Toothy Tuesdays: Baby teeth.

We were running out of Toothy Tuesday material, but this past week and a half of pediatric dentistry has given PLSB plenty of material to share. I'll just cut to the chase:

-Baby teeth are important! They are necessary for chewing, looking good and guiding the permanent teeth into place. As soon as a kid gets any teeth in their mouth they must be brushed or wiped.

-Don't put your baby to bed with a bottle. Sugar and milk marinating on the baby's teeth all night equals mucho, mucho cavities.

-Start transitioning away from a bottle, pacifier or thumb when the kid is a year old so that all the suckling motions won't interfere with expected development of the roof of the mouth and positioning of the teeth.

-Only drink juice, soda, gatorade, etc at meal times. Eating and chewing stimulates saliva release, naturally cleansing the mouth. In between meals, when saliva isn't flowing as much, acidic drinks keep the mouth at a bacteria friendly pH, never letting the mouth get back to neutral. Water is the best thing, especially water straight from the tap that contains fluoride. (This bullet is for adults too).

-Kids only need a dot of toothpaste--the size of a grain of rice. Kids also need help and supervision brushing.

-And as my classmate said, "if you love your child, you won't let their teeth rot." Seriously, you may have to hold a kid down, but you are doing more harm by not brushing and soaking their sweet little teeth in sugary acid. We've seen countless three year olds come in with a) rotted out numbs of teeth or b) a mouth full of silver crowns, even on the front teeth. Not to mention the poor little babes with swollen faces due to abscesses around their teeth (this can actually be quite the emergency situation).

-Extensive dental work is not done on a kid as it might be on an adult. Even the best behaved children might be simply too young to handle long and noisy dental appointments. Thus, to avoid further infection they might need to be sedated or actually sent to the operating room. You can imagine that sedation and general anesthesia would be stressful for all parties involved and should be avoided.

After the first day of my summer pediatric rotation I decided specializing in pediatrics is probably not for me. I definitely want to treat kids in my general practice, but only the GOOD kids. I was really touched this morning when the father of a patient handed me the drawing I posted above. It's easy to get discouraged when working with patients or parents of patients who don't know how to care and/or aren't willing to do their part, but this guy made my week! He was a magnificent father and an obviously talented artist. I've never gotten anything half as nice from a patient.

New life everywhere ya look.

The past couple of weeks have been filled with new life and new beginnings. First we visited Ben's precious and perfect nephew.....

I cannot comprehend how small this creature is! His sweet little face is the size of my palm. When I pointed this out, Ben said, "duh. As we learned, the neurocranium is larger than the viscerocranium for the first two years of life."

Although I didn't get to share mothers' day with my mom and grandma, I was really honored to spend the weekend with Ben's family, welcoming the newest member into the mom's club. For some reason I've never been the kind of girl to plan a dream wedding or fantasy home, but I've always known my biggest accomplishment will be motherhood. That being said, visiting the nephew didn't bring about new ideas or epiphanies about babies per say, but did make me see their effect on the greater community--the family. AND made me decide I should get lasik before giving birth so I can fall asleep at any given moment.

I failed to take pictures of the six closet dividers I made for the new baby before they were sent to his mom, so I snuck up to the nursery and got some pictures of these crafts in action.


The dividers are designed to fit around the closet rod, but this particular rod doesn't dismount so Ben's sister had to improvise with the green ribbon. This craft is so easy to make and organizes the baby's clothes by month. I chose more mature designs (if scrapbook paper can be "mature") as the clothes got bigger, but only took these two photographs. The closet divider idea came from this blog.

After our stint in Dallas to meet Ben's nephew we went to Houston to meet my new niece.....

PRINCESS LOLA MUFFIN!!! She goes by Lola and she's cuter than you thought possible.

She only weighs 1 pound, 8 ounces. I guess human babies aren't the only babies that bring families together.

As if all this baby fever wasn't enough...Brigid and I saw BABIES last night. It was definitely enjoyable watching the four babies from different cultures, observing the similarities and differences in their rearing, but we're still left wondering what we were supposed to take from the documentary! Hmmm.

One last note on children--some of them behave so badly!! We visited my sister Leah's fourth grade classroom on Friday and I have no idea how she has survived being a teacher this long with that group. I would most definitely have cried at my desk long ago. Before you get all goo goo ga ga over these cute photos I've shared and decide to start popping out the little ones--please get an education, a partner, and a positive attitude.

The most fun we've had in a long time....

Annnnnd we're back! Sorry PLSB followers, I know both of you are very sad we've been gone. Kidding--as promised here's a recount of the night we discovered Tonic.

But first, above is a photo from the lovely dinner we had that night at one of my favorites: Dough! We enjoyed various cheeses, wines, salads, panna cotta, tirimisu and good company. In a quest to get to know non-dentites we attempted befriending our waiter, but he was not buying what we were selling.

After dinner we reluctantly met some other dentites at a place called "Tonic." Little did we know, we would spend the next 4-5 hours cheering each other on and dancing the night away.

Behold this bar "game" that allows a player to insert a dollar bill and have the chance to prove his or her strength by punching this bag that comes down. Add in guys who've been drinking and like to rile each other and you've got the ultimate entertainment.


Some very excited spectators! Yasi likes to cheer with her hips.

Dentite Steve busts out a one hundred dollar bill that says he can punch harder than Guy-who-actually-just-removed-his-jersey-to-participate. This photograph was taken at the height of the punching bag frenzy. There were about 15 dudes standing around cheering, grunting, punching and acting in general barbaric fashion. Soon after this photo the reigning punching bag high-scorer, we'll call him Ed Hardy, came over to gloat and taunt.

The rambunctious crowd has died down and I see this as my opportunity to give the punching bag a go.

It hurt me more than I hurt it. Womp wommmmp.

Yasi looks afraid before the bag has even dropped! She made us proud though.

Ben's getting some tips from our new friend of the evening. His name has escaped me, so for now he will be referred to as Hootie. Hootie is the bouncer at a Riverwalk bar and has an amazing singing voice & stage presence.

Will, Hootie, Yasi, and Navin enjoying the calm before the karaoke storm.

As a girl who can sometimes be a little too high-strung about making plans (not super anal planning, but I like to have a general idea) this night at Tonic showed me that great opportunities pop up when you stop stressing over their arrival. Here's to many more nights with my great friends who have gotten me through 3rd year! Thank you.

Outdoor remedy

Lately I've been craving a lot of this...

And this...

I'm not picky. I'd take sunshine and beaches, rivers and mountains or any combination at this point. I've got a nasty case of cabin fever setting in and I just need to be outside for more than a few hours on the weekends. Preferably sooner than later. Is that too much to ask??