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??

Oh, summer vacay hasn't started yet?!

This past weekend has been so fun/kind of crazy yet relaxing at the same time. I need to remind myself daily that the few fleeting weeks of summer vacation I have are still in fact weeks away. I started off the weekend with a couple hours of sand volleyball, arguably my favorite sport to play. Competitive, diving around in the sand, soaking up sunshine outside, you can't beat it! Then in honor of Earth Day I went to watch DisneyNature's Oceans with a few awesome people. There are some crazy looking fish out there and I highly recommend the movie. It's really cool to see but also a disturbing reminder that humans are basically ruining the planet. Scary.

On Friday I enjoyed a lazy morning and eventually dragged myself out of bed to get ready for a day trip to Austin. First stop...SnoBeach! If i didn't feel guilty about wasting all the gas and time to get there, I would drive up regularly just for these snow cones. There are a couple of locations around Austin but I always end up going to the one on Guadalupe simply out of convenience. With my snow cone came some serious college nostalgia so I walked around campus while enjoying my syrupy icy goodness. Those undergrad kids just don't know how good they have it!

So then I was waiting around for some people to get ready and I decided to make a trip to Whole Foods. The San Antonio Whole Foods could basically fit into the produce section of the Austin Whole Foods. I love that place. And that wasn't meant to be San Antonio-bashing, just an observation! Anyway, finally everyone met up and we headed over to Austin Music Hall for DJ Tiesto. I don't even know where to begin describing the things that went on at this concert. First thing we see after we park are a bunch of girls walking around in their skivies with fur knee-high boots and pacifiers in their mouths. Among other reasons, I will not do drugs because grown women should not be walking around with pacifiers. Anyway, when you walked into the concert you were greeted by bright lights, heavy bass and a huge mass of people packed together like sardines.

We danced for five hours straight, losing some people in our crew and meeting up with others along the way. My friend May was with me the whole time and she might have been the only other person that danced as much as I did. We ended up toward the front so close to the speakers that my ears were still ringing when I woke up on May's couch the next/same morning. We were also probably the only two people not smoking pot or taking ecstasy in the whole place. I was getting dizzy with all the bright, flashing lights I can't imagine how everyone else was feeling! All in all it was an awesome experience that I would probably partake in again although not in the near future.

I came back to San Antonio on Saturday morning, sans the usual heavy feeling that accompanies my drives leaving Austin. It's funny how everything seems a little brighter when you have something...or someone...to come back to. Brigid and I enjoyed the gorgeous Saturday afternoon and a nice chat at her apartment's pool. Then due to my lack of sleep and the exhaustion settling in with it, Saturday night was kept pretty chill, dinner and a movie with some friends. Next thing I knew my lazy Sunday morning came to a close, I went on kind of disastrous run, took a poolside nap and watched The Cove (highly recommend that too!) and Monday morning was around the corner. Take home lesson: nothing like a good weekend to prevent the Monday blues.

Recap!

We did it!
Honestly, I was a little freaked out, given that I hadn't been on my bike for the two months leading up to our "tour de Tejas". And, it did take me almost this whole past week just to recover.
Last weekend, my sister Caitlin and I completed the MS150: a weekend bike tour from Houston to Austin to raise money and awareness for the National MS Society.


I just kept thinking about how many miles 150 are:


But, it was awesome! Seriously, last weekend was such a great experience! Word on the street was 13,000 people participated. I seriously had no idea that many people existed in the state of Texas who own a bike and like riding it.
We started bright and early Saturday morning:

Still pretty exhausted from the week before. Caitlin looks like she's sleeping.

Can I just take a moment to shout out how awesome B was helping us out??
He drove ALL OVER the city of Houston to help us out: picking up our packets ahead of time, picking both Caitlin and I up from hotel's and airports on Friday, driving back to Katy Saturday morning for the start, and then to La Grange Saturday morning to set our tent up so it would be ready and waiting for us when we pulled in exhausted later that day.

And, he thought he could get away with this...caught him in the act!

Ok, so back to the ride. Like I said, tons of people everywhere. I was a little worried because bikers can be quite the snobs, especially if you put thousands of them together with all their gear. The atmosphere was surprisingly positive and no gear bashing! Amazing. Everyone was truly there to have a good, positive experience and to raise awareness of MS.

The ride went through gorgeous Texas country side and the wildflowers were in full bloom. Unfortunately, trying to take pictures while you're biking is kind of unsafe...and those we did pull off were through plastic bags because of the rain, so we didn't get the best pictures during the ride.

Rest stops and one lunch stop each day were set up every 8-14 miles so we could refuel with water, gatorade, snacks and the ever-present Port-a-Pottys!



Saturday night was spent camping at in La Grange at the Fayette County fairgrounds. Every corporate team had huge tents and were BBQ-ing; plus tons of individual tents set up as well. There was a great celebratory atmosphere (heck, we had all accomplished riding 85+ miles that day!) complete with BBQ, fair food, live music, and plenty of free beer. Things didn't get too crazy though, we still had a full day of riding ahead of us to get to Austin. One thing that just feels wrong to pass up when you burned thousands of calories that day and are at a small town fairground: Funnel Cake!



But then the British couple next to us made some crude comment about how the funnel cake was great athletes food. I wanted to say something about the pitchers of beer they were drinking being great athlete food, but instead Caitlin and I just got really quiet and stopped eating the cake.

Sunday morning was another early morning with loudspeakers and music starting around 5. Thousands of us had to leave through one exit this morning and if anyone has clipped into a bike, you can imagine how dangerous that could be. They had everyone line up and then regulated the exit, only allowing a small amount to leave at a time. They didn't let anyone leave until 7, but some people began lining up at 5 to make sure they would be the first to leave...Crazies!


We didn't even get in line until 7:15 and finally got on the road around 8:30 or so.

By the time we were riding into Austin, we were both ready for the ride to be done. Whether it be a knee, bike chains acting up, or some seriously sore butts; it felt good to ride through the finish line. Caitlin celebrated a little more than I did =)

Stuff lately

School has been hectic to say the least. Oddly enough I actually have less work to do...no lab work, not too many patients to chase after...it's just that the year is coming to an end and there are deadlines to be met. It's basically a big waiting game at this point full of anticipation and anxiety. In the meantime there has been lots of fun had outside of school. I went home last weekend and spent some quality time with family and friends I hadn't seen in a while. Went to this place called the boardroom in uptown Dallas on Friday night. Though the area has always been appealing to me I figured out that the uptown scene just isn't my thing. Judge me all you want, I'm kind of into the "trendy" hotspot thing but uptown is a bit too much to handle. Also, a few weeks ago some lady was beaten in the parking lot of Whole Foods and robbed. If you're not safe at Whole Foods then something is definitely wrong.

I spent most of Saturday with my cousins, laughing and gossiping about their highschool woes. We saw Dreamwork's How to Train Your Dragon. It is so good I highly recommend it for all ages. And even though it's a funny, feel good movie I still managed to shed a few tears. Shocking. When I dropped them off at home the piano was calling our names. My cousins are so good and since they weren't really old enough to remember when I used to play this was my debut performance in front of them and I managed to gain their full approval. Phew! I also stole some awesome music from them, including Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor and it's been keeping me very busy.

Last night I went to niosa-Night In Old San Antonio. Maybe it was just the good company but I had a great time. +1 San Antonio! I'm not sure how the tradition started but it was basically a huge square downtown divided into several regions including but not limited to a German section, French quarter, Irish area and last and definitely least, scariest, why does this section even exist?....Clown Alley. Sufficeth to say we avoided that part. There are tons of booths set up with food and drinks and crazy hats. It was really cool to see so many people in one area all just having a good time and getting along. Plus the weather was incredible which was an added bonus.

The Cadence Cloggers.

We have a 3 day weekend coming up that I'm really looking forward to. So far I'll be spending a day in Austin for a concert but no plans other than that. I leave you with this recipe which I conjured up last night, after some serious research of course. It's so easy and pretty tasty too!

3-4 super ripe bananas, mashed.

1 egg, room temp

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 granulated sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinammon

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to somewhere between 325-350. Thats a little vague but it worked! Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon. Pour in a buttered loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes (depending on your oven). The top comes out with a nice bite to it and the inside is moist and delicious. No picture, just imagine the deliciousness in your mind. Hope you like it!