My happy family...

Today, I got my tooth pulled... today i was filled with pain and sat dwelling in misery. Today my family took care of me... i know we are a happy family. I love my family.

I hate love my teeth....

Growing up, I will have to admit I was never great at remembering to brush every single night. In fact I hated the very idea of what I had to go through with teeth. Its not fun being a kid having your teeth fall out, be pulled out, or in some cases slammed out with the shutting of a door. But alas, as a kid I had great dental hygiene naturally. After all my adult teeth came in I only remember getting 1 to 2 cavities till I turned 16. To revisit my remembering to brush every night comment, once my adult teeth came in I was much better at that.
Dental visits were much dreaded for me after one particular visit when I was a young child. And this is how it went...To my excitement my mother brought me to the dentist, and when we left I had medal bars guarding the roof of my mouth to keep me from sucking my fingers. It was an extremely unpleasant feeling, especially when it came to talking and eating. Well not even a week after this guard was put in place a friend on the school bus one morning gave me my favorite piece of candy, a now and later. I proceeded to chew the candy with much delight until it dislodged the bars and caused a massive tear in my mouth which poured out blood. When my teacher saw me she just about shrieked in terror. She must have thought i was throwing the blood up. At any rate this resulted in another painful trip to the dentist to where the bars were removed.
That particular memory is my driving force in wanting to help my kids maintain healthy teeth and habits. So far, so good in their cases. But now here I am, 22 and miserable at the idea of having to go to the dentist November 2ND to get my first ever tooth surgically removed. This particular tooth is a constant pain to me. It was awesome till a filling I had in it popped out leaving the nerve exposed for a cavity to form in it. So now the tooth is beyond saving and in my opinion its removal is worse as a sign of aging then getting grey hairs. It is giving me nightmares of having false teeth that pop out when I try to smile at my children.
Luckily I finally found a good dentist. She is very sweet and understanding, she really is very supportive of getting the job done so that I can eat pain free. The fact that I like her so much is great because my history with my past dentists have always been uncomfortable. For instance my first dentist was also my preacher at the church we attended. So whenever I had to get a filling I felt like I was committing a sin. My next dentist was a old jerk, and when I was getting a filling from him he didn't wait for the numbing to be complete before he started. So when I jerked in pain he told me to shut up and suck it up. By the time I chose to go to the dentist again, it was about this tooth before the cavity had infected the nerve. He treated me as if I was a lowly peasant and he a mighty King. So I have to say having a nice inviting dentist is a WONDERFUL change. And even though I dread the idea of being toothless I am looking forward to her getting the job done.
My recent visit there was so very pleasant that I chose this clinic as our dental destination and I made my first appointment for my 4 year old there. I hope that this Dentist will make him feel as comfortable as she did me. Because I truly hope he learns to enjoy trips to the dentist, it will make it easier on all of us.

Breastfeeding, YOU CAN DO IT TOO!!!

Now, I could give you all the factual information possibly found on the internet. But I'd rather talk about what I've learned from breastfeeding. Some of the things i have also been told about breastfeeding are interesting too. Let me start off by saying that my first two breastfeeding attempts with my 4 yr old and 23 month old were both fails... i never made it past 8 weeks with either of them. Now that I've given birth to my now 3month old and I'm still breastfeeding and no words can describe how prideful I feel.

Since breastfeeding I have learned patience... wow I have learned major patience. I tell you breastfeeding on the couch (immobile in my case) while my boys do everything in their power to destroy the house within a 20 minute time frame and I with nothing but my voice and a flyswatter to try and stop them makes for a very interesting situation. Thus comes in the lesson of patience, since breastfeeding I have learned to try to come up with some type of activity for my boys before i settle down to breastfeed. This makes both parties happy, my house stays relatively clean and my kids stay relatively entertained.

I have learned the beautiful blessing of the natural bond formed between a mother and her newborn child. My heart swarms with love and joyful thoughts fill my mind as I look into my daughters eyes as she gets everything she needs to grow and survive from my breast-milk. My thoughts lead to those of awe in the fact that my body is able to produce liquid gold well fortified to combat illness. One thing I love that my daughter does while eating is her breaks to coo and smile at me. We have some of our best talks during feeding time.

Now I'm not sure if this is for everyone or if it is just something that has happened for me and my family. But, since breastfeeding I've realized that she is trying to do a lot more, at 14 hours old she started sleeping for 6 hours at a time at night. Also at two weeks she started supporting her head extremely well for her age. She is already bypassing milestones set by her brothers and I am one to beleive all the credit is due to being a breastfed baby.

I love breastfeeding and I don't know why I wasn't able to do it in the past, I know it takes drive and determination now. But if I had known how the love would continue to grow like this in the past I would have made sure to work harder at reaching the 12 month milestone that I am shooting for with her. I tell everyone now that if you can push through the necessary pain of learning how to do it (yourself and your child learning) and make it past 8 weeks then it should become as easy as a cakewalk. Please remember to believe in yourself. Breastfeeding is worth all the pain and frustration because once your lil' one masters their latch and you find the positions most comfortable to you, you won't remember the trials of the past you will only remember the joys of the future!!!