Swim Lessons

Connor was in swim lessons for two years and took his last lesson on the day Noah was born. We decided to take a break from swim since it would be really difficult to manage weekly swim lessons with a newborn in tow. Since then, Connor played tball and soccer and we weren't as optimistic to think that we could toss swim lessons in there at the same time and survive with our already packed schedule as much as we wanted to.

I found a blatant excuse to spend money on something I wouldn't normally buy groupon for swim lessons for a month at 1/2 price and decided to go for it.

The place we originally went, Gold Medal Swim, was great and we loved it. pricey, but really nice and worth it we thought. Swim Kids in Mesa had the groupon and we have friends who really like the place so we went for it.

We weren't as impressed with the place as we were with Gold Medal, but Connor really thrived in his 5 classes. He made really big improvements, and quicker than at Gold Medal so we were happy about that.

Today was his last swim lesson and he did so great. He did what they call 'float, swim, float' across the length of the pool so the manager came over mid-class and gave us a ribbon for Connor for hitting that milestone. It was a pretty exciting moment, even if it was his last class :(

Have you seen me?

why do i continue to hold onto this earring for 4 months after i lost its friend (see how i said friend here? because mate is a creepy word...like lover. or panties)? i just keep holding out hope that one of my children will wander out of his room carrying the missing one and all will be right again. Or that I'll retrieve my car from the car wash to see it sitting on my seat after being found under a pile of goldfish crackers. I understand it's unlikely.

i feel like this because i love these simple earrings. AND because i looked for my missing library card for 3 weeks before giving in and getting a new one only to open a book jeff checked out to find it being used as a sort of bookmark. dammit.

so maybe my missing earring will resurface if i pretend to give up and throw this one away. do you hear that missing guy? giving up. throwing your friend away. (pretty please come back to me)

This Just Happened

The boys come running (and waddling) out of Connor's room tonight with Connor screaming and Noah laughing.

Connor: Mama, my nose!
Noah: mamamama
Mama: What happened?!
C: I hit my nose.
M: On what??
C: Noah's face.

His nose was kinda discolored but there's a bag of peas on there currently so I'm hoping it looks better when we're done with that. He's telling me that it doesn't hurt anymore, but that's likely so he can lose the bag of peas.
Noah is still laughing.

Life is like an ice-cream cone, you have to lick it one day at a time. -Charles M. Schultz

Connor's afternoon teacher gives the kids one piece of candy when they go home if they were good that day. Only kids who were on their "best behavior" get a piece of candy so it's a pretty big deal :)

Yesterday Connor told me when we were leaving the school that he forgot to get his candy. I told him that he could have a piece of candy when we got home. Then the tooth stuff happened and candy dropped down low on our list of important stuff.

Today when I picked him up, Connor told his teacher that he was due TWO pieces of candy from yesterday and today. I told his teacher that it was ok as long as it wasn't chewy - because of his tooth. The teacher told Connor that all he had were tootsie rolls (what???) and that he'd bring him something tomorrow.

4 year olds can only be put off so long with rewards so I told Connor that we would get an ice cream cone on our way home. He was THRILLED but after about 30 seconds of sincere celebration, he asked me if he could have ice cream too. I was confused but then realized that he thought i literally meant he could have a CONE. I love this kid. I told him I supposed so and there was lots more celebration. He told everyone we passed picking up Noah that he was getting an ice cream cone AND some ice cream. :)

When we pulled up to the McD drive thru I ordered one vanilla cone and this voice shouts out from the backseat, "and ice cream in it please!". Shouts it. After I straightened out the order taker we got Connor's cone and ice cream and he was thrilled.

BTW - Day One...tooth still attached. Yay.

What's the tooth fairy's going rate??

my children have aged me about 10 years in the mere 4 years they have been in my life. Yesterday didn't help.

I picked the boys up at school around 4 and as we were driving home Connor announced that he hurt his tooth while playing baseball that day. I didn't think too much of it, as the boy comes home with bruises, scrapes and general dirtiness every day. That's his job as a 4 year old boy. I asked if it hurt and how it happened. He told me it did hurt and that he dove for a ball and his tooth his the ground...? ok. He wasn't overly worried about it and played with bear in the backseat so I figured it would wait until we got home.

About 15 minutes later and I got out after pulling in the garage and looked at his mouth. I didn't see any bruising on his face or cuts to his tongue or gums fortunately. The tooth looked ok but was very loose. Not like hanging on by a thread loose, but wiggly loose. Ugh. I didn't think we'd have to deal with losing teeth, tooth fairy absurdity and this stuff for a while ;(

I called the boys dentist and started driving that way while I talked to the staff. Luckily they are just about 5 mintues away as they asked us to come in and do Xrays so they could make sure everything was ok. Our dentist is great to get us in at the very last minute before they closed for the day.

the boys at the dentist office. Noah looking less than concerned. Hopefully this isn't the last pic of Connor with both of his front teeth.

Waiting for the dentist to check him out

Connor did amazing during Xrays which I was dreading - lugging bear around so that he didn't pull cords, rip papers on walls and trying to comfort Connor during Xrays was something I dreaded the entire time in the waiting room. The last couple times at the dentist, he was a train wreck during Xrays so I was gleefully surprised that this time he was super chill. Maybe it's the buildup of knowing he has a pending appt that has wrecked him in the past and next time we'll just suddenly roll up to the appointment like a super fun surprise.

Also, I love that kids know precisely the bribery that awaits them at the end of their appointment. When I told Connor we were headed to the dentist after we left our house he immediately said, I'll get a sticker and a bouncy ball when I'm done. He can tell you that you get to pick something from the treasure chest after Noah's ear appointment (ENT) and that you get a sticker at normal doctor appointments unless you get shots, because in that case you get a sticker AND something from the toy box. It's hilarious to me the things that kids remember.

We'd been told at his last appointment that Connor's roots in his two front teeth had already been dissolving. Likely from an injury to his mouth. Since we didn't remember any sort of injury to his mouth, the dentist told us that it could have been several little incidents and that can be enough to get the cause the roots to start to dissolve. At that point, they'd told us that he'd likely loose his baby teeth before the new ones started to come in. Because of that, his fall yesterday didn't necessarily have to be too hard to cause the tooth to loosen up. :( The dentist showed us the Xray and you can see his big boy teeth up above the little ones which was pretty cool. You could also see the injured tooth had lots of space around it near the gumline. She told us that sometimes the gum can tighten up around the tooth but in Connor's case it's unlikely. The dentist guessed that the tooth would make its great escape within the month.

If I'm being honest, I'm crushed for vanity reasons. The dentist told us that big teeth typically come in around 7 or 8 and so that means we'll have 3-4 years of a missing front tooth. While the pics I see of other kids missing a front tooth are cute enough, I'm not thrilled with this for MY kid. Oh well though. We're begging Connor to leave the tooth alone and not mess with it. He swears it doesn't hurt but who knows. We're just going to have to be a bit careful about what he eats (no apples, no chewy candy, etc) to try and keep the tooth in there for as long as possible but its just a waiting game at this point. It's days are numbered, clearly. We haven't mentioned the Tooth Fairy yet and I'm not sure why. Maybe because I don't want him trying to get the tooth out to get a few bucks. Maybe we can tell him about the Tooth Fairy but leave out the cash money part...at least until it's determined how much money she's passing out currently.