Let the maddness begin

Oh boy. Here we go - hour two of screaming and crying begins.

It's been quite a day to say the least.

Brady got to go to the dentist this morning for his first visit. I figured he's almost two and has nearly all his baby teeth and it's probably a good time to get him introduced to the dentist. So we got there early to fill out paperwork and like any office visit we had to sit around and wait forever anyway. We got called back about 20 minutes after our scheduled time, but Brady didn't seem to mind - they had Curious George playing on the television in the waiting room. Mackenzie didn't mind either - she was sleeping. I wouldn't have minded so much but there were a million people jammed into the waiting room and it felt like it was a hundred degrees in there. So we go back and they want to do some x-rays. Everything's fine until this point. The hygenist picks him up - so far so good - and puts him in the chair. Begin Thursday Meltdown #1. He doesn't like being in the giant chair so much. So she gives him a plastic squeaky dolphin and takes him out and holds him while I climb up into the chair and put him on my lap. This seems to calm him and we get the x-rays without any drama. Then the dentist comes over to check him out. We get out of the giant chair and sit in a normal chair with him on my lap so the dentist can poke around in his mouth.

The dentist says Brady still has one set of molars left to come in and that his teeth look healthy. He says Brady has developed an "open bite" from his pacifier use and says we should try to start weaning him from it. He sees Brady's sippy cup and says we should get rid of that too and switch to a regular cup. I'm thinking - have you forgotten he's not yet 2 and really not all that coordinated when it comes to drinking from a cup? He says sipping on juice or milk from a sippy cup all day long can lead to cavities. So off he goes and the hygenist sweeps Brady up again while I gather our belongings, and Mackenzie, and head for the counter. Brady and the hygenist make a stop at the "prize tower" vending machine thing and decide he would like a bouncy ball. He got a neon pink one which he would later try to give to Sissy on the way home. He also got a balloon (it was blue!), a new toothbrush, some toothpaste that he can't use because it's for big kids, and some dental floss which again he doesn't need yet. With all that in tow we came home.

When we got home I got out a little cup just to see how Brady would do with it. Yeah, 10 minutes later we were changing his clothes because he was covered head to toe with water. Tonight I had an epiphany and realized the better choice in learning to transition to a regular cup would be to simply remove the stopper that slows the flow down from the sippy cup. Duh. So we tried that at dinner and it went ok. Still some spillage, but not the super soaking like before.

So back to the afternoon. Nap time. Oh boy. Goodbye pacifier. Here comes Thursday Meltdown #2. I tried to explain to Brady that he was a big boy now and that he didn't "need" the pacifier anymore and that there were other, littler, kids who needed them. I knew this was going nowhere so I changed plans and tried a bribe. I told him if he made it through his nap without his "bite" as he calls it, then I would give him some fruit snacks. Ah, I love bribery. Unfortunately he is not familiar with how bribes are supposed to work and didn't fall for it. He screamed and wailed and yelled, "I want bite" for about 15 minutes. Then Jeremiah got home from work. Apparently Brady heard him because he started yelling for "Daddy." So Jeremiah goes in there and Brady tells him that he "needs" his bite. Too bad for him, Jeremiah knew the fruit snack plan and reinforced that idea instead. It took about an hour and ten minutes for him to give up and once he was out he slept for nearly three hours! We finally went in and woke him. He got his fruit snacks, but I think he would have much rather had his bite.

You can see where Thursday Meltdown #3 is going to come in to play right? The rest of the evening was fun. It was nice out so we played in the yard for a while then went to the park to look for animals. We saw some geese and I saw a fat old groundhog, but that was it. No deer or turkeys today. Then we went to the farm supply store to get a hoe and a water trough for the garden. All is well. When we get home we eat dinner and take out the stopper in his cup as earlier discussed. Then it's time to try the potty and a bath. The potty would have worked well if it were my rug! Yes, he once again peed on my rug in the bathroom instead of the potty. He thought it was pretty funny. Oh well. After bath time he gets his pjs on and gets his teeth brushed like normal. Then Jeremiah starts to explain that there is no bite tonight. Panic sets in. We put him in his bed for story time and the whole time he is jumping up and down screaming "I want bite, I want bite." After the story there are tears and wimpers during snuggling because he still wants his bite. I try to tell him that when he feels he needs his bite he needs to give Monkey a big hug instead. Yeah right. So we say goodnight and exit his room. AHHHH! He flips out. So the wailing and crying goes on for 20 minutes and then Jeremiah goes in to try to make peace. Brady says he wants to go in Daddy's bed so Jeremiah takes him in there for a few minutes. He thinks it's safe to put him back in his own bed, but the second he does Brady starts crying for his bite again. So 40 minutes after his original bed time I go in to feed Mackenzie and put her to bed. Brady's still crying. 10 minutes after that Brady starts to get tired. He starts having a few seconds between wailings. Then about an hour after we started he starts screaming, "I want shoes on, I want shoes on!" Jeremiah and I get a good laugh out of that one and Jeremiah heads for bed. I finished with Mackenzie and then come out to check my email. The screaming continues, but at a slower pace. Then, no longer does he want shoes on, but he wants milk. Then it's juice. Then something inaudible. Finally, 10 minutes ago, at 11:10 p.m., an hour and a half after we put him in there: silence. I think he finally cried himself to sleep. Poor guy.

Part of me felt bad about taking away his security "bite," but the more reasonable side of me reaslizes that I'd rather go through a couple nights of screaming than sitting by his side while he has dental surgery to fix a screwed up mouth of teeth if he would continue to use the pacifier. I'm hoping by the end of the weekend he'll have forgotten all about his beloved bite and will go to bed without drama. We'll see. The good thing is in a month or so he won't even remember this. (I hope anyway!)

Well, now that he's quiet and Mackenzie's in bed I suppose I better head that way myself.

Oh, one more thing...Jeremiah and I went to the Royals/Yankees game last night but the weather didn't cooperate. It rained and poured starting in the second inning. They still played the game, but we left because we were cold and wet. We stopped at Imo's on the way home to get some of the world's best pizza. It was delicious! It was good that we got home early anyway because mom and dad had come over to watch the kiddos and they had to drive back to their house. We had a fun time even if it did rain and we got like 10 of the free magnetic schedules they were giving out because we each got one and then we found a bunch more lying on the ground and we took them.

So that's all for now. One of the potential new babysitters emailed me tonight and is supposed to call me tomorrow before she goes out of town for one of her daughters' cheerleading competitions. I'll keep you posted on any developments there! Have a great weekend!