The Dentist and the Kids

May 17, 2011 By Katrina

So, my older children had their bi-annual dentist cleanings yesterday afternoon, and the dentist found two (!) in-between-the-teeth cavities in my 7 year-old son. Apparently I am supposed to be flossing my son’s teeth – somehow I missed this, which makes me feel quite negligent, although I don’t remember flossing MY teeth at the age of 7 and I never had these problems! In any case, my son also had a regular cavity in his molar a couple of years ago, so this is his third – and he is only 7! I’m hoping to avoid future cavities because they are expensive, not to mention unhealthy, and as my dentist told me yesterday, I’m hoping that “an ounce of prevention is a pound of cure” :)

So, here are my questions:

1) When your children need to get cavities drilled and filled, do you use nitrous oxide to relax them before the novocain shot and drilling begin? My dentist is not a pediatric dentist, and seems quite hesitant to work without the nitrous oxide – he’s worried that the child will squirm and that the novocain shot will be misplaced, and that the drilling will be impossible. I’ve gone with the nitrous oxide option these past couple of times, first because I’m not able to help the dentist hold my son down while watching the two younger children, and second, because I don’t want my son to be deathly afraid of the dentist. However, part of me wants to go without the nitrous oxide – having a cavity filled should be somewhat unpleasant, right? Perhaps good motivation to do some excellent flossing and brushing in the future?

2) How much/often do you help your children with brushing? I still try to brush my children’s teeth in the evening, and will now be helping with flossing as well, but my 3 year-old especially wants to do it herself. Should I have them lie down so that I can floss and brush really well, at least a couple of times a week? This is what my dentist suggests, by the way.

God bless you all on this Tuesday morning! Happy brushing and flossing :)

Filed Under: Health

Ab workouts?

May 11, 2011 By Kellie "Red"

It’s been a while since I’ve been pregnant, 20 months to be exact.  I’ve run a 1/2 marathon, I’m generally fit, and I’m happily my “regular” weight, if there is such a thing.  While I am tall and thin, I’ve never had the most flattering mid-section, and after delivering 5 babies, I don’t expect to get many compliments on my abs.  But not getting a compliment and brushing off an insult are two very different things.

On Easter Sunday I wore a new dress.  Bright and flowery and flowing and cute, I dressed it up with some pearls and felt really great.  The dress gathered in the front, just under my chest, and fell freely to my knees.  It *could* have been a maternity style dress, but it wasn’t.  I was standing in my parents kitchen when their neighbor approached me and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you expecting again?”  Turning beat red I said, “No, I am not.”  (As an aside, there really is no good way to take this comment and so there is a general rule that you should NEVER ask a woman if she is expecting based on the look of her belly.)  Not looking the least bit embarrassed, she said, “Oh, good.  I don’t know how you could handle another kid, I can’t even deal with my three.  You must have a little extra left over there, just like me.”  I’m not making this up.  She really said that.  And I’ll just add that the woman was pretty overweight, and the majority of her weight was centered in her mid-section.

 

I suddenly felt very insecure.  I dealt with this feeling by telling my sister, mom, dad, and my husband about her comments.  They all let me know how rude she was and tried to give me a pep talk.  I, on the other hand, started an ab workout routine that night.

 

This past Sunday I wore the dress again, and had two ladies ask me if I was expecting.  They were embarrassed when I said no.

 

I have decided to burn the dress.  (I’m kidding, I am simply going to put it away with my maternity clothes because apparently it makes me look pregnant.)

 

For two whole days I believed it must just be the dress (but I kept doing the ab workouts, just in case).  After all, I was wearing the same dress all three times.  And then last night I had the following conversation with my children.

 

Charlie (age 5):  “Mom, you look pregnant.”

Me:  “Charlie, that isn’t a nice thing to say.  When you tell someone they look pregnant, you are really telling them that their belly is big and they look fat.  It hurts my feelings because I am not pregnant.”

Charlie:  “Sorry Mom.”

Gianna (age 7):  “Well you only look like you are pregnant with a little baby.”

 

So I guess I need some more serious ab workouts.  Any suggestions?

Filed Under: Children, Health

New Car Seat Advice

March 22, 2011 By maryalice

I am sure that many of you have seen this column in the New York Times which reports the American Academy of Pediatrics updated advice on rear facing car seats.  We got similar advice from one doctor somewhere along the way, to keep the child rear facing as long as possible and to use height and weight rather than age as a guideline for use of car seats and boosters.  We are pretty intense about our carseats, but we have not always been able to follow this advice, perhaps because we just thought it was overly conservative.  I mean, it sounds like, based on the “orphan seat” quote, that we should just ALL be rear facing in the car, and in five point harnesses.  So where do we draw the line between safety and convenience?

My children are huge, PT was 20 pounds at 4 months, so we had to buy a bigger carseat to keep him rear facing even until age 1.  These days he is nine years old and 4’11″, 90 pounds.  We have set a very standard “graduate from your booster” rule at age 8, the kids do think of it as a milestone, but 4’9″ is a pretty tall height recommendation, I think that this will keep many kids in their boosters long past age 8.  I had to buy a bigger car to accomodate 6 carseats/boosters, because even a larger mini-van didn’t fit the extra width of the carseats.  I know that others have decided to just move their kids out of the boosters sooner to make the Odyssey work.  My kids are really well conditioned to the car seat situation, the older ones have a complete freak out if they are asked to sit in a seat that has only a lap-belt, they respond as though I had asked them to juggle knives.

And then I remember the beginning of the seat belt movement, and how my parents had some work to do to convince us, as school age children, to buckle up at all.

I think it will be interesting to see how quickly, without legislation, rear facing car seats to age 2 becomes the norm.  Will information from pediatricians and nurses be enough, along with a collective guilt/responsibility movement in the Mommysphere, to get us all to change?

Filed Under: Children, Health, Home Organization, Motherhood and Parenting, Politics and Current Events

Eat and be Merry

December 30, 2010 By Bethany "B-mama"

Our home has been doing a major nutritional overhaul in the past weeks.  We’ve gone from all things processed and chemical to whole foods and more fruits and vegetables.  We’re trying to eat out less and eat in more, consuming more nuts and whole grains and even making our own bread.  Many of the Builders have been a great inspiration to us in this endeavor–we’re just slow on the uptake and finally got the message!  It really took me sitting down to enter receipts into our budget back in November to realize we were eating out WAY too much; to the point that I was worried for my husband’s arteries.  With his job being very demanding, with little time for exercise, and with plenty of excuses to eat fast food on the run, he was shaping up to be the next 35-year-old heart attack victim (despite looking generally “healthy” from the outside).  Something had to change.

Out went his daily trips to Wen.dy’s (they have a joint on the first floor of his building), in came lunches made by me.  In the past I’ve refused this nicety for my dear one, citing small children and the busyness of the morning.  But I was willing if it meant helping him eat better and stay with us longer.  And to be honest, it doesn’t take too much time, especially when I’m already making a lunch for our kindergartner.

Out went crackers and chips and cereals where we couldn’t even read half of the ingredients, in came more sensible choices from better stores.  To look at our cupboards now, you wouldn’t recognize anything from the past.  We’ve started anew and it feels really good.  The boys have definitely needed some coaxing to adjust.  They don’t recognize any of our old brands and wallowed a bit before realizing that more nutritional mini-wheats from our new store taste really good and just as good as the old ones.  Other foods followed suit.  We’re still working on their transition to new ranch dressing.  Nobody does it like Hidd.en Valley.  The other night I had a good chuckle when M said, “Mommy, can we just please switch back to the dressing with chemicals?”  lol.  Change takes time.  And surprisingly, our budget hasn’t taken too much of hit thanks to great places like Trad.er Joe’s.  What a wonderful place–I get everything there now and have been so surprised at how reasonable their prices are.  We can buy organic (delicious) pasta from Italy for the same price as the store brand from Food Li.on.  I’ll take it!

Out has gone some of the items we used to purchase, in has come foods we prepare at home, like bread and granola.  I have always made my own pesto and guacamole, but how fantastic it’s been to add to my cooking/baking repertoire!  A breadmaker purchase using points from our credit card has made homemade bread a more feasible reality.  It is delicious!!  We also made our own calzone dough the other night.  Note: Things taste better when you know you made them.  Eating is more of a personal celebration.

To top things off, my hubby has started training for a half marathon in March.  This is such a great endeavor and one that I’m encouraging him to do wholeheartedly.  It has meant sacrificing my own evening time with him so he can hit the gym.  Sometimes it means I’m alone with the kids for bedtime while he gets in his workout.  But it’s worth it.  When the health of a loved one is on the line, I’m willing to make sacrifices.  I also downgraded my half-marathon aspirations to a local 10k this spring.  Our home can’t manage two people training for a distance race, but the outcome is that I’m really excited to do something shorter and faster that asks less of me on the training schedule.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Blessings to you in the new year!  Let us embrace the God of the universe and the good He has given to us on earth.  God bless.

I made this gem for my troops yesterday and *boy!* is it good.  My favorite way to eat it: on top of Tra.der Joe’s strawberry low-fat yogurt.  Just plain good.

Tracy’s Homemade Granola

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not instant)
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 T ground cinnamon
1/4 t salt
1/2 cup grade A dark amber syrup
2 T butter
1/2 cup craisins
1/2 cup dates
1/2 cup chocolate chips

1) Preheat oven to 325
2) Mix together the first 5 ingredients
3) In a small bowl, stir together the syrup and melted butter.
4) Pour the syrup mixture over the dry ingredients, coating the dry ingredients well.
5) Spread this mixture onto baking sheets (either greased or lined with parchment paper)
6) Bake at 325 for 30-45 minutes until golden brown, stirring occasionally.
7) Add the craisins, dates, and chocolate chips or whatever dried fruit combination you prefer. 8) Eat and Enjoy!

Filed Under: Food and Nutrition, Health
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