National Children's Dental Health Month

My popular demand I have decided to offer some free dental advice for your kids. Here are some of the common questions I get from parents.When should my child first see the dentist?

The recommended time is within 6 months of the first tooth erupting or by 1 year old.
Why so early?

So we can keep you from making any early mistakes. J/K Too make sure the parents know how to care for the teeth, diet habits, catch any problems early, basically to educate the parents and to acclimate the children to the happy world of dentistry. (Imagine how much easier it would be to fix a cavity on a 3 year old who knows you and has already been to the office 3 or 4 times for happy things, rather than have to do a filling at the first visit. Much easier.)
When should I start flossing my child's teeth?

Now! Well, as soon as he has two teeth that are touching and the brush cannot go in between. I recommend the Reach Access Flosser. It's great! And yes you should floss them. And yes you should be brushing their teeth for them too, believe me you are only fooling yourself if you thing your kids are brushing adequately. (I'm sure some of them are but most are not.)
Fluoride?

Yes fluoride is safe and I support water fluoridation.

And one last question because I'm getting really angry with the dell tech support guy named Mithun! I hate talking to these people! (My blogging seems to keep being interrupted by my anger issues these days.)

Cavities is not as much based on how much candy/sugar/carbohydrates you/the child eats, rather on the frequency. Example, drinking a coke all at once is not too damaging to the tooth, but the same amount spread throughout the day will have a much more damaging effect on the teeth. So try to control and limit the amount of times the kids are snacking and drinking between meals and only let them/you drink water between meals.

Well, if you have any dental questions, let me have 'em!

Sammy oh Sammy

I had a great blog planned:

It starts with how cute Sam was on Sunday. He wanted to wear some Khaki shorts and a vest with his blue shirt to church. We convinced him he would be too cold and for once he actually listened without a tantrum. Then at night he came to me with some clothes in hand asking if he could wear them as PJs. I assented without much investigation or thought. This is the result:

He looked so cute and silly. I hadn't realized he had a sweater vest in hand.

Then tonight M. was at piano and Sam had been good during dinner and helped me get the little boy into bed, so I took him down stairs to make JELLO pudding. IT was a fun activity together.

Then we ate it in the family room as a "picnic." A great evening with my boy!

BUT the post in my mind was a little ruined and turned out like this:

Sam wouldn't go to bed tonight and lost his "cuddle privilege" and fell a sleep SCREAMING/SHRIEKING while I held the door shut for 20 minutes! So I don't feel like blogging tonight.

Funniest Thing I've Read........since Em's last post

Em just forwarded this to me from her Google Reader. My brother Dave and I, especially him, would make fun of these non-parable parables shared in sacrament meeting. (Especially him, did I say that already. He can be a little irreverent at times). This one had me loling.

A Parable

via My Religious Blog by Gatsby on 2/21/09

Do you like parables? I like parables. I don’t always remember all of the details of the story - which is fine because often when we hear parables in talks they are different each time anyway. As long as we remember the lessons being taught, which is really the point of the parable after all, isn’t it? So anyway today I thought I would share with you one of my favorite parables in case you want to print it out and share it in sacrament meeting:

One time there was a guy in the mountains. Or maybe it was a young man. Like an Indian kid or maybe it was a lady. Anyway, they were outside and in a rural setting. Maybe in a mountain or by a river. Or was it at a park in the city?

The point is she was outside and heard a little voice say “hello” and he looked around and saw lizard – or it could have been a snake. Or a rat. But either way, it had developed human speech and learned a rudimentary form of English. And it said “pick me up” and the Indian boy was like “no, you are a rattle snake. You will bite me if I pick you up” Or maybe it was a scorpion and the kid said, “you will sting me…” Or maybe it was an eradiated rock.

But the rat was like “no, I won’t. I am a nice scorpion, now give me a kiss and I will grant you three wishes” and the girl didn’t want to, but the lizard convinced her to eventually, so the man put it in his pocket and carried it down the rocky cliff and when he got to the bottom of the cave, she took the sharp toothed marsupial out of her knapsack and it immediately sunk its teeth into her fleshy calf muscles.

So the old lady looks down at the badger and says “you said you weren’t going to shoot me.” And the magic rock says “look Poindexter, you knew what I was when you picked me up” And the boy was like “well what about my three wishes?” and the rat said “nah. I changed my mind about that” and then it slithered off and left Brer Bear to bleed to death.

The moral of this story is that sometimes sin can feel good - in fact depending on what sin we are talking about, sometimes it can feel REALLY good. But in the end, you will go to hell if you are nice to the little jungle creatures.

Also I think the boy’s last words were “it mattered to that one” because the poison had reached his brain and he had become delusional.

Prayer

Yesterday, Sam got a scratch on his big toe from the sharp metal corner at the bottom of the screen door. It laid him up for a good 2 or 3 hours. Again this morning it produced some good screaming as he changed the band-aid.

After church today we were eating lunch and he said, "Jesus can fix my toe." (This was said with a I know it all inflexion in his voice.)

Em told him, "That's right. Do you want to say a prayer and ask him?"

"Yeah," he replied and added as he hurried away to his play area under the stairs, "I'll go somewhere where there is peace and quiet."

A minute later I heard him shouting Jesus' name a few times. Then he came back and muttered, "I called him but he didn't come."

Of course we then discussed how it all works and that He can answer our prayers in different ways then we expect, but it was quite adorable to witness the sweet faith of this child. Its nice to see that he is learning something at church. Thank you Brother and Sister Haltli!

Em's Only Birthday Wish

I thought I would publicly announce that it is not easy being a Stay At Home Mother. (This is what she has been waiting to hear for 7 years and two months.) I tried it for the past week and a half and it turns out it is hard. I started out strong. I got the floor swept and mopped. Vacuumed the stairs and upstairs (down stairs had already been vacuumed after the poop terrorist attack). Had the kids on a good schedule, sent Max to school with a lunch everyday except the day they had whole wheat cheese pizza. Then I started running out of steam. Time slipped away more and more with out as much getting done. Motivation started to decline and my patience wained a bit. What I did learn, beyond it not being easy (However, Emily, I never did say it was, you just always think I think that!), is that it is very important and worth having my wonderful and beautiful wife staying with my kids. It takes a lot of self motivation and planning and it is easy to get into a depressed slump. They get gain so much from being with her. She is so filled with love for them and they get so much nurture therefrom. (I like that word)

Now I know many people are in many different circumstances and many people work for many different reasons (so no one get OFFENDED, OK!). Each day I walk past the Base's CDC, Child Development Center or daycare, 4 times. I often see the cute kids playing there after school or the workers taking the little babies/toddlers for walking in giant strollers or wagons and marvel at how sweet and cute the kiddies are. Then my heart sinks a bit when I see the parents drop them off early in the morning and pick them up late in the evening. I then am so thankful that we have been blessed to be able to have Em stay at home with our boys. She is the greatest SAHM ever and the best wife too!

Happy Birthday Sweetie!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*I'll still hold out that it is harder being a working SAHD. =)
**These are our good freinds Merrill and Janeen!

Its all about Packaging

The Japanese take great pride in their packaging and the price demonstrates it. They have great presentation in the stores for their apples, grapes...everything. We saw this lovely cantaloupe yesterday! Max was totally hooked, but I didn't cave. It was 1980 Yen. At the current rate of 88Yen to the $ that's $22.50!!!

Sleedin'

Stop me if I've posted this before...
The base has a really cool sledding hill. I guess its really a ski hill, but then it would be a lame ski hill. So I'll call it a really cool sledding hill. Its so much fun. Good pitch to the hill, great length for a long fast slide down the hill. Amazingly the boys haven't complained about walking up the hill, as I had expected, even when the hill was iced over and we kept slipping on the way up. The first time we went there I was pleasantly surprised to find they have the hill lite up at night. Yesterday we had the whole hill to ourselves. Sam is so funny, after being sprayed in the face by the powder a few times, he figured out if he laid down and tucked his face in he'd be fine. He looks like a little black ball flying down the hill, with no idea of where he is going.And of course there was the HC.