Abby's Teeth

Abby had to have her upper four front teeth pulled in early April - on April Fool's day, actually. :) She had an abscess on her gum and when they took the x-rays, they found that her front two permanent teeth were trying to come in but were blocked by their much smaller baby-teeth counterparts below. So rather than getting one tooth pulled as we expected, she came home that day with four teeth pulled! She was quite brave and did fantastic...I was quite scared and even teared up a bit. :) I also had four teeth pulled when I was 6-years-old (my bottom front four), so I knew exactly what she was going through, but let me tell you, it is much, much harder to go through as the parent! Oh my.

When we got home, she wanted to play a little Animal Crossing and sat there with the gauze in her mouth and a towel to catch any drops of blood. It was only a few weeks before that I decided to introduce video games to my children. Probably not the wisest thing I've done (as gaming definitely runs in the blood, as Kevin and I spent a good deal of time playing video and computer games before we had kids!), but it's been fun. Animal Crossing is the only game I've let them play and we are borrowing it from Stephen (along with his GameCube system to play it!), so I do have the option of giving it back anytime I want to if it becomes an issue. ;o) And Animal Crossing is somewhat educational too, requiring a LOT of reading as one's player converses with the other animals in the town, so that has been good for Abby in some sense. And of course, this means Ben can't even play it without Abby "translating" everything for him. :) They also learn about buying and selling, saving and paying off debts, and get to collect items for a museum and practice writing letters. So, really, it's not THAT BAD of a video game. :) And we only play it about once or twice a week, when all schoolwork is done and the living room is picked up of toys. Yes, I said "we" - I have a character in the town too. ;o)

But back to Abby's teeth. :) Soon she was feeling back to her normal self and I noticed she and Ben had "disappeared" and so I went to check my room where I suspected I might find them. Sure enough, they were on my bed petting the cat - a pretty common occurrence (especially for Abby!) these days. As timid and not kid-friendly as Calvin is, I never dreamed the day would come when he would allow all three kids to climb up on the bed and snuggle/pet/kiss him. It has been quite amazing to see his relationship develop with the children over the past year (and especially these past few months) and I am so pleased that he has learned to love all three of them. :)

Not too long after Abby bounced back, it became apparent that Jake's fussiness that day was due to illness and a low-grade fever. He requested that I snuggle with him on the couch, to which I happily obliged. Soon Benny had to join us (lying on top of me!) and Kevin snapped a picture. I love snuggling with my boys. :)