Caira, beat this. =D
Brian lost tooth number two tonight. This one had very little drama, and none of the frantic “TOOTH TOOTH TOOTH” that accompanied the first one. Sadly. Makes for good memories, though.
I’m posting the far cuter of the two pictures I uploaded to Facebook:
He requested a big big big pack of Pokemon cards from the Tooth Fairy. We also took him out for a milkshake – after all, it’s serious business losing your first tooth (that had you paralyzed with fear for FOUR MONTHS). Ran into a snag, we got the tooth out right at 10pm – which meant that Target was closed. Tried Wal-Mart… ha. Yeah, they’ve got a bunch of total shitty shitty shit. Had some Pokemon plushies for EIGHT freakin’ dollars. So instead, I came home and typed this up (because I’m an awesome mommy):
I haven’t said anything until I was reasonably sure that I had the balls to not give up – after tonight, I can do it.
I’m sure at some point in some future post I’ll go into all the why’s and reasons, but for now, it is what it is. I hit a wall. I’m tired of being the fat girl, of not being able to find clothes that fit on a regular basis – I can wear XXL at Old Navy, or 18-20/22-24 at Lane Bryant, all of which is on a hit or miss status. I’m short so the pants are always too long, and I’ve got more breast than I have head so the shirts are always too short. Fuck this.It’s not fair to me. It’s not fair to Josh, it’s not fair to my kids. Even if in the end I still end up with the full time medicated diabeetus, that’s fine. That’s okay. There’s so many fucking reasons why being fat is bad, and so little reasons why it’s… okay. I can’t think of any reason why it’s good.
The diet changes have been coming little by little, influenced by the need to find another way to eat thanks to Liam’s seemingly copious food allergies. Portion size? I can do it. I did it while I was pregnant, being hungry for a few days was nothing. Type of foods are the harder part. I’m fighting a lifetime of bad choices – my parents started it off (to be honest, I can’t remember a truly healthy meal that I ate during my first sixteen years), I continued it. America sucks, the cheaper and easier to obtain foods are the absolute worst for you. My downfall (and will probably always be) is laziness and accessibility. It’s fucking hard to find a decent meal while you’re out in the car and you need the ability to run through a drive-through somewhere and eat on the go. Add in Liam’s needs, and it’s practically impossible.
I’ve had the kids out walking every single night during this past week. Brian being out of school has helped this a lot – we’ve got 100+ degree temperatures during the day, so the only time that I can willingly expose them to the elements are sunrise and sunset – and I will never be a morning person. Tonight Liam and I went down and ate dinner with Josh – something we’ve done the last couple of months or so. (Saturday nights work out, Brian’s usually always with Kevin and I’m lonely, plus there’s not as much traffic on the weekends and with Brian in school I’d need to be home earlier on a Sunday – his break is at 6:45.) Afterwards, I decided that instead of driving home to walk I was going to stop on the way and walk around this lake that we’ve been to a few times.
I grossly under-estimated the length of the trail around the lake. “A 3.3 miles (5.3 km) trail surrounds Bachman Lake”
I, who a week ago and for the past thirteen years has done absolutely nothing, walked this trail tonight. It was closer to 3.5 miles, portions of the trail are closed for renovation and you have to walk around them. I fucking did it – started at 7:50pm, got back to the car (after putting the stroller in the back and the sleeping Liam in his seat) at 9:05pm. Three and a half miles, an hour and fifteen minutes.
I can do this.
Alright, I’m lying. I’ve been itching for school to end for months.
I’ve really enjoyed the past few days – Brian’s last day of school was Thursday (speaking of which, his teacher said that she was going to Facebook me after school ended and hasn’t. Damn. Brian and I really liked her, and I wanted to keep in touch. She and her husband are trying to move back home so I don’t expect to run into her again. Sigh. I’m bad at the friend game, I think.) and we’ve spent the last few days finding a new normal day. No schedules, no places to be. It’s nice. The extra hour of sleep in the morning is nice, too.
He misses his friends. I don’t know if any of them are going to be at the school he’s most likely going to end up at next year (ISO Magnet School letter, PST. Thx.) or not. I’m still really apprehensive about it, but I checked the six closest elementary schools to us and our options are about the same anywhere I look at it. The school (and the next closest one to us) has great ratings and by all accounts has a great reputation. I just want to be able to converse with a parent or two. That’s not too much to ask, is it? (cue mechanical laugh)
Not that I haven’t been down that path before or anything though, right? Moving on.
I started the back-towards-healthy life curve a few days back, the tipping point was the grease that I was looking at while eating a hamburger from McDonald’s. (Don’t ask. I can’t explain it myself.) Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t going to stop a weekly In-N-Out run for a while once the one around the corner opens… but it is giving me the urge to make more food here. Makes sense, highly allergic child not withstanding, it’s much cheaper to cook at home. We’ve had a good run of foods lately, the top favorite has been the Dairy and Egg-Free Lasagna I found. (Substituted boiled minced cauliflower for the tofu to make it Soy-Free, and added about 8oz. of extra tomato sauce.) I’ve been doing a lot of googling lately looking for ideas, we’re (well, me and the kids, Josh’ll eat anything I think) tired of the same things over and over. We’ve also been walking the last couple of days – not having to worry about school and scheduling means that we’ve got a lot more than four whole hours a day to do things with. It’s nice.
Liam’s four or so days into a new round of antibiotics – Yes, Virginia, he couldn’t survive two months without another two ear infections. I think it might have been almost a month. Maybe. These are supposed to be the last ones before we get a referral to an ENT – I haven’t heard back from his primary doctor, so I’m betting that I’m not going to get anywhere with that until his 18 month checkup in another week and a half or so. 18 months – how’d THAT happen? 
He’s got a checkup with the allergist tomorrow. I don’t really know why (aside from them liking to bill the insurance companies), but I’m going. I’m hoping that at least if nothing else (besides a ‘Hey’, ‘Nothing’s changed?’, ‘See you in six months’) I can get them to run a blood test for Penicillin – hopefully we’ll be able to add that back to our deck of drugs with which to treat yet another ear infection. (Probably not, but it’s worth a shot, right?)
I don’t have any new pictures (I haven’t pulled any off the camera lately, so who knows how many I’ve actually taken), however I have been shooting some to Twitter/Facebook – so the well isn’t completely dry. #excuses
If I’m lucky, I might update this again before July. Maybe. :p
This was one of the best birthdays that I’ve had in years. After dropping Brian off at school, Josh and I (and the demon) drove up to Ikea. Eggs. I had eggs! (They open up a half hour early for breakfast, and it’s $0.99 if you don’t get the ‘swedish’ version with lingonberries and meatballs.) We walked and dreamed and pushed cranky Liam around, but I did come home with some cute stuff. Had more lingonberries/meatballs/mashed potatoes for lunch, too.
Picked up Brian, then Josh dropped me off at the nail place down the street (that’s conveniently placed next to a Starbucks). I got the first real nail manicure of my life and a pedicure – note, Tuesday afternoons are GREAT times to go to the nail place, they are empty. The boys went to Target where Brian picked me out some crystal butterfly earrings. It’s so cool that he’s big enough now to pick things out and they aren’t random toys that he likes.
That night we were supposed to go eat with Josh’s mom. (Don’t lie, you TOTALLY know where this is going.) She’d called the week before saying that she wanted to take me out to lunch. Josh ended up taking the day off, so we switched it to dinner. I said I wanted to go to Pasado’s (mexican place) – not only did I like it, but they have soft foods I can eat, AND I can feed Liam there without any worry that I’m trying to kill him in the process. She was sort of iffy about that – I think due to the location, although she did mention jury duty the next morning and digestive issues. Heh.
We had run out to Best Buy to pick up our copies of Portal 2 (nice release date, guys) and caught this awesome storm on the way home. She got to the house and said that her husband wasn’t coming, that he’d heard there was hail in Ft. Worth and he didn’t want to risk his new car. She puttered around, then after talking about how she didn’t want to get caught in the hail handed Josh $40 and left. By this time it was already past six – we’d have to drive somewhere, sit down and eat, get home, and then get the kids to bed. All of which sounds like it’s under the ‘not worth it’ header.
We ate dinner at McDonald’s. It was good. :p
Never say that I’m not looking out for your attention span in regards to my post length.
Last Saturday we ended up taking the kids to the doctor since they both had pink eye in both eyes. Once there, we discovered that not only was there four conjunctivitised eyes, but there were four infected ears as well. Brian also had a throat full of pustules – which explains why he’s had this super annoying cough for a few weeks. They both get antibiotic eye drops for the pink eye and antibiotics for the ears/throat. Brian’s done fine. Liam? [just imagine you're listening to Portal's ending credits song]
He started getting these vaguely eczema starter looking bumps on his legs, which spread to most of his legs with little bits all over the rest of him. Tried treating it with eczema cream, no luck. I knew he was reacting to the medicine, and ended up calling the doctor. Stopped the medicine, did twenty four hours of Benedryl, tried the medicine again. More rash.
Let’s just go ahead and list Liam’s current allergies:
Food: Peanut, Egg, Milk (Cow’s, Casein), Soy. Drug: Penicillin and Cephalosporin classes.
Luckily his ears have cleared up enough to the point that they don’t need to be treated medically. We’re now currently waiting on him to get one more ear infection before the insurance company will pay for tubes in both ears. The doctor said that he fully expects that by the end of the summer he’ll have them. (Once the last three visits that Liam has had during the last three or four weeks are processed, we’ll have between three and four hundred dollars left on the deductible. At least we might be able to afford the copay for the surgery?) There’s also only two more classes of antibiotics that he said they could use to treat him with. I’m all for preventing any further resistance buildup.
I plan to mention to his allergist at his next appointment (in June) that his pediatrician is interested in getting a serum test to see if he’s actually allergic to Penicillin, or if it’s something else going on – like the preservative in the liquid version, or the dye used, etc. It’d be nice if we could still have the chewable/tablets as an treatment option.
Oh, and he’s got allergies. Like, seasonal/environmental. Go figure, right?
No good post is complete without a couple pictures. Have at it.
I can’t even begin to remember where my last entry left off. I’ll just skim the highlights, like usual. Hopefully I won’t double-skim..
My mom and dad drove out here for my mom’s spring break. I’d asked them to come since I had my teeth pulled (extracted, yanked, surgically cut out from the looks of the bottom…) and I wasn’t sure how much downtime I was going to have. While they were here my dad mentioned that he’d been trolling here for a year and a half or so – Hey, Daddy. :p
Ended up not being too terribly bad aside from that first day – I literally remember not much of anything. I talked to the people in the office, which Josh said was a huge improvement over the guy that they walked out before me. I remember two different times that I consciously looked at things in the car on the way home (one of which was to put on my sunglasses – who knows why, since my eyes were closed anyway). I vaguely remember getting home and crawling into bed, where I spent the rest of the afternoon. Managed to get up and help Josh get dinner made, so I don’t suppose that I was as bad off as I had every right to be.
It’s healed okay. The top’s great. The bottom is totally fucked up – it literally looks like the guy took a scalpel, started on one side, and dragged it down/around/back up the other. There’s a large amount of missing tissue on one side – I have a strong feeling that’s where I had a crown that was leaking. It had been leaking for a few years, so I’m sure that tissue wasn’t exactly viable. It was greyish black to start with. There’s a skin flap that is annoying the everliving shit out of me, and random bits of socket bone here and there.
Total cost:
Surgery – 23 extracted teeth, full anesthesia, full mouth lidocaine injections, $280. Dental HMO @ Dental Chopshop (totally not deserving of a link).
Denture plates (initial set, later permanent set, top and bottom for both), followup visits, adjustments, $1315. Affordable Dentures, Tyler. (Choosing to drive 99 miles one way each time I need to dick with the plates is saving us about $2100 over the cost of the Chopshop option – and that’s factoring in gas.)
Getting used to the dentures hasn’t been too terribly bad. I lost about ten pounds the first week (Perhaps I should suggest the tomato soup with submerged grilled cheese combination to Hollywood?). Chewing is getting better and better, and I don’t completely sound like a moron when I talk. The best part?
I’ll never have another infected/abscessed tooth ever again. Take that, fuckers.
Here’s a cute group picture of the five of us (Josh gets stuck taking the picture all the time, we’re too dumb to use the tripod we own), be sure to admire the chicklet teeth and ignore the massive facial swelling:
The game? Eh. Annoying overall, was cute the first few times. Pity it took FOREVER to get anywhere beyond level 3. The music, it burns into my ear drums. Woot, I love you AND your bags of crap. Love, Jen.
Mine, Level 1: Camo Snuggie with book light, SpinDisk lazy susan, three Sanza connector cords, and the obligatory bag. (And three bags of good old Texas air.)
Josh, Level 1: 12 Woot branded Cedar Grilling Planks (I’ve wanted to order these for years, so this was a huge bonus for me), a weird shish kabob metal sticker thing, two Shake N’Take plastic takers – pity we don’t have the base for them, a rechargeable battery case with built in front speakers for an iPhone 4 [it works great, it's been on Josh's phone since we got it in the mail], two tabletop tripod plastic things, and the obligatory bag.
Josh, Level 2: This was obviously the worst of the bunch, the crappiest of the crap. [I LIVE FOR YOUR CRAP, WOOT.] The redeeming feature being the blue caped mini-Woot monkey keychain. There’s also another SpinDock lazy susan type thing for a laptop, a little plastic Chinese soccer man with an internal speaker – for mp3 players, and the obligatory bag. (Two bags of great Texas air was the bonus here.)
Mine, Level 3: UnitTool box with a bunch of drill bits, sockets, and other manly bits. Two Sanza connector cords, a Chinese fake cell phone, a Chinese fake cell phone that shocks you, and the obligatory bag.
Josh, Level 10: 2011 Woot Calendar (I’m SO glad that I didn’t order one now!), Mini-Woot Monkey keychain (with customized Woot print on the cape, awesomesauce), two Sanza connector cords, and the obligatory bag.
This picture has in it the two people in my family who have died in my lifetime. My Great-Grandmother, and my youngest sister.
Motherfucker.
(Does this mean that I have a real life? Haha.)
First – Liam, and his allergies.
He’s anaphylactic to peanut and egg (white), level three on both. He’s got mild IgE antibodies present for (cow’s) milk [level 1] and soybean [level 0/1]. His intense reaction to milk was diagnosed as (insert protein, in his case it’s for sure casein) induced enterocolitis syndrome. He’s also allergic to Penicillin – which, obviously, will be the easiest thing for us to avoid.
None of the above is news (aside from the soybean, and he’s been fine with it so I haven’t eliminated anything that I wasn’t already avoiding before the blood testing). The doctor said that he’ll run another panel in a few years before he hits pre-k age to see where things are standing. We’re to avoid all nuts – tree, nut-but-really-a-legume, etc. We do have the okay to give fish and shellfish a shot, but it’s on the far back burner for now.
Second – We went to Louisville during Brian’s spring break two weeks ago. (Two weeks. You see how good I am at keeping this thing updated?)
(Picture circa 1986/1987 – my best guess is Christmas, the tinytiny baby is Jaclyn who was born in September ’86.)
The elderly lady on the far left is *my* Great-Grandmother. I’m the cute kid on the far right with the blonde hair, oh where did it go..
This picture was taken two weeks ago. It’s me, my kids, and their great-grandparents (well, two out of the four). The elderly lady in this picture? She’s the second from the left in the picture above.
I’m amazingly sad that I didn’t think to get a picture with us and my other grandparents. :[ The only comfort being that we spent the vast majority of our time there with them – and my kids had a blast. They might not have a lot of pictures (since my time was spent mostly pulling things out of Liam’s mouth and making sure nothing was broken), but they had a damned good time. Dammit.
Liam and my Grandmama:
My awesomesauce Granddaddy (you’d think I could have snuck in a kid or two, but nooooo…)
Here’s Liam and Brian sitting on the stoop. One of my earliest memories is Alison and I sitting in the exact same place eating ice cream cones. She was maybe two, which meant that I was about five, maybe six.
Third – My mom and dad will be here this weekend. I’m having my teeth yanked out on Tuesday. Yes, all of them. We (this especially means you, Mark) will be henceforth referring to the contents of my mouth as ‘chicklets’. Thanks. It’s my way of coping. I do turn 31 on the 19th, you know.
Finally – Liam funny. Hand him some trash. Tell him to go put it in the trash. He trundles over to the trash can and throws it in. You clap your hands and say ‘Yay!’, he claps with you. He then turns back to the trash can and starts grunting ‘Geh Ot’ over and over.
It’s a start. =D
