Toothleth, or The Lithp

I promise I'm not going to blog about each and every tooth that Akiko looses, but I am going to blog about this one.

See that giant gap in the front there? Akiko lost her first front tooth and the other one is a few weeks behind.

I'm really only blogging about this one because I think the two front teeth, when they go missing, is just the cutest thing about this age group.

We were eating pizza for dinner last night and Akiko was having a tough time of it trying to take her bites with the side of her mouth. Suddenly, Akiko sprang out of her chair and ran to the bathroom, or so I thought. Then I heard her scream. Thinking it was a spider or something, I ran to her to help her out. I found her in front of the mirror gaping at her mouth.

Her tooth had rotated 180°, so the back was facing front, and then twisted 90° on its side. It looked really weird. It was also kind of jammed in there. There was no way she could finish dinner. I made Joseph yank it out.

I'm super excited about this because she is going to have THE cutest first grade picture, especially if her other tooth falls out in the next couple weeks. She is also now talking with a lisp, which is darling, and, thank heavens, temporary. She thinks she sounds weird. I think it's just cute. You should hear her try to say "Moses" now.

Speaking of school, the summer is almost over. She goes back in two weeks! Whaaat?

I've meant to blog about all our individual adventures over the summer, but that takes a lot of time, so I think it'll just end up being a recap post after Akiko goes back to school. We have had a lot of fun though.

Habits and Games

Funny commentary between you and your children needs to be written down every once in a while so that you don't forget the story. Same goes for funny stories/things that happen.

This has become wildly apparent lately when Akiko asks me about all the cute and funny things she did when she was younger and I swore I'd never forget. I don't want to forget and that's part of the drive behind my blogging, besides the fact that I just want to show off how darling my children are.

Anyway, I've got a couple things that I want to share.

First, is a dialogue that happened between Akiko and me earlier this evening:

Akiko: Mommy, what's a habit?

Me: It's something that you do impulsively.

A: What does that mean?

M: Um, it's just something that you do all the time without thinking about it much.

A: Like what?

M: Well, there are bad habits, like picking your nose or biting your fingernails.

A: Or smoking?

M: Right. But there are also good habits.

A: Like what?

M: Like reading your scriptures every day and praying and going to church.

A: Oh!

I see the light come on in her eyes as she understands this concept.

A: But sometimes our good habit can bonk into our bad habit, right?

M: Like what do you mean?

A: Like when you're reading your scriptures while you're picking your nose.

All I could do was just laugh at that because she totally got me. Akiko's so good at thinking about things that aren't obvious to me.

The second story I have involves Moses.

Now, Moses is at the age where he's starting to find interest in video games. Joseph, Akiko and I like playing them. Moses wants to play them, but doesn't have the coordination to play them very well, and this frustrates him. That doesn't stop him from really enjoying them anyway. In fact, his life has become somewhat of a video game in itself.

We'll often be doing whatever and Moses, if he wants our attention, will say, "Pause the game. I need to tell you something."

If he encounters something difficult, like, once he got stuck, he'll say, "This is a hard level."

Once, Joseph was stirring something thick, probably biscuit dough or something similar, and Moses, watching him, said, "Wow Dad! That's level 2 stirring!"

The other day, I was out playing basketball with Asher. Asher would retrieve the ball, pass it to me and I would take the shot, and often miss, and the routine would start over. Moses came out and saw my bad basketball skills and said, "Mom, you need to press A to shoot the ball into the basket."

The latest version of Mario Kart we have is Double Dash for the GameCube. On our way to pick Akiko up from school, Moses will ride on the back of our Sit'n'Stand stroller, with Asher "driving" in the front, and throw banana peels and turtle shells at all our "opponents," you know, the other parents. When we'd get to the school, he would proclaim us the winner of the race.

Costco apparently reminds Moses of the Bowser's castle race, because often when we go there, he'll sit in the front of the cart and hurl peels and shells at the other "racers" and continuously hum the theme song for the race. It's also a pleasure to hear him include any sound effects as we turn, get a mushroom boost, or manage to hit one of our opponents with our ammo.

Now, I don't really play along when Moses is doing this, but I'm not going to stop it. It is so cute and funny. I can only try to imagine what he sees when he is in his video game world.

I mean, I remember doing the same things when I was younger. Only the setting was different.

Not to exclude Asher in any of this; there should be an update on what he can do now.

He's starting to talk and calls both Joseph and me "Daaaah!" There are a few other words that he says consistently when he sees diapers, stars, birds, babies, and belly buttons. They are still evolving and hard to transcribe.

His personality is very different from Moses. Asher is louder and goofier and gets into more trouble likes to explore. He's extremely clingy to Joseph and me, but prefers Joseph over me. He's a daddy's boy through and through.

During the day, when he's tired and needs a nap, he's very irritable. At night, when he's tired and needs to go to bed, he's slap happy.

To quote Akiko, "I just love that little guy."

A Nutty Update

And I don't mean "nutty" as in "cockamamie" or "kooky."

Asher's blood was drawn at the allergist last week so they could test it against certain proteins, namely peanuts and tree nuts. We got the test results back:

He's allergic to tree nuts, too.

It's not that big a deal in our house, since I'm not a big nut person, but I do like to bake occasionally with walnuts, or have a bag of roasted almonds. However, it means he'll never get to have Nutella or try pecan pie. It also means we have to be extra careful when we eat out or have someone watch him.

To look on the bright side of things, at least it's nuts we're dealing with and not milk, gluten, wheat, soy, egg, or any other number of allergies that he could have that would drastically change the way we eat. Eliminating nuts I can handle.

Hellooooo Dolly!

So, I've realized that the last few posts have been a little disconcerting, what with the poisonous shrubs, peanut allergies and emergency room concussions. What this blog needs is something to brighten everybody's day and I've got just the thing.

This bar cookie that stands before you is known, at least in my circles, as a Hello Dolly and it is spectacularly delicious. Here's the backstory:

Back in the summer of 1998, I worked in the kitchen of the most awesome LDS girls' camp in the world: Oakcrest. We cooked 3 meals a day for approximately 400 girls, five days a week for 12 weeks that summer. Every meal was made from scratch. Fresh bread was made for every meal.

That summer was a defining summer for me. One I'll never ever forget. It was a lot of hard work, heavy lifting, some drama, a whole lotta fun and taught me about who I truly was: a daughter of God.

Another thing I came back with was a whole bunch of awesome recipes that had been pared down as much as they could, to sizes that would feed a family, and sometimes a whole party, rather than a whole gaggle of girls. The Hello Dolly is one of those recipes.

Many years have passed since that summer and I've moved many times. I only recently found my arsenal of Oakcrest deliciousness and I want to share my favorite with you.

I was lucky because I found the recipe right before I volunteered to bring a dessert to my friend's baby shower and, apparently, they were a huge hit. (I got stuck in rush hour traffic trying to get into San Francisco and back in time for the shower and had to miss it. Booo!!!)

So, without further ado, I present to you the recipe for Hello Dollies (which I've modified only slightly to suit my needs, but the taste and ingredients are all the same.):

Hello Dolly

2 c. graham cracker crumbs (approx. 1.5 packages if you're going to crush them yourself)

1/2 c. (1 stick) butter, melted

1/2 bag sweet coconut, flaked or shredded

1/2 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips 

1 can sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated!)

Preheat oven to 325*. Spray a jelly roll pan lightly with cooking spray. Combine the graham crackers crumbs and the butter till moist and spread into the pan to form the crust. It will be a thin layer, just make sure it's even and it covers the whole bottom of the pan. Sprinkle coconut evenly over the crust, then sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over the coconut. Punch two holes on opposite sides of the top of the condensed milk and drizzle evenly over the cookies. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool and cut into bars with a greased pizza cutter. Try not to eat the whole pan in one sitting.

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Think of these as a homemade but much yummier version of the Girl Scout Samoas (my personal favorite). The chocolate chips somehow manage to stay a bit melty for a while. The sweetened condensed milk caramelizes in the oven to a consistency similar to dulce de leche. Then, when you pair that with the savory taste of the butter in the crust... (insert Homer Simpson gurgle here)!

Enjoy these super easy cookies as much as my family does. These don't last more than a few hours after they come out of the oven in my home.

How Not to Spend Your Tuesday

Waiting.

Waiting in the ER.

Waiting in the ER for hours.

I think we were there for a total of six hours.

Let's start at the very beginning, because that's a very good place to start.

The morning started out like any other. Asher waking up at the crack of dawn, wanting breakfast and play time. Akiko waking up and sliding down her slide to start her glorious day. And finally, Moses stumbling out of bed with his hair sticking out in every direction possible.

Joseph was getting ready to leave for work and we stopped what we were doing so we could have family prayer. After the prayer, the kids attacked Joseph before he could leave for work.

This is how most of our mornings start. It's wonderful.

Well, the kids didn't want to let Joseph go, so he stood up with them still dangling on him, where he would walk a few feet to the couch and drop them off there. Unfortunately, Moses let go a little too soon and fell to the [carpeted] floor where he hit his head pretty hard.

Moses was pretty inconsolable for quite a while. He calmed down after a long while, but would start crying again if you did so much as look at him. This went on for, I think, an hour.

Once Joseph got him to stay calm for a bit, he took him into the kitchen to see if he wanted any breakfast. That's where Moses threw up the first time.

More crying.

I called the doctor to consult with the nurse. We ended up playing phone tag. Moses threw up a second time. Then he fell right asleep.

Finally got a hold of the nurse. She asked me to bring him in to urgent care, rather than wait for an appointment with his regular doctor.

Loaded Moses into the car. Akiko, who was extremely worried about Moses at this point, came along. Asher had gone down for his morning nap, so Joseph was forced to skip his train to work.

Got into see the urgent care doctor in record time. While she was checking Moses out, who was slurring his speech so bad even I couldn't understand him, he threw up a third time. She called the ambulance because she felt he needed a CAT scan.

I called Joseph to let him know what was going on because I was going to have to ride in the ambulance with Moses. Luckily, our clinic is only about a 20 minute walk from our place, so it would be easy for Joseph to pick up the car.

The paramedics showed up, again, in record time, and checked Moses out and we loaded into the back of the ambulance.

On our way to the hospital, which was just around the corner, the paramedic received instructions to go to a different hospital further away in San Jose, because, apparently it's a better hospital and they wanted to monitor Moses there. I learned later that the hospital we were sent to and Stanford's hospital are the two best in the area. So, I called Joseph and let him know the change of plans.

Moses threw up a fourth time in the ambulance, though, I really think that one was more related to motion sickness than the concussion.

By the time we got to the hospital, Moses was looking and acting a whole lot better than he had been at home. The doctors told me that since he's doing so much better, they just wanted to keep him there for a couple hours to monitor him and it would be unlikely that he would need the CAT scan. They only do that as a last resort for kids Moses' age.

That's when the waiting began. It was also a little past lunchtime at that point.

Moses cheered up a little bit with the toys and stickers the trauma doctors gave him.

Joseph showed up with Asher after a bit, so I took Akiko and Asher to the cafeteria, where lunch was just about to close up, so the pickins were slim. They also only accepted cash, so I was only able to get a paltry meal to feed my whole family with the $7 cash I had on me.

So, the ER is a rather depressing place, I've decided. And it smells like rubbing alcohol, sweat and clotted blood. Ew!

Asher was going stir crazy because he wanted to get into everything, so we couldn't put him down (nor did we want to) and Akiko loudly complained about every five to ten minutes about how bored she was.

Moses wasn't allowed to eat anything, in the unlikely event that the doctors needed to do any procedures on him, so he was starving. He hadn't eaten anything since dinner the night before.

So, we waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Joseph took the other kids to bring the car closer to where we actually were and to get some snacks for the starving children. I stayed with Moses while he dozed off again.

Remind me to tell you the story of Moses holding my hand when I was in labor with Asher.

After a long, long while, a nurse came in to check on Moses. Since he seemed better, she said we could probably get out of there soon. She left the room and Moses threw up for the fifth time. Sigh!

I tracked down the nurse and told her about it. She told the doctor. He ordered a CAT scan. More waiting.

CAT scan results turned out to be fine, which meant that he had no bleeding or brain injury, and that Moses just had a severe concussion. They told us that we would get our discharge papers and we could go home. Then we waited some more.

Six hours after we arrived at the ER, we finally left to go home. I hope we never have to visit the ER again.

The good news is that Moses will be fine, though this is not his first concussion. That one was also consulted with the nurse on the phone, but not bad enough to need to be seen. My poor boy has a knack for whacking his head, so I hope it never gets worse than today.

And that is how not to spend your Tuesday.

Ah, Nuts!

Yesterday we found out that Asher is allergic to peanuts. We had peanut butter on toast for breakfast and he broke out into hives all over his little body after eating it.

At first, he had gotten a little bit on his finger and rubbed his eye, so the whole side of his face started getting bumpy. Joseph thought that maybe he had been bitten by something, but it soon became apparent that he was reacting to something he'd come in contact with. Since it was before church, we got him into the shower to see if that would help. As I was drying him off, I started noticing bumps all over his arms and legs. I thought his eczema was just flaring up and just smeared his rx cream all over and got him dressed. We headed off to church soon after thinking no more of it.

At church, Joseph walks with Asher in the halls during Sunday school and Priesthood (you know how 12 mo. old toddlers are in class). Asher was rolling on the floor and his shirt lifted up and Joseph saw these huge red bumps all over his torso. He came in to the primary room to let me know that he was taking Asher home to see if he could help relieve his itching, because, by that time, Asher had started scratching all over.

Joseph had no idea how bad it was until he got home and took Asher's clothes off. Hives were everywhere.

Pictures aren't that great. Taking pictures of babies on the move is hard with a camera phone.

They look much worse in real life.

Poor little Asher!

After Joseph had picked Akiko, Moses and me up from church, and we talked about it, we determined that he had a bad reaction to the peanut butter that morning.

Since there seemed to be nothing else wrong with him, I decided not to call the doctor until this morning. If he'd had any breathing problems, we would have taken him straight to the hospital, which is only about half a mile from church.

I took him into the doctor this morning where our suspicions were confirmed. His hives were gone, but the redness where they were was still prevalent. We've got an appointment to go see the immunologist next week. I'm not totally sure what is in store for that visit, so we'll burn that bridge when we get there.

So, for the time being, Asher has to stay away from peanuts and I get to keep antihistamine with me at all times. 

I guess this also means no Mini Snickers for me while I'm still nursing. Nuts! Those are my favorite. (Pun completely intended.)

Happy Birthday Asher!!

One year ago, you joined our family.

We are so glad you did.

We love you so much.

Happy Birthday Asher!!

You're #1!