I stayed up until 3:30AM working last night. At one point, I went to check on everyone. Henry was snuggled into Jeff, looking angelic and content. Adding to the cuteness was Miss R who had moved across the bed and sidled up to Henry, putting her head on his arm. Oh so cute!
Around 2AM, I heard noise coming from the bedroom. Jeff came out of the room with Henry in one arm and puke along side his other. We went to the kitchen where I cleaned them up with a wet wash cloth. I got Henry some water to clear out his mouth and then did some clean up in the bedroom. Jeff sat in the living room with Henry for awhile. Henry was calm, but eventually asked to "go to bed" and so they did.
Around 7AM, I got up and looked in on the gang. I'd slept in what should and hopefully eventually will be the kids' bedroom. Henry and Jeff looked exhausted. Miss R was waking up and in a very good mood. She's finally settling down into a better night time routine. When she wakes up well-rested, she is a delight. She woke up Henry and Jeff with her chatter. We decided that it was best not to take Henry to school. While he technically could have gone to school based on their guidelines on sick children and he seemed OK this morning, we decided not to chance it. We didn't want Henry to have a relapse at school. We decided to let Miss R go to school as she hasn't shown the slightest inkling of being sick. As I got ready to take Miss R to school, Henry said, "Stay home with Daddy." He'd actually been paying attention to me several minutes earlier when I told him that he would be spending the day with Daddy.
We ran late this morning. I didn't get Miss R to school until about 8:45AM. She has seemed really taken with Miss Kristen as of late. I gave her a hug, put her down, and she ran across the room to give her teacher a huge hug. I talked to the developmental coordinator for the school in the hallway for awhile. She strikes me as a very proactive, upbeat individual. I learned that they keep developmental profiles on the kids. Apparently, they move kids around classrooms in August and January. I'm guessing that Miss R will have to wait to January to move up to the two year old room. Although we placed Henry into his class by his actual age, it sounds like he'll actually be in that same classroom until he is 2 adjusted just b/c they don't switch kids around in May.
Jeff took the day off work to take care of Henry. Henry had a fabulous time and was obviously enjoying himself when I arrived back home. The living room was already a disaster as the boys had been playing Couch Mountain while watching the PGA Championship. Henry told me he was watching "TNT!" He also wandered about the living room with his golf club hitting balls and saying "Tiger Woods." It came out several times as "Tigre Woods." He is getting some loft on the balls, which is impressive. I guess that Jeff won't get too upset if Henry ends up breaking a window as long as a golf club is involved and Henry is using good form.
Henry took a nap in his bedroom today. Jeff says that he goes to sleep fairly quickly...once he stops talking, that is.
When it was time to head out the door to get Miss R, Henry said, "I'm ready to go." I was obviously holding up the show putting my shoes on. We picked up Miss R in the afternoon. She was in a different classroom b/c Miss Kristen was assigned a different "early voyagers" class to watch and Miss R wanted to be with her. They switch the teachers around in the early morning and mid-afternoon depending on the teacher: student ratios. We went to the kids' first dental appointment with Dr. Bunch. As we drove around the parking lot looking for a space, Henry said "Dr. Bianchi!" The dentist's office was indeed in the same complex as his pediatrician's office.
Unfortunately, our dental insurance doesn't pay for pediatric dentists. We could have taken Henry to my dentist. One dentist per household for some reason, according to our policy. Given Henry's history, I wanted him to see a pediatric dentist. And the choice was a good one, even if it meant that we had to pay out of pocket (ouch!) for Henry. Miss R was covered though; her insurance is more comprehensive than ours.
As we walked into the office, there was a loft at the far end for kids to play. There was also a Pacman videogame table. One could play free of charge. I filled out the paperwork as the kids played. They loved the loft. The dental hygenist came out and talked with us in the waiting room so that the kids could play while she gave us some background on what to do under certain circumstances if kids hurt their front teeth (a concern given their age and propensity to bump into things). She seemed pleased that we are cautious in the amount of juice that we give the kids and that we don't give them sugary drinks as a normal part of their diet. Milk and water. Juice sparingly.
The dentist's working area was a large room with five dental chairs and some regular chairs for parents. The dental hygenist had explained that with kids their age, we'd probably be doing the holding, but she had the kids climb in the chairs to get used to the idea of them. I put Miss R into the chair that she instructed me to. The chair next to us was occupied by a patient being treated by the dentist. Henry was all over the place. He found a chair across the room to climb in. Henry joined Miss R in her chair as the dentist got ready to exam them. I put Miss R in my lap.
Dr. Bunch introduced himself and decided to start with Henry. He explained again that they usually don't exam kids Henry's age in the chair, but he'd give it a shot. I gave Dr. Bunch the background on Henry's prematurity. He asked Henry to open up, and Henry did. The doctor was surprised. Henry didn't fuss until about halfway through the exam. Dr. Bunch said that Henry had nice teeth. He didn't see anything wrong with the enamel. It is fairly common for preemies to have enamel "hypoplasia" which is associated with tooth decay down the road. I've also heard parents of micropreemies report that their kids' teeth get worn down fast. Between Henry's extremely premature birth (skipping out on the calcium transferred in the third trimester), the length of time that he was on diuretics in the NICU (about 2 months), and the warnings we had received about how he was at high risk for brittle bones from the sapping of calcium from his body, I was anticipating a less positive report. Dr. Bunch repeated how surprised he was that Henry opened right up. He said that kids don't usually cooperate in such a fashion until they are 36 months or so.
Then, it was Miss R's turn. Dr. Bunch had her sit in my lap facing me. He sat in front of us. I lowered her head into his lap holding her arms. Her exam didn't go so well. The first thing that he said was that she had hypoplasia in her bottom right tooth. I thought that I'd seen something in that area the other day, but I was hoping that I was mistaken. He also said that she had other teeth that didn't look good. Four cavitities right now. He wants us to start using children's tooth paste with fluroide. He normally doesn't recommend it until kids turn 26 months b/c it can theoretically cause some discoloration of the teeth if given too early. In Miss R's case, she has to have it so that the teeth don't rapidly decay any worse than they are. He is going to put some coating on her teeth next month. He is hoping to slow down the problem. In a child her age, if he does fillings, she'd have to be put under. He does have an anesthisiologist on staff. Because of a condition that she has, it is unclear whether they'd want to risk putting her under in his office, which is what they normally do. He is going to consult the anesthisiologist and see if it would be better to perform the fillings at TMC (one of the hospitals in town). Hopefully, the coatings will slow things so that she wouldn't require the fillings right away. He said that her teeth were more consistent of children with circumstances like Henry who were born very early and didn't get the nutrition in utero that they needed. To clarify, I asked what were the causes of enamel hypoplasia. He said: (1) poor nutrition in utero, (2) bad diet, and (3) individual propensities. Often a combination of things.
The kids were given toys toward the end of the examinations. Henry checked out the office again. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, "Looking around." As I was paying for his examination and fluoride treatment, he managed to bump his head against the receptionist's desk. He was upset at first but then I asked him to sing "Five Little Monkeys." He stopped crying and gave his best performance of the song ever.
We decided to take the kids to "Monkey Business" for games and dinner. They were excited to be there. I won a dinosaur toy for Miss R. She liked playing the SpongeBob car game. Henry was all over the place. The dinner was good, but Miss R was cranky and didn't take well to being told "no" after poking me in the face with a fork and then later putting macaroni in Henry's hair. I took her to time out in the car for a minute. She seemed calmer after crying for a minute and recognized that if she stopped, she could go back inside. But then she got moody about something else. Jeff took her to time out a second time b/c she was screaming her head off at being told "no" again. We'd contemplated leaving, but I thought that would send her the wrong message: Everyone gets punished when Miss R acts up. We aren't that strict, but we do have boundaries when it comes to throwing tantrums, especially in public. I think that she was very tired. Not sure why. She'd slept 2 hours 40 minutes at school during nap time. She fell asleep on the way home.
Henry stayed up and watched "Monsters, Inc." Toward the end, I fell asleep. Princess was snuggled into me. Henry came over to us and put his head on Princess to snuggle with her too. I had my hand on her so that she knew she was OK. I wasn't going to let Henry crush her with his love.
Miss R is asleep in our bed right now. Jeff put Henry to sleep in his new bed! Not just a nap but a real, honest to goodness attempt at a night's sleep! Jeff moved our sound machine into the kids' bedroom so that Henry can go to sleep with the sound of the waves, our usual night time background noise.
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