home and being readied for a birthday party at My Gym. Subject allowed perp (Mom) to place hair in double whale spouts prior to leaving premise. Subject maintained hairstyle for an estimated 6.34 minutes prior to removing support apparatuses.

Photographic Evidence:





Exhibit B: April 20, 2010. Subject stood still while perp (Mom) placed a single ponytail and a hair clippie into hair. Subject maintained hairstyle during the drive to Wichita, lunch at Jason's Deli, and a run around the fountains. Not until the car ride home did subject disrupt the integrity of the hairstyle.

Photographic Evidence:





Case will be revisited as more evidence is brought forth.

Not Me! Monday: Floor Reveal...

It's Monday, and time for all of us busy Mama's to fess up and admit what we've not been up to this past week over at MckMama's...



Today, it feels like the right time to come clean about my floors. And, come clean is a very ironic choice of words, indeed.

This is not a photo of the floor underneath our kitchen table:



More specifically, this would not be a photo of what it looks like under Little A's high chair. Nope. That would be disgusting.



Venture over a bit, and in no way would you ever find this under a spare chair...



Or this...



Nope. Never would I allow my children to gallivant around and carelessly toss trivial toys such as a plastic Easter egg or a rubber snake in the kitchen. Nor would said toys ever be int he company of old pizza crust or stale cheerios. Not in this house!

This would not be the state of the floors mere hours after sweeping, all the while thinking I did a stellar job until I happened to get down to floor level with my camera. Nope.

In turn, I did not search for splat mats online today, nor did I come across some great ones with awesome reviews over at Sugar Booger.

I did not promptly order one from Amazon (yeah for free shipping)!

And, although they featured this one on sale for $7 off...



...and this cute butterfly print...



I most certainly did not place my order for this one:



...because it was SO rockin' completely draws out the rust color from the walls in the kitchen.

In order to obtain this super cool pattern, I did not have to agree to wait 3-5 weeks for my splat mat to ship.

No, I did not just resign myself to 30+ days of continued floor hell in the name of style.

Not Me!

Oh, and please don't judge me for the fact that I readily shelled out $30 for a splat mat rather than deal with the fact that my 20-month old has rotten table manners and relentlessly throws food, regardless of type, to every corner of her reach at any given moment during meal time. That wouldn't be nice.

A Very Merry Unbirthday Party...

Sassy celebrated her upcoming 4th birthday with friends Saturday morning. For the past year, Sassy has been wanting an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party. At the last moment, she decided that she couldn't possibly leave her boys out, so she opted for a more gender neutral locale with an Alice in Wonderland theme... all the better for me, as this party took a lot less preparation on my part!!

The party was held at Newspring Church, and I really have nothing but wonderful things to say about it. They provided 4 attendants during play time, put on a personalized princess puppet show, and made a beautiful chocolate and strawberry cake for Miss Sassy. The kids had a fabulous time!

The party started out in the Fun Zone, which is like a very big, very clean McDonald's play place. There were several slides, tunnels, and other fun things for the kids to do. They ran around like crazy monkeys for about 30 minutes.



Then, it was on to the puppet theater. The kids were able to dance, play a few guessing games, sing to Sassy, and watch a few skits on the value of friendship and self-esteem. Very cute!



We even managed a decent group shot... WOW!



Next, we moved to the "baseball dugout", where the team served the kids cake, popcorn, and lemonade. We also brought along some Simply GoGurt for the kids, and cupcakes and bottled water for the moms and dads. Sassy did NOT like getting up in front of everyone to be sang to. She is so like her Daddy. This is an area that I just cannot relate to, but she was terrified. Tyler helped her blow her candles out, though, so all was well. To give you an idea, the picture to the left was taken of happy Sassy before the party began. The picture to the right is of sad Sassy. There were worse, I'm just choosing not to include them...



The kids ate, ate, ate...



Finally, we returned to the Fun Zone to open gifts and have a bit more play time. Sassy's friends were so generous! She wound up with Barbies, My Little Ponies, some arts and crafts stuff, a few outfits, a beach towel, a picnic blanket, a giant pillow pet, a Puddle Jumper, an American Girl gift certificate, a purse, a tea set, some board games, a fairy make-up kit, Princess and the Frog bath stuff and jammies, and magnetic paper dolls. Phew! She is a lucky little girl!



At the end, the staff made each kid a balloon animal or sword, and sent them on their way with a little goodie bag. We supplemented these with an Alice in Wonderland book for each family, and a little bag with some beads, a ring pop, and a silly straw!

All in all, the party was a huge success. We had a great turnout, and one very happy little Alice...

Like Music to My Ears...

We've had our fair share of concerns over Little A's language development, much of which stems from concerns over her hearing.

So, saying that I am THRILLED with some of her new expressive language skills is putting it mildly. Maybe it's because I wad blesses with such a great early communicator in Sassy, but it's been hard for me to wait patiently for Little A to make her strides.

So, as she continues to meet new milestones, I am trying to take it all in.

And, right now, there is nothing sweeter than to hear her say things like "Buh-bye-see-ya" as if it is one word. Or, to say "Kank-ku Mama" when I hand her something.

I'm loving it!



Watch out world, she's climbing her way up!!

The Dinosaur R-A-W-R

Last night, we had quite the dinosaur adventure. A traveling show called Walking With the Dinosaurs made a stop in town, and we scored some last minute tickets for opening night!

I had heard about the show several weeks ago, and it sounded really neat. We talked about it, though, and decided to forgo the expense because tickets were pretty crazy expensive. Then, a week or so back, Tyler took the girls to the mall one evening while I was at work to check out one of the dinos on display- the baby T-Rex. Sassy thought it was the coolest thing ever, and Tyler was impressed by the detail and size of said dino, considering he was one of the smallest in the show.

Then, last week, my friend Lisa posted on facebook that she was trying to get a group together to buy tickets and attain the group rate. Basically, for the Wednesday night show, we could purchase tickets for $15 each if enough of us went in. So, I begged Tyler to let me get tickets and put them towards Sassy's birthday present. He conceded that it was, indeed, a fabulous idea.

We had plans to make this a solo trip with Sassy. But, my mom was re-hospitalized this past weekend, and we did not want to leave Graycop with another thing on his plate, so we decided we'd give it a go and take Little A along. I truly felt that she was too young to be frightened by the show, and had a sneaking suspicion that she may enjoy it more than any of us. I was totally correct.

We didn't tell Sassy where we were going until a few hours before the show. Suddenly, she was totally willing to eat a great dinner and mind Mommy and Daddy. Weird. She was stoked once we parked the car and headed towards the arena:



Stoked, and also a little silly. What else is new?



Little A spent most of the walk to the arena practicing her dinosaur ROAR. She makes a very convincing dinosaur.



I forced the fam to pose for the obligatory pre-entrance group number:



We met our friends- Lisa brought W and Sarah brought Bubs! Then, the show began. The girls LOVED it. Sassy wasn't scared at all, and she asked me 1,322,497 questions about things in which I had no idea of the answer: Which dinosaurs flourished during the cretaceous period? Why does the brachiosaurus have a longer neck than the apatosaurus? You get the drift...

Little A was squealing for joy! She yelled. She roared. She clapped. She used Tyler's lap as her personal springboard throughout the show. Including Little A = Epic Success!

The show was great. The narrator was a "paleontologist" who led the audience through the various dinosaur eras, explaining the types of dinosaurs, their life cycle, the natural disasters that occurred during those times, and so on. Very interesting. As he spoke, the dinosaurs made their entrances, confronting one another on occasion, and made their way around the stage. Here are a few pictures from the first half of the show. I did the best I could with my camera while staying within the rules...









During intermission, Little A took a few more turns being a dinosaur:



Mommy even managed to sneak her way into a shot:



And, we enjoyed the seconds half of the show. Personally, I enjoyed the design of the ankylosaurus, although the mama and baby T-Rex sort of stole the show!













After the show, Sassy posed with her friends, Bubs and Miss W!



I was convinced the walk to the car combined with the long drive home was a sure recipe for slumber, but no! The girls were way too excited to talk dinosaurs all.the.way.home!

Quirky...

I was on the phone with my friend Miranda yesterday, and she was teasing me about my recent shoe purchase. In fact, she left a comment on my post that said something along the lines of "you would go and do something like that..."

Hey, what can I say?

She quickly reminded me that NOTHING could be worse, though, than the time I bought my "camel-toe shoes". I immediately started cracking up, remembering distinctly which shoes she spoke of, and recalling that they were, indeed, not one of my 5-star purchases...

Um, Nike, what were you thinking??

Quite possibly more disturbing than the shoe itself, in all of its split-toe glory, were the socks that were sold to accompany the shoes...



Yep, I had a pair.

She made a remark about how it comes as no surprise, and she learned quickly, once becoming my friend, never to accept any gum, candy, or snacks that I had to offer. Because, according to Miranda, I like weird sh*t.

Which is completely funny to me, because my friend Lynzee feels the same way. I thought I would never hear the end of it after I offered her iced tea-flavored mints.



I grew quite fond of them during my pregnancy with Little A- regular mints made me hurl. Apparently, Iced tea mints made her hurl. Eh, you can't win 'em all, right?

Miranda laments over the fact that I eat these by choice, as well:



In my defense, they are totally delish!

Oh, and if given the chance, I absolutely love to eat an entire one of these raw before baking them:



Don't worry- I've completely laid off since the salmonella-cookie fiasco several months back...

Remember my snoogle post way back when? Well, nothing has changed, my friends. I still sleep with my trusty pregnancy pillow every night, without fail.

Think I have a picture-taking obsession. Well, yes I do. As of today, I have 27,460 picture files stored. And that covers pictures from May 2008-present. That averages roughly 1200 shots a month, or around 40 shots a day. See, when you break it down, it doesn't sound so crazy, does it??

I alphabetize my DVD's by title and my books by author. They are SO much easier to find that way.

I make lists for everything. Sometimes, I make lists of my lists. J/K

So, I have a few quirks. Some things other people might think are a little off. What about you? What do you do that makes people wonder?

Pics from: http://www.j600.com/, http://www.brianorndorf.com/, http://www.snacksalad.com/index.html, http://takeda-jp.sakura.ne.jp

Not Me!: Shoe Edition

This weekend, I did not drag my husband and youngest child to Kohl's to browse while we had new tires put on our car.

I most certainly did not hit the shoe section, and quickly begin perusing searching frantically for a pair of shoes that I saw during my last visit and really fell in love with.

These shoes were definitely not children's shoes, as I would never take advantage of having very small feet by purchasing shoes intended for a child. Not me!

I did not have a pity party when I learned that Kohl's no longer offered the style of shoe that I fell in love with, but rather a similar style that looked, well... childish.

I did not move on to little girl shoes, nor did I fall in love with the CUTEST pair of Twinkle Toes in Little A's size.

I did not convince Tyler to try them on her, just to see.

As I was doing this, there was no way that Tyler walked over to the clearance rack and held a shoe up in the air, questioning if it was the style I coveted...

It most definitely was not that shoe.

I did not get excited, jump up, and shout "What size is it?!?" like a fool.

It did not happen to be my size, and the very last pair of that style, marked at 60% off.

I did not promptly inform Tyler that those shoes were MINE!

In light of these turn of events, I did not spend 10 minutes convincing Tyler that Sassy and Little A could really use a pair of sneakers for the summer, nor did I vow not to buy another single pair of shoes for either of them the entire summer (except for a pair of gold sandals for Little A- I explained matter-of-factly that I have been waiting to purchase these to determine her best size as summer nears...)

We did not leave Kohl's with 3 pairs of new shoes. Nope!



We are not SO cool!