Maggie and the Dentist -- epic saga part deux

Ok...maybe its not that bad. I took Maggie to get her teeth cleaned. I was feeling confident that there would be no problems seeing as how she sailed through getting fillings last month. Silly me! The hygenist was polishing her teeth, no problems. Then she squirted her teeth with water and Maggie began to cry and refused to let her finish the cleaning. At the time we couldn;t figure out what was wrong. The hygenist said the kids usually prefer the water part to the polishing. Since we can't force Maggie to open her mouth, I just took her home. After talking to Maggie about it later on, she said the water hurt her teeth. I'm guessing she has sensitive teeth and the water was too cold. I asked if she would let the hygenist finish cleaning the top teeth if she didn't squirt water in her mouth but let her rinse her own mouth out using a cup. She agreed that would be fine, so I need to make another appointment. I'll shoot for one in a few weeks and let the trauma pass. The dentist was very nice and didn't even charge us for the (half) cleaning or collect a copay. Maggie has had her teeth cleaned with no problems before. Just .... frustrating because we sat (with Sean) in the waiting from for 20 minutes only to have her appointment cut short. Maybe I can make a later appointment next time and leave Sean home with Glen. Or better yet, have Glen take her!

Glen's dad is recovering from his quadruple bipass at home now. He is sore and slow-moving, but generally in good spirits. We are keeping the kids away so as not to reign chaos and germs upon the recovering.

Poor VW!!!

Glen's volkswagen bus is currently inoperative. And will be for several weeks. He has the engine out and taken apart. He ordered a new head and some other stuff but it won't arrive for 7-10 business days. Soooo...we are down to one car, which is a challenge on school days. I usually leave at 7 a.m., drop Sean at daycare 7:25, and then arrive at work at 7:40, right as the first bell rings. Glen puts Maggie on the bus at 7:07 a.m., then leaves for school, arriving around 7:40 as well. Somehow, we are going to have to leave together after Maggie is on the school bus, drop Sean off at daycare and make it to Xavier by 7:40 for the next 2 weeks or so. Maybe Glen can drop me at Xavier first, then drop Sean off, and arrive at school a little late (8:00). He doesn't have a homeroom or 1st hour so noone would miss him, unless they are looking for him to sub. He can probably get out of that while the bus is inoperable though. Glen will take his bike with him and do a combination of riding and hopping the public bus to get home, since I leave work around 12:30pm and come home early to get Maggie from Kindergarten. Taking the bus home from Xavier takes over an hour with all the waiting and transfers. Bleh.

It's hot here!

Its almost air conditioner time! We are staving it off by cooling down in the kiddie pool. Here is Sean in his cute bathing suit.

Sean did NOT like the bubbles from Maggie's bubble blowing machine coming right at him. He immediately started shaking in fear, something I've never seen before. So I wisked him out of the pool, much to Maggie's dismay. Sean started crying when I tried to put him back in the pool. The bubbles were too much for him. He didn't mind watching the fun from a safe distance though.

The water was too cold for him anyway. :)

Dying Eggs

Well, inbetween creative dance, which Maggie LOVED, and the birthday party, we ran out to the supermarket to buy some eggs and dye and went to town. I boiled 2 dozen eggs, and we ended up with 20 I think. Maggie and I ate the cracked ones for lunch.

Here is Maggie all organized for dying eggs. She didn't want to hear anything about fancy dying techniques. (I was rembering making plaid eggs, or half blue and half yellow with the overlap turning green.) She wanted to do it HER way, which is fine.



Sean was forced to play with pastic eggs while Maggie was dying. He is really into throwing things lately (testing out gravity I think) and I was afraid he would chuck any egg I gave him.

I dropped Maggie at the birthday party at 3pm and asked the mom when I should pick her up. She said 5pm. So Sean and I went out and bought Easter candy and then went home for a nap. I should have set a timer because we were both still out at 5:05, which is when I woke up. So I roused Sean and we picked up Maggie at 5:20. I was worried I would be late, but apparently they had just broken the pinata and hadn't even opened presents yet, so phew. I think Maggie had an ok time at the party. She had fun, but only knew one other girl there and I think she was ready to go home when I picked her up.

And of course, with Sean's late nap, he was still up at 8:30pm. (He is usually tucked in around 7-7:30pm.) Maggie asked me if I was the one who hid the easter eggs so I told her I was. There were some older siblings at the b-day party and I think one spilled the beans because Maggie told me one of the brothers was "grounded" and she didn't know what that meant. Ha ha! I told her not to tell Sean and she liked the idea that it was a secret about mom hiding the eggs and only she knew. I still need to get up early and hide them in the yard though.

Glen spent from 9-3pm picking glass up off the ground in Papago Park. He said it was NOT fun. He filled 7 5-gallon barrels with pure glass, and said there was still more to get. He and some of the other frisbee golfers were helping the City of Tempe put in a new frisbee golf park near our house. Afterwards they played a round, so he didn't get home until dinner time. Tomorrow is his usual frisbee golf day but because its Easter, he is skipping. We decided that after finding all the eggs and sampling the candy tomorrow morning, we would get an "early" kayak in on Tempe Town Lake. Maggie still has raccoon eyes from our trip to Saguaro Lake. Apparently I missed the area right under her eyes, so she got a bit of a sunburn there. The fact that her hat is too small didn't help matters either. Her first sunburn ever! Hope to avoid this by hitting the lake early tomorrow.

Saguaro Lake

We found a nearby lake to try the kayak in! From door to parking lot only took 45 minutes, which was great! This is Saguaro lake on the Salt River, down from the Roosevelt dam. Here is Glen getting the boat ready for take off. He did a solo run first because Maggie was too excited by the "beach" to take a boat ride. He also like the boat dry, and I tend to get the boat very wet. The water runs down the paddles when I'm kayaking. How does it not for Glen? He has the magic touch. So Glen went first.



Poor Sean was too little for the boat....again! *sigh* Too little to stand in the water. Too little to sit in the sand. Well...I tried, but he kept shoving rocks in his mouth, so he was carried most of the time. He really didn't mind. Even got a nap in...

Here is Maggie testing the water.

Here is Maggie becoming one with the water. I forgot her swimsuit. She didn't seem to mind.

After an hour, Glen was back and Maggie was ready for a ride. Sean was asleep, so Glen went back out with her. By this time there were plenty of moto boats in the middle of the lake and Maggie liked riding the waves. The bay we were in was marked for swimming and "man propelled watercraft" so it was quiet there. Note the patch of yellow on the hill in the background. Those are poppies and bitterbrush.

Ahhh...finally its my turn! I explored an inlet next to the bay. It was very quiet and I counted 5 types of wildflowers in bloom on the shore. The main part of the lake had lots of jet skiers and motor boats. THe noise was a little annoying, but what I didn't like was the smell of gas fumes. Bleh! We will try and arrive a little earlier next time.

All in all it was a great day. Having never been to Saguaro lake, we didn't know what to expect. For instance, you need a pass to park, but you can't buy the passes while in Tonto National Forest, so we had to drive back to a casino to purchase one. We will definately bring swimsuits next time. Maggie could walk quite a ways out in the bay with the water not passing her knees, so it will be a good place for little ones (i.e. Sean) to play in the water. Of course, Maggie prefered to be fully submerged, so she rarely walked, but rather crawled. We will also bring a cooler to keep our drinks cold. It was 85 degrees when we left, and we were hot. It was also 2pm when we left. We plan on leaving closer to noon next time and arriving earlier to avoid the heat and the motor boats.

Tomorrow will be abother busy day. We have dance class in the morning, a birthday party in the afternoon, easter egg dying somewhere inbetween (and the purchase of eggs and dye -- as well as candy, yipes!), and this is going on while Glen is volunteering with the city of Tempe to clean up an area of Papago Park to expand the current 9 hole frisbee golf course into an 18 hole course. Perhaps I should go to bed...

Happy Vernal Equinox!

Its the first day of spring! Equal parts day and night today. We celebrated with a BBQ. Glen cooked bratwurst and chicken in the backyard and I made rabbit's dream salad with Maggie's help and some rice-a-roni. Maggie also had fun with her new bubble blower...

She bought it with her own money. Her piggy bank stands almost empty now. It the first time she has ever purchased something. She was so excited. Sean didn't like the bubbles much. I think there were too many crashing into him. He liked watching the action from inside behind the window where it was safe. :)

Cute close-ups.

Took these pictures in the backyard today after we planted some petunias and marigolds. Glen and I have spring break next week. Looking forward to that. We've had the kayak out 3 times in the last 5 days. Total fun. Hoping to try it on a real lake one of these days. We will be hanging out in town this spring break as Glen's dad is having a quadruple bi-pass on Tuesday. Hoping for the best.

Those mischevious leprechauns!

Maggie came home from school today, and what did she find? The kitchen table and chairs were all turned upside down!! Those mischevious leprechauns! She spent the next hour in the backyard hunting for leprachaun tracks. A few pics of the dining room chaos...




Maggie took the picture of me and Sean. She is quite the photographer! I attempted to make corned beef and cabbage for dinner. This morning and threw the corned beef into the crockpot and left it cooking all day, but it didn't get done until around 8 pm. I mis-read the cooking instructions. We ended up going out the JBs for a very unsatisfying dinner. We will eat the corned beef and cabbage tomorrow. At least dinner is already cooked!

Happy Saint Patricks Day.

Radishes and Kayaks

The radishes are READY! We've got tons of them!! Here is Maggie with part of the bounty.



Some of the lettuce is ready too so we have been eating a lot of what Maggie calls "Rabbit's Dream". This is a salad with carrots and radishes. We all scarf it up. Tastes better when you grow it yourself. :)

The kayak also got its maiden voyage today. Maggie and I gave it the first spin on Tempe Town Lake, while Glen and Sean sat onshore. Then Glen and Maggie took it out while Sean and I walked around. It was a very windy day and so the water was pretty choppy. Unfortuneately, we didn't get any pics of me and Maggie, but here is one of Glen and Maggie. (It looks like her life jacket is a little on the big side. She is 49.5 pounds and I bought one rated for 50-90 lbs. We may go back and buy the size smaller and let her grow into this one, and then use the smaller one for Sean when he is old enough.)

Everyone had fun in the boat, but I think Maggie had more fun playing on the "beach".

Sean was a little disturbed when Maggie and I took off in the boat and he was left onshore. But he managed to have some fun anyways.

We are going to take the boat out again tomorrow afternoon (probably). And hopefully try out a nearby lake (one NOT in the middle of the urban jungle) over spring break. Everyone is tired tonight. Glen and I both feel our abs. Maggie and Sean went right to sleep.

Ballet Recital

After 8 weeks of ballet class, these girls are ready to show their stuff! This is a video of their warm up dance. If you can't hear the music, they are dancing to "Walk Like an Egyptian"!

They also did a tap dance and a little ballet. But as the recital went on, Maggie got more conscious of people watching her and she started watching the other girls more and dancing less. It was all very cute. I asked her if she wanted to sign up for the next session, but she said she would rather do swim lessons.

Sean had another checkup today. His ears are doing better but the right one is still giving him trouble. He is back on antibiotics for another 5 days. They also did a tympanic scan (or something like that) which involves measuring a sound wave as it bounces off the ear drum. It doesn't hurt and takes less than a second. But what results is a cool wave graph. I asked for a copy to show my students when we study trig functions. Hee hee! He has to go back in a month for another tympanic test to measure the fluid in his ears. Its pretty typical for kids to get this fluid and it takes awhile to go away, so they want to monitor it.

WE GOT IN!!!!

Yeehaw! Maggie was accepted at Arizona Montessori Academy for 1st grade next year. Yay!!!!! We can all breathe a sigh of relief now. I hope this school fits us well and we will be there for the duration. Phew.

In other news, took Maggie back to the dentist today. Apparently her filling didn't stick. Kids have more saliva and smaller teeth which can spell trouble for fillings, so the dentist redid it. Took about 10 minutes. No problem for Maggie. She didn't need me, so Sean and I hung out in the waiting room. They didn't charge us for the redo. Another yay!

Mom was here for a quick visit. Here are some pics of her with the kids.

I turned 33 while mom was here. And Glen bought me an inflatable kayak! Woo hoo! I need to get Maggie and myself some life jackets this week, and we hope to give it a spin in Tempe Town Lake this weekend. Check back for future posts.

In other news, Maggie is on spring break and the day camp we had her signed up for while Glen and I are at work was cancelled, so she is back at Faith Preschool (where Sean is currently). She is enjoying seeing some of her old pals and teachers. Thank goodness they were able to take her for the week. This shouldn't happen next year as our *NEW* school has after school care which also covers breaks and teacher inservices.

Farms are cool.

Thats what Maggie thinks. She has a field trip tomorrow to a farm where they are going to jump in the hay, milk the cows, and feed the pigs (according to her). I'm sure they will have great fun. I was asked to chaperone, but I just couldn't after having missed so much work lately. Bummer. They are also supposed to wear their Yavapai school shirts. Uhmmm....school shirts? They have those? Doh! Her teacher said Maggie could just wear either a purple or grey shirt. Hmmmm....I don't think we have any of those either. The closest I can get is a lavendar long sleeved shirt, but it will probably be too hot. Maggie...don't run off ok?

Speaking of farms, did I mention we signed up for a CSA about a month ago. (Community Supported Agriculture) Desert Roots is a local farm that delivers a big bag of organic veggies to our door every Thursday. I get excited on Thursdays. You never know what will be in the bag. Sweet potatoes, chard, onions, carrots, strawberry spinach, butternut squash, turnips, lettuce of all kinds, easter egg radishes, broccoli, and more. There is always something quirky that I would never have bought (or things they don't sell in the grocery) along with some recipe ideas. Its really making us branch out and try new things. And its been fun! The next best thing to a farmers market. However, this week, amongst lots of great veggies, they delivered cilantro. YUCK! Cilantro tastes like soap. I'm going to have Maggie offer it to our neighbors. Sorry Desert Roots! We are a no cilantro family!

Sickie Update...part 2

Sean is doing better. He is not 100%, but well enough to go to daycare tomorrow, and I will be back at work after a week off. I'm sure my students didn't mind a week of review while I was gone. Now its back to work.

Sean is still on antibiotics, but he hasn't had a fever since Thursday. He hasn't been as cranky this weekend as in previous days. However, just bringing him into the living room makes him cry and squeal. He is BORED with that! We wanted to be outside this weekend. I think he is ready for a little action after being cooped up for a week. We will see how he does tomorrow. Glen has some lesson plans at the ready incase he needs to stay home with him. Sean has slept well the past two nights also, so hopefully that means his ears aren't bothering him as much.