[blue butterfly]

I couldn't fin another thread so here we go!!

Earlybirds
Sydney 7-27 (home from hospital 11-16)
Gabrielle 10/23

November 1
Aaron 11/1
Benton 11/1
Morgan 11/1

November 2
Anna 11/2
Conchobhar 11/2
Georgia 11/2
Noah 11/2
Otto 11/2

November 3
Avishai 11/3
Devin 11/3
Hana Rae 11/3
Ilana 11/3
Porter 11/3

November 4
Abbi True 11/4
Aislyn 11/4
Chloe 11/4
Elijah 11/4
Raphael 11/4

November 5
Alex 11/5
Atticus 11/5
Ben 11/5
Lilienne 11/5

November 6
Clayton 11/6
Eden 11/6
Ian 11/6
Ollie 11/6

November 7
Florian 11/7
Jema Bear 11/7
Lillie 11/7
Peter 11/7
Ruck Turner 11/7

November 8
Ella 11/8
Millie 11/8

November 9
Eli 11/9
Guillaume 11/9
Magnus 11/9
Ruby 11/9
Kamden 11/9
Sophia 11/9

November 10
Erik 11/10
Evangeline Lily Marie 11/10

November 11
Siann 11/11

November 12
Alex 11/12
Colin 11/12
Ethan 11/12
Ingrid 11/12
Vivian 11/12

November 13
Elijah 11/13
Jaxon 11/13
Nyx 11/13

November 14
Emerson 11/14
Zeben 11/14

November 15
Dov 11/15
Elijah 11/15
Fynn 11/15
Mikaela 11/15
Miriam 11/15
Nell 11/15

November 16
Aiden 11/16
Ava 11/16
Lea 11/16
Luca 11/16
Simi 11/16

November 17
Gracie 11/17
Isabella 11/17
Landis 11/17
Madeleine 11/17
Morgan 11/17
Nate 11/17
Talia 11/17
Warren 11/17

November 18
Jericho 11/18
Joseph 11/18
Ryan 11/18
Seraphina Judith 11/18

November 19
Carl 11/19
Landon 11/19
Liam 11/19
Ruby Isabella 11/19
Theron 11/19
Trenton 11/19

November 20
Corbyn Jack 11/20
Fiona 11/20
Kira 11/20
Libby 11/20
Morrigan 11/20

November 21
Aidan Maxwell 11/21
Ayla Dawn 11/21
Elijah 11/21
Greyson 11/21
Liam 11/21
Mylee 11/21
TJ 11/21

November 22
Darwin 11/22

November 23
Ambrose 11/23
Benjamin Louis 11/23
Lucy 11/23
Owen 11/23
Yarrow 11/23

November 24
Alison Anna 11/24
Carter 11/24
Laurel 11/24
Lily 11/24
Maaike 11/24
Marissa 11/24

November 25
Asheby 11/25
Dorothy 11/25
Liam 11/25
Quincy 11/25

November 26
Omiros 11/26
Yasmeen 11/26

November 27
Adam 11/27
Dominic 11/27
Indigo 11/27
Jonathon 11/27
Mara 11/27
Mackenzie 11/27
Nicholas 11/27

November 28
Abhainn 11/28
Colleen Rosemary 11/28
Joaquin 11/28
Kaeleigh 11/28
Khéna 11/28
Leroy 11/28
Melvin 11/28
Maya 11/28
Macy 11/28
Owen 11/28
Saida 11/28
Scott 11/28
Yossi 11/28

November 29
Aubrey 11/29
Layla 11/29

November 30
Alex 11/30
Eleanor 11/30
Jackson 11/30
Logan 11/30
Mila 11/30
Rosalyn 11/30
Sophia 11/30

Running Total: 142 Babies!!!!

PLEASE chime in if your little one is not on the list.

All are welcome to come and chat with us. We're a friendly, welcoming group, celebrating our November 2006 babes, our other kids, our families and each other.

 

[blue butterfly]

so what are everyone's plans for the holidays, how are your tots, how are you adjusting to having a two year old...

 

[azmomtoone]

I don't think we're on the list - my DS is Alek born 11/30/06. (or maybe we are and mistaken as alex but I'm not here frequently enough to know if there's an "alex" as well)

DS is finally just starting to show an interest in talking

: He's signing two and three word sentences but only says 7 or 8 words total. But he's starting to imitate more sounds etc.
Self-initiated potty training last weekend, we've been diaper-free since Wednesday (we've done part-time EC since 11 days, but very little since he started walking & I started working). But he still gets naked time now and again at home.....so all of a sudden he starts saying "uh-oh" and running to the potty when he has to go. If he misses, he'll tell us "uh-oh" and point it out. So Wednesday we bought some huge loose sweats for him and taught him to pull them up & down; still working on it, he kinda gets it but isn't very coordinated & gets frustrated easily, so it's a little hard for him now. But since Wednesday for the most part he's used the potty, with just a couple accidents - most of those being where he goes on the potty but forgets to pull his pants down. He wants to dump the potty himself too so we had to show him how to hold both ends of it; and he tries so hard to walk slowly & not splash. It's cute to watch him concentrating so hard.
His b-day went great, he had absolutely no interest in pizza or cake, he was too busy playing. (we just met a couple friends at the park) But he still had a ball with it.
Thanksgiving was a nice quiet dinner with just DH, DS and I at home. Very great day. Not nearly enough down time as a family lately - so it was nice to just relax and enjoy everyone's company. We didn't go all out, just the turkey, potatoes, green beans, and salad. And a pumpkin pie my mom had made for us (just before she left out-of-state).
I made my first attempt at making stock yesterday. I think I messed it up but I'm gonna try to salvage it (didn't put vinegar in at the beginning, and let it boil. Alot) Silly me thought just throw the bones in a pan, w/ onion & celery, and let it boil. THEN tried to look for directions on line. Should've done that first, right?
I am NOT adjusting well to the tantrums at all! Working on it but sometimes my best strategy is just to leave the room and ignore him for awhile. Which I feel bad about...just sometimes I want to throw a tantrum right alongside him for awhile. We don't have too many set-in-stone rules (working towards consensual living but it's a very new concept for me; and also barely 2 is very young for some of those concepts to be practical IMO.) but it seems like every time we get to one of them there's a tantrum over it.
No plans for christmas yet.... since we're away from our families we've been talking about trying to come up with some sort of atypical thing to start a tradition for our own family. Like maybe camping every christmas......

 

[blue butterfly]

Abbi can be so sweet and gentle and loving and then other time, like this morning, she was hitting me with a DVD case

: i agree that gentle discipline can be quite hard at this age, i just started reading "playful parenting" and hope to find some suggestions in there on how to work with her instead of against her.

So is anyone else thinking about or actively ttc??? November was the first month dh and i started trying, and i will test tomorrow morning as AF is 3 days late and i've been having some bouts of queasiness, fingers crossed

 

[MPsSweetie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blue butterfly So is anyone else thinking about or actively ttc??? November was the first month dh and i started trying, and i will test tomorrow morning as AF is 3 days late and i've been having some bouts of queasiness, fingers crossed

How exciting!! We are thinking about TTC starting in May/June of 2009. I really like to have some time between babies. We have a fall baby and a spring baby, so now we need a summer and winter.

We did have an oops the other day though... errrr.... I don't think it was the right time though.

 

[MidnightCommando]

Yay! New thread - thanks Blue!

Azmom - camping for Christmas sounds really really fun. I'm going to deduce you live in AZ where it's warm enough to go camping in winter. We are trying to do our own Christmas thing this year too. Both sets of parents live close so every year we have to go to 3 different houses (my grandmas too) and this year we are putting our foot down and staying home. We told everyone they can come down and visit if they want to.

It will be sooooooo nice not to leave the house that day.

I've never heard of putting vinegar in stock. What makes you think it's messed up? You can put everything in a pot and boil it - I've done it that way before. I made stock yesterday too. My secret it to chop up the carcass into big chucks after you've removed most of the meat and roast it in the oven at 350-375 for an hour turning once. The bones brown up and gives a nice richness to the stock. Make sure to deglaze your roasting pan after and ass to the big stock pot. On the stovetop, I brown quartered yellow onions (leave the skin on), carrots, celery, the top parts of leeks, and various herbs. Deglaze this pan too. Then it all goes in a pot of water and simmers for 3-5 hours, then strain. It really turns out wonderful.

BlueB - let us know how you like the book. I don't think my patience has ever been tested like it has with DD lately. I want it to sink in that it is unacceptable to lay your hands on any living thing but nothing seems to get through to her. She's been better about not hitting or throwing things at DP or I but now it seems like she's redirecting on the animals. Last night she was walking across the living room and kicked the cat for no reason!

TTC? Lol. not here. If it was entirely up to DP we would be but I am putting my foot down for a while at least. I feel like we are in a good routine with DD and finally starting to be in a good place financially. We'll see what time brings. Fingers crossed for you though!!!

:

 

[azmomtoone]

Quote:

I've never heard of putting vinegar in stock. What makes you think it's messed up?

one of the pages I looked up said you needed to put vinegar in at the beginning in order to get the minerals out of the bones. Then saw another blog post that said you need to skim all the stuff that comes to the top at the beginning and not let it boil w/ the stuff on top or it'll be wasted.... I just threw the bones & skin of the turkey (some meat, not much) in a big pan w/ chopped onions & celery (read after that you don't need to chop them, makes sense, but that in itself shouldn't ruin it), added water, and let it boil. All day. No fat came to the top after it cooled (maybe that's a good thing?); and it just really tastes like water......(maybe I added too much water?)....I still have it, just figured I could use it to cook beans in or something instead of plain water, it just wouldn't have as much extra flavor. Also w/ not skimming the stuff off the top and letting it boil I didn't know for sure if that might make it unhealthy somehow? (the blog post said it's all the blood & dirt from the bones....something like that; I sure don't remember the exact wording, probably didn't say dirt but something similiar, maybe waste or something?) ... I did read about browning the bones first after the fact too, again somethign I didn't do... the turkey was already cooked though.

Do you think it'd be ok to still use in place of water (I don't think there's enough flavor to use in place of broth) in recipes? ....another reason, I thought it was wasted; I also read that it should kinda gel up at or slightly below room temperature and it didn't. (again maybe too much water?) I didn't measure the water just covered everything in the pan plus a couple inches (since I figured it'd boil down some and wanted everything to stay covered...which it did)

Yep, we're in AZ

so something like a ski trip every christmas wouldn't be real practical. Still chilly at night but not so bad that you couldn't be cozy inside a tent & sleeping bags. Trying to think of other ideas too ....

Not TTC here either; after DS we've decided to adopt future children but that's a ways out yet too. Right now DS is as much as I can handle (and then some at times!)... Actually though, even though he is a very active kid & a handful at times; we're just starting to get into a good spot I think, were it feels like our family is just about perfect. He's having so much fun and learning so much; it's a delight just to be around him most of the time, and I love watching him figure out something new or really see something for the first time....I'm in no hurry to go back to the sleep-deprived, constant worry, endless-cycle-of-eat-poop-sleep-repeat nb stage.

We just put up our christmas tree last night, a first for our family. (we've had little potted trees, before DS.... with him born at the end of november a tree was not on our priority list his first christmas and last year we opted not to have one, afraid he'd pull it over on himself or try to climb it and tip - he was climbing everything in the house this time last year) Anyway, we put it up after he went to bed last night, then just sat around for awhile in the living room w/ the lights out.... I'd kinda forgotten about the almost-magic glow of a lit-up christmas tree. DS woke up before I went to work this am (he's usually asleep yet) so I got to see his reaction to it.

: DH plugged it in before we left the bedroom; DS walked into the living room and straight over to the tree and tried to touch every light on it. (did touch everyone that he could reach), with the cutest little sleepy smile on his face

. We don't have anything else on it yet, we're gonna try to get DS to make popcorn strings (not sure if he's ready for that yet, he's not good at lacing things on his toys) for it and need to look for some non-glass ornaments (since all we have are glass bulbs .... easy to put out stuff that DS can play with if he wants to).....

Quote:

She's been better about not hitting or throwing things at DP or I but now it seems like she's redirecting on the animals. Last night she was walking across the living room and kicked the cat for no reason!

Must be an age thing too; DS has started after the dog lately too; he still hits or kicks at DH & I too but not as much as he was for awhile..... just this weekend we had a huge fit 'cause I took the broom away from him when he started hitting the dog with it. (Poor dog, good thing she tolerates him well. Gave her an extra treat but I still felt bad for her.) ...He's tried the same thing w/ spoons, fly swatters etc. Testing limits maybe?? "I can't hit mom or dad, what about the pet?" type thing. Otherwise I can't think of a reason why he'd be doing it......

Our 2 yr check-up is Friday. We've decided to continue delaying vaxes (our initial plan was none before 2 yrs and then to start selective vaxing on a more spaced out schedule than typically recommended, and have them (the ones we deemed "necessary") done before he started school. Well, we're pretty set on hs/us'ing now so no deadline left and after talking it over, we initially narrowed down to just tetanus only then decided against that one as well. Have to ask about speech and whatnot again, not too confident in the EI once-a-month speech therapy that feels more like a social call then anything else when they come (esp after being told to punish him for dragging his head on the carpet, when I brought up concerns about him giving himself rugburn on his forehead) (posted about it in the SN forum awhile back)

 

[MidnightCommando]

Quote:

Originally Posted by azmomtoone one of the pages I looked up said you needed to put vinegar in at the beginning in order to get the minerals out of the bones. Then saw another blog post that said you need to skim all the stuff that comes to the top at the beginning and not let it boil w/ the stuff on top or it'll be wasted....

The foamy stuff on the top is not a huge deal to me. Sometimes I get enough to skim, sometimes I don't (I make a LOT of stock). I've never had a stock ruined because of it or lack of it.

Quote:

I just threw the bones & skin of the turkey (some meat, not much) in a big pan w/ chopped onions & celery (read after that you don't need to chop them, makes sense, but that in itself shouldn't ruin it), added water, and let it boil. All day. No fat came to the top after it cooled (maybe that's a good thing?); and it just really tastes like water......(maybe I added too much water?)....I still have it, just figured I could use it to cook beans in or something instead of plain water, it just wouldn't have as much extra flavor. Also w/ not skimming the stuff off the top and letting it boil I didn't know for sure if that might make it unhealthy somehow? (the blog post said it's all the blood & dirt from the bones....something like that; I sure don't remember the exact wording, probably didn't say dirt but something similiar, maybe waste or something?) ... I did read about browning the bones first after the fact too, again somethign I didn't do... the turkey was already cooked though.

I don't think it's unhealthy. Blood is not bad for you and I don't know how dirt would get in bones considering they are inside the body. To remember for next time, you can always brown bones after they have been cooked once. This is what I did yesterday, just using up the leftover carcass from Thanksgiving

Quote:

Do you think it'd be ok to still use in place of water (I don't think there's enough flavor to use in place of broth) in recipes? ....another reason, I thought it was wasted; I also read that it should kinda gel up at or slightly below room temperature and it didn't. (again maybe too much water?) I didn't measure the water just covered everything in the pan plus a couple inches (since I figured it'd boil down some and wanted everything to stay covered...which it did)

It should gel up a bit although I've found that stock made from raw bones gels up a lot firmer. As far as it being watery, I think if you were to let it reduce down some more it would intensify the flavor. I would use it in anything that calls for water or stock. Don't give up on your stock!!! Obvioulsy, I am addicted to homemade stocks. Become friends with your local butcher. Mine always has bags of various beef, chicken, or fish parts waiting in the freezer for me.

You can freeze stock in 1 cup portions = I swear you will never again use bullion or stock in a can/box. You can also make a really good veg. stock with peels and such.

Quote:

I'm in no hurry to go back to the sleep-deprived, constant worry, endless-cycle-of-eat-poop-sleep-repeat nb stage.

yea that

 

[azmomtoone]

Quote:

Don't give up on your stock!!! Obvioulsy, I am addicted to homemade stocks. Become friends with your local butcher. Mine always has bags of various beef, chicken, or fish parts waiting in the freezer for me. You can freeze stock in 1 cup portions = I swear you will never again use bullion or stock in a can/box. You can also make a really good veg. stock with peels and such.

Oh, I'm not giving up, I definitely plan to try again. I've done veggie stocks before too, no problem. Thanks for your info/advice! I think I'll try to boil down the turkey stuff some more, use it where I can ...if you've left the foam on and not used vinegar; and yours was ok; then this should be too. Then I'll try it next time w/ the bones cooked first. BTW, how long / what temp do you cook them for? Does it matter much or just let them get browned for the flavor? I also need to try adding more veggies next time. We do whole chickens quite a bit so if I can make some stock out of the bones, well, that much more value out of it.
I'm not even sure if we HAVE an actual butcher anywhere around here.... other than the grocery store meat counters...and it seems like that's a different person every time you go.

 

[superstella]

I've been sick and back in the hospital again and I'm still under the weather so I'm just posting to sub and I'll catch up later when I'm feeling more human.

 

[MidnightCommando]

Stella. Keep your spirits up and hope you get out soon. I'll be thinking about you

 

[azmomtoone]

*hugs* Hope you feel better soon!

 

[azmomtoone]

So we had our two year old check-up today.... he's now 29 lbs, 35.5 inches tall, & healthy.

Asked about other concerns, dr. thinks he's not autistic (great news! posted all related to that in SN section, don't want to repeat the whole thing) but is concerned about speech, he should be putting 2-3 words together by now, even w/ a limited vocabulary; since he's already in EI for speech therapy that's the best we can do for him for now; and to give him through the first 6 mos of being two to start using word combos / sentences. (wish we could figure out why he's behind there, it's seriously not for a lack of being spoken to or hearing language,).
On a good note: (copied from the other thread, just have to share)

we had to sign a form that we didn't want him vaccinated. It was the form from the no-vax site, not the standard dr form All the verbage was about vaxes being experimental, "we believe" risks of vax are higher then risk of disease, etc. Think we may have found a closet-anti-vax dr? I'd imagine they probably can't support it publicly (no-vax) without losing their license or something, or losing most patients. (I certainly know nothing about dr licensing procedures or anything, purely hypothetical).... The whole conversation was:
DR: (looking in the chart) ...do you need shots today?
Me: No, we haven't been giving him any.
DR: And you don't want any?
Me: Nope
Dr: Ok. Have you signed our form?

That's it.... no speech about needing them or how we're risking our kids life or anything like that that we've gotten used to hearing. And then the form, I was all prepared to refuse to sign & offer to bring in our form, til I saw it was the same one. (minus the checklist of which vaccines you're refusing).

 

[nina_yyc]

Hi mamas!

Libby is doing great, talking up a storm at home. I posted last month wondering about potty training and she is definitely ready! I've had her in undies at home as much as possible and there's still a lot of accidents but we're slowly increasing the number of 'catches' and she's starting to go at daycare too. She is definitely not going to be one of those kids who gets potty trained in a week but she really, really wants to do it and always asks for underwear as soon as we get home from daycare.

She sleeps waaay too much at daycare - my job starts so early that she falls asleep in the car on the way there (if I've even bothered to wake her up to get her dressed) and then naps in the afternoon. She does NOT want to go down at night now. She's still nursing down so I've cut out coffee until we can move her routine, and it's killing me

zzzzzz

We are actively TTC#2 after a few months off since we had an eary m/c in March. This past two cycles I have counted days and next month I'll be charting temperatures if we don't get lucky.

 

[azmomtoone]

Quote:

Libby is doing great, talking up a storm at home. I posted last month wondering about potty training and she is definitely ready! I've had her in undies at home as much as possible and there's still a lot of accidents but we're slowly increasing the number of 'catches' and she's starting to go at daycare too. She is definitely not going to be one of those kids who gets potty trained in a week but she really, really wants to do it and always asks for underwear as soon as we get home from daycare.

DS was doing the pee-in-the potty a couple times a day for quite awhile too.... a couple things that helped alot (read in a book, not my own ideas) were getting a potty doll, showing him how to dump the potty carefully himself (practicing w/ the doll first, so it's only water if it does spill, show him how to use both hands on opposite sides of the bowl and walk slow); and then concentrating on him being dry, rather than going potty. (we ask him several times a day if his pants are dry, and hugs & high-fives if they are. Nothing when he goes potty, or if we do, it's "hey, good job keeping your pants dry" type of thing) With those things, he started going even when we weren't right there putting him on the potty; we've walked in on him several times going potty or taking the potty bowl to empty it all by himself. Still has accidents, I don't think there's really any such thing as potty training in a day....or at least not until the kid's much older then ours are. (of course I could be wrong).... Most of our accidents now are either because he went on the potty and forgot to pull his pants down first, or because he pulled his pants down then peed over the top /side of the "boy deflector" and got his pants wet. So working on those two things now. He does great if he's naked or shirt only.... but for one, it's cold; and for two, he does need to learn to pull his pants up and down. The aim thing too.

 

[AllisonR]

First Blue Butterfly, thanks so much for starting a new thread for us all.

:

Jill - how is Fiona? I mean her teeth. I read the other post that she had root canals and fillings. You posted previously about teeth problems, but I don't remember exactly. Why did she have to have root canals?

Quote:

Originally Posted by azmomtoone But since Wednesday for the most part he's used the potty, with just a couple accidents - most of those being where he goes on the potty but forgets to pull his pants down. He wants to dump the potty himself too so we had to show him how to hold both ends of it; and he tries so hard to walk slowly & not splash. It's cute to watch him concentrating so hard.

Congrats on the potty to Alek. Don't you love seeing the wheels spin above their foreheads?

Quote:

Originally Posted by azmomtoone I am NOT adjusting well to the tantrums at all! Working on it but sometimes my best strategy is just to leave the room and ignore him for awhile. Which I feel bad about...just sometimes I want to throw a tantrum right alongside him for awhile. We don't have too many set-in-stone rules (working towards consensual living but it's a very new concept for me; and also barely 2 is very young for some of those concepts to be practical IMO.) but it seems like every time we get to one of them there's a tantrum over it. No plans for christmas yet.... since we're away from our families we've been talking about trying to come up with some sort of atypical thing to start a tradition for our own family. Like maybe camping every christmas......

Sometimes I walk off when Lea has a tantrum as well. She is focused on screaming her lungs out that she is inconsolable. Hugging and tenderness doesn't work, a firm removal doesn't work, distraction doesn't work.... so I gently walk off and do something else until she is able to get through it herself. If I try to engage her again too soon, it often just promotes more screaming rage, and I've found I really have to leave her to it, even though I wish I could help more.

Luckily she doesn't hit, without telling us first. Like this evening, she said she was going to hit DS. So I said no, she wasn't allowed to, so she said she would hit the bed, and I said that was a good idea and we both wacked it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by blue butterfly Abbi can be so sweet and gentle and loving and then other time, like this morning, she was hitting me with a DVD case : i agree that gentle discipline can be quite hard at this age, i just started reading "playful parenting" and hope to find some suggestions in there on how to work with her instead of against her. So is anyone else thinking about or actively ttc??? November was the first month dh and i started trying, and i will test tomorrow morning as AF is 3 days late and i've been having some bouts of queasiness, fingers crossed

Quote:

Originally Posted by MPsSweetie How exciting!! We are thinking about TTC starting in May/June of 2009. I really like to have some time between babies. We have a fall baby and a spring baby, so now we need a summer and winter. We did have an oops the other day though... errrr.... I don't think it was the right time though.

Not technically possible anymore. snip, snip, kwim? I still enjoy holding a babe, but at 42 with 2 of my own, and DH comes with 2 more, I am done. Sending you both good fertility vibes though. MPsSweetie, when you are finished with summer and winter, you can try for a leap year babe. I've had 2 winter babes, and love it, because if it has got to be drab and dark out, might as well be when they are newborns and don't give a hoot anyway, and at that stage, I'm too tired to notice.

We have also hit a really good spot. I think our family has really come together well, and most of the times now are really happy. I am soooo grateful that DS and DD enjoy each other so much and rarely fight and I hope it never ends!

Quote:

Originally Posted by azmomtoone Our 2 yr check-up is Friday. We've decided to continue delaying vaxes (our initial plan was none before 2 yrs and then to start selective vaxing on a more spaced out schedule than typically recommended, and have them (the ones we deemed "necessary") done before he started school. Well, we're pretty set on hs/us'ing now so no deadline left and after talking it over, we initially narrowed down to just tetanus only then decided against that one as well. Have to ask about speech and whatnot again, not too confident in the EI once-a-month speech therapy that feels more like a social call then anything else when they come (esp after being told to punish him for dragging his head on the carpet, when I brought up concerns about him giving himself rugburn on his forehead) (posted about it in the SN forum awhile back)

Bolding mine. WTH? Someone told you to punish a small child for dragging their head on carpet!! Sounds like your son had a need, and instead of address it or comfort, you are supposed to punish? Some people are nuts, really. And congrats on the "closet anti-vax" doc! We did all DS on schedule, but delayed with DD. We travel a lot though, so we will do them all, eventually.

I have finished shopping for DS and DD, but I haven't started with family. DH is impossible to buy for. He just wants PC equipment. So I may get him a digital photo frame, but they are EXPENSIVE! We are also having a reasonably quiet Christmas. Just us and bil, sil and their older kids, and farmor and farfar (DHs parents) who are wonderful people.

Tomorrow night DH and I are going to a Christmas party and staying overnight at the hotel.

BIL & SIL will take DS and DD. Hurray!!! We do this about 2 times a year, and have no other access to baby sitters at all, so it is a really big treat for us.

 

[superstella]

Yay, I'm feeling human again!

:

No ttc here either, no more for us although I'd have 5 more if I could. IPF (being sick) has kind of put the stopper on that.

How was the Christmas party and being away Allison? Good I hope, sounds like fun!

It's snowing here, but nothing that is supposed to amount to anything. I could do without it and skip right through til spring. I hate winter, hate snow, hate cold, yuck. I suppose it's a necessary evil though.

I'll be holed up in my house here until March or so.

.

 

[angrypixiemama]

Hi everyone! I was so happy to find our thread.

I will post the whole tooth saga, in the hopes that it might help someone else. DD's teeth came in early, especially her top 4. She still had terrible acid reflux at that point (she had it from birth to about 11 months). I tried to wipe her teeth down after she refluxed, and I did use a finger brush, etc. We have always brushed her teeth at least twice a day: the sitter and nana have brushes as well.

Last July we noticed a slight ditch in her front top tooth. I took her to my dentist three times, but he wasn't alarmed. However, it seemed to be getting worse to me, so we were referred to a pediatric dentist.

That office is the only one nearby (90 minutes) that we have heard good things about. So we went, and the dentist was not kind. He claimed that we must never have brushed her teeth, etc. I was a wreck. He said that there was terrible amounts of decay behind her teeth, which he could just see by using a dental mirror. Anyhow, he became kinder when we mentioned the reflux, and said that he has seen that affect teeth this way before. The acid had been eating at her enamel, and the medication that she had been given for it of course had sweetener added, which probably didn't help.

Long story short - she needed 5 root canals, and 4 crowns. The crowns are her four upper teeth - all the ones that were in when she was refluxing. He also did a root canal on the one lower tooth she had while refluxing - it was showing damage as well. She came through it fine, but it was seriously a horrible experience. I hope we never have to do it again.

So if you know anyone whose child has severe reflux, tell them to stay on top of their teeth. Our ped said we didn't need to take her to a dentist until she was nearly three - I began taking her at 18 months and it was already too late for what had been going on.

On a lighter note, holidays here are fun. Fiona wants more and more "Pissmuss yights!" And her favorite thing is to play with the baby Jesuses from my nativities (I have collected them since I was a child.) The other day I heard her say, "Mommy, come here. Baby Jesus needs a hug. Baby Jesus pooped. He need a Dora pull-up (we have a few of them for potty training)." Then she got out her container of Burts Bees powder, covered poor Baby Jesus, and put him in a pull up. She carried that pull-up around for hours, saying, "mmm. Baby Jesus smell good."

We are considering TTC here as well. I get excited/nervous just thinking about another baby.

 

[MidnightCommando]

Not much time to type - DD is needing a LOT of attnetion this last week. Hoping it's a phase, she has been so cranky and nothing we do pleases her.

We took her yesterday to get photos taken for our Christmas cards. They were able to coax 3 smiles out of her and the 4th picture is a pouty one!

You can check them out here is you want
http://mystudio.kiddiekandids.com/Ed...29349658&sit=0

Obviously DP and I are big football fans

 

[azmomtoone]

DS discovered "no" this past weekend. Oh boy.

Everything is no even if he just asked for it.... He loves bananas, the other day, he was signing banana, and grabbing for them; DH peeled one and tried to give it to him....DS yells "Noooooo!" and runs screaming all the way through the house. Only to come back like three minutes later and grab it off the table and eat it.

It's funny and cute, but annoying too.

MC- thanks for your advice on the stock! I made some chicken tortilla soup w/ it and it was awesome!

I can't see your pictures though, not sure if it's me or the links not working?