Clean Teeth Time

Aidan, Julia, I had the pleasure of taking you to your Dentist Appointment the other day! Aidan, it was your second cleaning/appointment, and Julia, it was your first appointment ever!

You both did really, really well. It probably helped that they have little TVs above your chairs that you can watch while the dentist does her thing. But, even so, the gadgets, gizmos, and x-rays they have to take can be a little alarming- but you weren't alarmed at all! You were old dentist pros!

Aidan, you were so brave! And your teeth got a "GRADE A"! So you've done a great job brushing.

Here's a cool x-ray of your teeth- you can see your grown-up teeth coming up. But, even though you're 6 already, she says we won't be having any visits from the tooth fairy for at least one more year! So, we'll see. When do you think your first tooth will fall out? Before or after February 2017?

Julia, you had to hold super still at a crazy standy-uppy x-ray thingy, and you were so brave!

Here's a cool look at your teeth coming in too! You can see your molars about to pop up in the back and a whole mess of adult teeth already in your mouth ready to start pushing up in about 3 years!

Clean teeth- check!

Free toothbrush and floss- check!

Watch movies- check!

You guys rocked your dentist appointment! 

Let's celebrate with some CANDY! 

What Big Boys Do: the 6-month difference

Well, somehow Labor Day passed and now it's mid-September! I may have been neglecting this journal, but I promise you, I haven't been neglecting you, Aidan!

You are so much fun to play with and feed and hang out with. It's so rewarding to bathe you and get peed on and change poopy diapers. It's also nice when your Mommy does those things too. Except you only seem to pee on me. We need to talk about that.

But anyway, man, so much has been happening! We finally got in your 6 month pictures and they are, of course, adorable and, yes, kind of funny too. You're going to kill us for some of these when you get older; but that's one of the perks of being a parent. But they were also really eye-opening to see photographic evidence of what a cute little kid you've grown into. You're not a newborn anymore!

7 days on white:

6 months on white:

7 days (in a basket):

6 months (not in a basket):

A few-week-old feet:

6-month-old Feet (both in Daddy's hands, for your reference):

1-ish-month old Family shot:6-month-old family shot:

I even got in on the photo-taking action too:

8-weeks old in the blue chair:

6-months old in the blue chair:

So, it's now been proven that you're now a big boy. Or at least a bigger boy than you were when you first arrived on the scene.

And what do big boys do?

Well, big boys eat in their high chairs! (Which just so happened to be the same high chairs that their daddy's ate in as boys).

Yeah, you don't look too thrilled to be in the chair. But your attitude toward the chair actually got worse. And so we stopped using it altogether until we figured out that you were probably uncomfortable, so we stuffed the Bumbo chair in that sucker and now you LOVE the high chair! Well, you love eating, anyway! Most days - especially now that you're eating big boy food for breakfast and dinner- you scarf down your food. Except when it's liquified "country dinner." You hated country dinner. Every bite looked like this:But, hey, that's what big boys do: They express their opinions! And, boy are you expressing yourself. You definitely have opinions about things like...

Rice Cereal made with water is 'meh.'

But rice cereal made with breast milk is AWESOME! (that's what you say, we don't eat it).

So, it's a game of hit-or-miss trying to feed you, with all these preferences, but, you're definitely not starving.

Big Boys are crafty too. They figure out quite quickly how the suction-cup toy sticks to the high-chair tray.They also figure out quite quickly that delicious food dropped on the high-chair tray is still delicious if they "finger paint" around in it for a while and then suck on their fingers (mmm carrot tomatoe puree never tasted so 'earned!')

Big boys also get their chompers brushed (and boy do you LOVE eating that flouride-free toothpaste.) ("it says 'nontoxic'...that's a plus!)

Big boys also know how to look cool:They know how to BE cool:

And even how to be cool while sleeping!

See? Big boys even DREAM of crawling...and they practice during the day too:

But, they also know how to just relax with their friends...and kick their feet up and enjoy the ride