The whole tooth (Isaac update)
The other day I hit a new parenting milestone: I pulled my first tooth! It was Isaac's fifth loose tooth and the first time he ever managed to get up the nerve to ask me to pull it out, so I felt that I needed to "woman up" and overcome my native squeamishness about loose teeth.
I don't know whether I've said this here before, but loose teeth seriously squick me. I can remember feeling that way even when I was a kid and they were my own loose teeth. The wiggly part is okay, but the sensation of a tooth that's "hanging by a thread," and worse, the sensation of pulling it out -- I cringe just typing about it!
Isaac's first tooth to come out was perhaps the easiest for both of us. It had been loose for a while, and then one day he bit into a sandwich and it just popped out. Minimal pain, minimal blood, no trauma.
The second one came out while he was at school (in fact, on the first or second day of school!). So I don't know how much blood or trauma was involved, because I didn't have to deal with it. ;) His teacher did, and she's been teaching first and second grade for like a thousand years, so she has seen many teeth come out. She even had a teeny little tooth-shaped plastic container to put it in, which was awesome.
The third tooth produced major amounts of drama when it was torn almost-all-the-way-out at a Red Sox game on Isaac's birthday. I posted about that here. What a nightmare that whole thing was!
The fourth tooth became super-loose one afternoon when Isaac was at summer camp, and one of the counselors pulled it out. Then it became a whole drama where they couldn't find the tooth when I came to pick Isaac up, LOL, but it turned up eventually. It was funny picking him up that evening because as soon as I walked in, a bunch of other kids started shouting at me, which in retrospect I realize they were saying "Isaac's tooth came out" but it was so noisy I couldn't understand a word of it. Then I walked over to where he was, and one of the teachers poked him and said "Show your mom!" and he showed me his new gap-toothed smile.
So that's where he stood as of the beginning of this week: the front bottom two teeth have grown back in, but the top front two have not, even though it has been several months now. Wondering if I should worry about that. But anyway, so he has had this big gap in the top front for several months now, and has figured out how to eat everything he wants to eat despite it -- even apples and corn-on-the-cob! -- by biting with his side teeth instead. And then the fifth tooth became loose, one of the ones next to the bottom front ones. I've started to notice the pattern now: first he'll comment occasionally that a tooth is a little loose; then he'll start sporadically complaining that the tooth bothers him when he eats; then he'll start sporadically refusing his preferred foods (especially ones that he thinks will be hard to chew, like carrots). And then after that progression, which can take several weeks, we finally reach the point where the tooth is so loose that it basically has to come out. Which is where we ended up with this one on Wednesday morning. Isaac said something like, "this tooth is so loose, surely it must come out!" and I said "well, you can pull it out with your fingers," which got an emphatic refusal ;) and then I said, quite reluctantly, "do you want me to pull it out with my fingers?" and he hemmed and hawed and then said a very uncertain yes. I was like, "well you don't sound too sure, so forget it." ;) No, I think what I actually said was "why don't you think about it while you get dressed." Then I went to see to Ruthie, and a minute or two later I looked in at Isaac and he wasn't getting dressed, just sitting there poking at the tooth with his tongue and looking unhappy. So I was like, dude this is ridiculous, and I made him come in the bathroom, and after a couple of false starts I finally managed to get my fingers in there and pull the thing out.
w00t! another parenting hurdle overcome! go me! :)
In other Isaac news, he has become very interested in geography and the U.S. States. It all started a few months ago when he became aware that each state has its own license plate(s) and that we can see a lot of different states' license plates as we go about our daily lives. It became a game/challenge to see how many far-away states we could find on the cars in our area. Pretty soon he (and I) became expert at recognizing the most common states (i.e., the ones nearest to us) from a distance, just by their color schemes. Toward the end of the summer, as we were going out to our family's summer cottage (an hour's drive) almost every weekend, I started printing out lists of the states, and Isaac would spend the entire drive using tally marks to keep track of how many plates he saw from each state. (I also put the Canadian provinces on the list, since we do occasionally see one of those.) When we went to NYC, he made many jokes about the fact that there were New York license plates everywhere ;) and he was very excited whenever we spotted a Massachusetts plate in New York. :)
Then he became aware that each state has its own design on a quarter, so now he's constantly wanting to look at the quarters in my pocket. Grandma got him a placemat for the kitchen table that has a map of the US, which I think she intended for him to use to learn the states and capitals ;) but of course he decided to pile the quarters onto it, each quarter on its state, which of course doesn't work too well for some of the smaller states. ;) So then grandma gave us a quarter display folio thingie that she bought back when the state quarters were first introduced -- a map of the US with cut-out spaces for you to put the quarters in. Isaac is very pleased.
Meanwhile I also introduced him to the Place The State game, which he is greatly enjoying. And (shh! don't tell him!) he might even be learning a thing or two from it! ;)
Isaac has also developed an interest in football. He enjoyed watching the past two Super Bowls with grandma, but then this summer/fall he started getting more into it. At first I thought it was just a substitute for baseball when that season ended, but it's clear that he actually enjoys football too. It turns out that they have a football simulation game (Madden) on the PSP at his summer camp/afterschool, so he has been playing that and has actually learned a fair bit about the game and the teams and the players from it. (For a while there I was a bit displeased with the amount of time he was spending on the Playstation at afterschool, but the administrator seems to have realized that it was excessive and has put in much firmer limits on it.) Now he wants to watch the Patriots game every weekend, and when there isn't a Patriots game on, he wants to watch whatever other football game happens to be on. ;) I'm actually starting to get moderately interested in it as well -- for years I couldn't at all figure out the game; it honestly just looked to me like they stood around for a while, then they formed up, and then they all jumped on top of each other and the fans cheered. LOL. ;) But now I'm starting to pick up on the basics of how the game works, and it's fun to watch sometimes -- especially when my second-grader has to explain what happened to me. ;) heh.
Don't tell Isaac (shh!) but I'm pondering the idea of getting him the Madden game for the Wii as a winter-holiday present. I keep waffling back and forth on whether this is a great idea or a completely terrible idea. ;)
I could write a lot more about Isaac, but then I'd never get this posted.... ;)
I don't know whether I've said this here before, but loose teeth seriously squick me. I can remember feeling that way even when I was a kid and they were my own loose teeth. The wiggly part is okay, but the sensation of a tooth that's "hanging by a thread," and worse, the sensation of pulling it out -- I cringe just typing about it!
Isaac's first tooth to come out was perhaps the easiest for both of us. It had been loose for a while, and then one day he bit into a sandwich and it just popped out. Minimal pain, minimal blood, no trauma.
The second one came out while he was at school (in fact, on the first or second day of school!). So I don't know how much blood or trauma was involved, because I didn't have to deal with it. ;) His teacher did, and she's been teaching first and second grade for like a thousand years, so she has seen many teeth come out. She even had a teeny little tooth-shaped plastic container to put it in, which was awesome.
The third tooth produced major amounts of drama when it was torn almost-all-the-way-out at a Red Sox game on Isaac's birthday. I posted about that here. What a nightmare that whole thing was!
The fourth tooth became super-loose one afternoon when Isaac was at summer camp, and one of the counselors pulled it out. Then it became a whole drama where they couldn't find the tooth when I came to pick Isaac up, LOL, but it turned up eventually. It was funny picking him up that evening because as soon as I walked in, a bunch of other kids started shouting at me, which in retrospect I realize they were saying "Isaac's tooth came out" but it was so noisy I couldn't understand a word of it. Then I walked over to where he was, and one of the teachers poked him and said "Show your mom!" and he showed me his new gap-toothed smile.
So that's where he stood as of the beginning of this week: the front bottom two teeth have grown back in, but the top front two have not, even though it has been several months now. Wondering if I should worry about that. But anyway, so he has had this big gap in the top front for several months now, and has figured out how to eat everything he wants to eat despite it -- even apples and corn-on-the-cob! -- by biting with his side teeth instead. And then the fifth tooth became loose, one of the ones next to the bottom front ones. I've started to notice the pattern now: first he'll comment occasionally that a tooth is a little loose; then he'll start sporadically complaining that the tooth bothers him when he eats; then he'll start sporadically refusing his preferred foods (especially ones that he thinks will be hard to chew, like carrots). And then after that progression, which can take several weeks, we finally reach the point where the tooth is so loose that it basically has to come out. Which is where we ended up with this one on Wednesday morning. Isaac said something like, "this tooth is so loose, surely it must come out!" and I said "well, you can pull it out with your fingers," which got an emphatic refusal ;) and then I said, quite reluctantly, "do you want me to pull it out with my fingers?" and he hemmed and hawed and then said a very uncertain yes. I was like, "well you don't sound too sure, so forget it." ;) No, I think what I actually said was "why don't you think about it while you get dressed." Then I went to see to Ruthie, and a minute or two later I looked in at Isaac and he wasn't getting dressed, just sitting there poking at the tooth with his tongue and looking unhappy. So I was like, dude this is ridiculous, and I made him come in the bathroom, and after a couple of false starts I finally managed to get my fingers in there and pull the thing out.
w00t! another parenting hurdle overcome! go me! :)
In other Isaac news, he has become very interested in geography and the U.S. States. It all started a few months ago when he became aware that each state has its own license plate(s) and that we can see a lot of different states' license plates as we go about our daily lives. It became a game/challenge to see how many far-away states we could find on the cars in our area. Pretty soon he (and I) became expert at recognizing the most common states (i.e., the ones nearest to us) from a distance, just by their color schemes. Toward the end of the summer, as we were going out to our family's summer cottage (an hour's drive) almost every weekend, I started printing out lists of the states, and Isaac would spend the entire drive using tally marks to keep track of how many plates he saw from each state. (I also put the Canadian provinces on the list, since we do occasionally see one of those.) When we went to NYC, he made many jokes about the fact that there were New York license plates everywhere ;) and he was very excited whenever we spotted a Massachusetts plate in New York. :)
Then he became aware that each state has its own design on a quarter, so now he's constantly wanting to look at the quarters in my pocket. Grandma got him a placemat for the kitchen table that has a map of the US, which I think she intended for him to use to learn the states and capitals ;) but of course he decided to pile the quarters onto it, each quarter on its state, which of course doesn't work too well for some of the smaller states. ;) So then grandma gave us a quarter display folio thingie that she bought back when the state quarters were first introduced -- a map of the US with cut-out spaces for you to put the quarters in. Isaac is very pleased.
Meanwhile I also introduced him to the Place The State game, which he is greatly enjoying. And (shh! don't tell him!) he might even be learning a thing or two from it! ;)
Isaac has also developed an interest in football. He enjoyed watching the past two Super Bowls with grandma, but then this summer/fall he started getting more into it. At first I thought it was just a substitute for baseball when that season ended, but it's clear that he actually enjoys football too. It turns out that they have a football simulation game (Madden) on the PSP at his summer camp/afterschool, so he has been playing that and has actually learned a fair bit about the game and the teams and the players from it. (For a while there I was a bit displeased with the amount of time he was spending on the Playstation at afterschool, but the administrator seems to have realized that it was excessive and has put in much firmer limits on it.) Now he wants to watch the Patriots game every weekend, and when there isn't a Patriots game on, he wants to watch whatever other football game happens to be on. ;) I'm actually starting to get moderately interested in it as well -- for years I couldn't at all figure out the game; it honestly just looked to me like they stood around for a while, then they formed up, and then they all jumped on top of each other and the fans cheered. LOL. ;) But now I'm starting to pick up on the basics of how the game works, and it's fun to watch sometimes -- especially when my second-grader has to explain what happened to me. ;) heh.
Don't tell Isaac (shh!) but I'm pondering the idea of getting him the Madden game for the Wii as a winter-holiday present. I keep waffling back and forth on whether this is a great idea or a completely terrible idea. ;)
I could write a lot more about Isaac, but then I'd never get this posted.... ;)