Me Time

Tooth rot and other fun parenting issues

Right. So I know I promised a post all about the big homecoming, but some other stuff has happened, so we'll deal with that first, k? k.

Jonah has bottle syndrome. Follow the link. It ain't pretty. Just before I left for the US, I noticed a brown mark on one of his front teeth. I knew immediately what it was. We've been giving him formula in a bottle since he was 11 months old and I stopped breastfeeding. He refuses to give it up and even now, at age three, some nights, he asks for 3 bottles and finishes them.

But when I noticed the mark, it was too late to do anything - I was practically boarding the plane. So, like the sterling mother I am, I asked Scott to keep an eye on it and to phone the dentist to find out what we could do about it.

The dentist advised fluoride. We never got that far, and by the time I got home 10 weeks later, some of the enamel had chipped off one of his front teeth and the same thing was starting on the other.

I was so worried, I froze. You know when you can't stop thinking about something, but you're so beside yourself that you're paralysed? Yup, that was me. I convinced myself our dentist would say the teeth had to be pulled and the thought of my gorgeous boy without front teeth just killed me.

I let it sit for a full month and finally, today, I took him to the dentist.

I wish I'd done it earlier: the teeth are vulnerable, says the dentist, but all he needs is 1mg per day of flouride and kickass toothpaste twice a day. We have to watch out for gum boils (eewww), but other than that, we need to just keep them clean and keep an eye on them.

YAY! No more visions of my baby with a toothless grin. Life is truly good.

And in tomorrow's post: why you should listen to your instincts when you have a random thought about allergy meds...

Crazy paranoid

Hannah has been complaining of headaches for about a month. Of course, I immediately went into hysterical-mommy-mode and deduced that she was dying of a brain tumour. After breathing into a paper bag for a bit, I decided she was probably going blind.

Much less alarming.

My reasoning was that her uncle and her granny both had glasses by age 4. She also has very blue eyes. Terrible genes + gorgeous blue eyes = half blind before age 6.

So I scheduled an appointment at an ophthalmologist. Notice, not an optometrist, which would have cost me half the insane amount they charge at an ophthalmologist. Oh no: only the best for my almost blind daughter.

After I heard the cost of the consultation came to my senses and realised I was probably being just a tad alarmist, I started asking her what happened when she got a headache: how did it feel? Where was the pain? How long did it last? She had difficulty explaining or telling me anything of worth, so I told her that the next time she had a headache, she needed to come straight to me and tell me what it felt like.

The next morning, she woke up and exclaimed triumphantly: “Mom! I remembered what happens when I get a headache!”

“What, Hannah?” I asked.

“My nose gets blocked!”

Which to me, sounds like a simple sinus infection/problem.

I considered cancelling the ophthalmologist, but because it was scheduled for the next day and I’m nothing if not hysterically paranoid about my children’s health, I decided to keep the appointment.

It went as expected. Hannah could see the aeroplane, bird, car and flower clear across the room and happily identified tinier and tinier versions of them. Absolutely nothing wrong with her eyes. 20-20 vision. The opth. could even check for pressure on the brain, of which, unsurprisingly, there’s none.

I think he felt a bit sorry for me, because he tried reassuring me by saying that this was just one of a series of tests I should be doing to get to the bottom of her headaches.

But next time? Start with the simple, stupid.