Category: Children

In most aspects of my life, I feel like a reasonably adept human being. But when it comes to dentists and dental hygiene, well, I don’t think I’ve ever emerged from a dentists office without feeling like a complete failure. I figured that this was limited to me, and that my sons would escape the scourge of dental-insufficiency. (Well, when I thought about it at all.)

Then we took Grey to the dentist, about a year ago. They were “concerned”. And a few months back, it went from “let’s keep an eye on that” to “he needs fillings – 8 of them”.

The kid only has like 20 teeth, and 8 of them have cavities? Given that his teeth are my responsibility, I once again feel like a failure. I’m pretty sure it’s from the milk he took to bed with him for the year between 1 and 2. We’ve been brushing his teeth since he turned 2, but the damage must’ve been done by then.

He got his first filling today. He did great. He also got his X-rays and did fine. He got a Bakugon as a reward. (What? You don’t know about Bakugan? They’re cool. They’re little balls — perfect choking hazards — that you throw on the ground and then they explode into robots. They’re “collectible”.)

The point of this isn’t really cavities and my bad parenting. It’s Thane. Having a second child, you find you remember much less about each stage than you think you might. It feels like you’re doing it for the first time all over again, with momentary flashback now and again to illumine a particular issue. I had forgotten how hard it was to get Grey to bed at the same time. We had elaborate rituals that included ALWAYS something to drink, music on the cd player, the mobile on, sneaking out, etc. They didn’t usually work. Even in the middle of the night it was hard to get him back to sleep.

Thane though? Thane goes to sleep easily. I change his diaper. I read him two stories. I sing to him. I pray for him. I put him in his crib and turn on the mobile because it seems like the thing to do. I close the door. I do not hear from him until I feed him right before bed. He pretty much ALWAYS goes right to sleep. I think I’ve gotten back out of bed once? Twice? in the middle of the night after he failed to go back to sleep.

Children are so different.

Even if they don’t look different.

My children never fail to astonish me. It seems as though both of them have taken huge strides forward lately.

Thane’s stride forward is that he has secretly turned into an eel. Incredibly strong. Check. Squirms like crazy. Check. Slimy (checks drool quotient). Check. Thane now hates to be held when he’s wide awake. He’ll turn around and around on your lap. And he’s really strong. Really really strong. He’s more hesitant about crawling than I thought he would be. With Grey, one day he learned to crawl. The next day, you were constantly running to catch up to him because he was on to new and better things than THIS dinky room. Thane, on the other hand, is afraid that he has a limited amount of crawl available and if he uses it all up… poof! Gone! So he’ll crawl an adorable foot or two to a desired toy/parent/sibling/shoe, but no further. He’s also been refusing to nap. He got up at, uh, 6 this morning. He slept for 1/2 hour on the bed with me when daddy to Grey to dance class because he refused to sleep in his crib or his swing. He’s NEVER had problems falling asleep before. Then he got maybe an hour’s nap while I worked on the lawn. Other than seconds of sleep snatched while he was on the backpack during our hike, that was it. And then he had the audacity to claim he wasn’t tired. Ha! He’s incredibly patient and focused when playing with a toy. He’ll play with one toy for a very long time. He sits happily in the middle of the living room for long stretches. Grey STILL doesn’t do that. It’s just a joy to watch him grow up.

In “things that make mom tearful” news, we pulled out his infant car seat and put in the toddler/convertible carseats yesterday. Abuela at daycare objected to the bit where his feet were hanging off the end of the carseat. SNIFF SNIFF. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE’S TOO BIG?!?!?!

Grey’s big exciting thing is reading. He’s never been an all-books, all the time kid. (Neither, I think, was I for all that I do love to read. That was my sister.) I remember the moment I really learned to read. I was 5? 6? It was in Bonner’s Ferry. We were driving home from the base. (It was a long drive — maybe 3 – 4 hours?) We were nearly there. A dark night. A yellow advisory sign. I’m not sure what it said — funny to remember all that but forget the word. I realized that I could read it, without help. I knew what it said. Click. And from then on, I read.

I don’t know if Grey has clicked yet. I don’t think so. He’s recognized “Stop” for like maybe 18 months now. He can write his name quite legibly. But tonight at bed time Grey read daddy quite a bit of “Hop on Pop” (with help). Grey has basic phonics. (He doesn’t have some of the letter combinations, like ‘ght’. But neither do most texting teenagers.) He can even work backwards. On our hike today we were playing some word games (simple ones like words that start with “s”). We used a different word, and he figured out what letter it started with.

Grey is requiring less and less management. He can put on his own shoes, deal with his own poop, clean up his own room and get a stick of cheese out of the fridge himself. Thane, on the other hand, is entering into the Period of Maximal Required Attentiveness. I’m not really looking forward to some of those phases. I’m totally looking forward to other aspects of them. Thane is such a JOY with his incandescent smile. To see him do his adorable little crawl towards you because he MISSED YOU MOMMY! Ah! For that, it is worth it.