So long white and my poor baby. . .

Well, once again, the furniture is in piles and our house looks weird (even the Schwan's guy who stopped tonight was looking at things like "what the heck") all in anticipation of the painter coming tomorrow! Yeah, no more white walls and no more 1/2 a stairwell painted! Just as a recap here is what will be "Dry Dock" after tomorrow: kitchen (above and below the cabinets), dining, living room (paint matches the stone perfectly!) hallway, stairwell and entry. I am exhausted from cleaning for the painter (weird, I know) but have you cleaned above your kitchen cabinets??? YUCK!!! Is all I have to say. The only down side to having all this prep work done for the painter ~ my husband loves the empty house look. In short, we have too much furniture for his taste. The only down side is that if I got rid of my pieces that I love: china cabinet, corner hutch and bench my grandpa made out of an old bed, then I wouldn't have places to store my off season dishes, percolator coffee pot, the no spill sippy cups that a niece or nephew might need sometime when they are here, laser tag guns, can coolies, etc. ~ so you see?? There really is no way to get rid of all of this stuff. . . :~) Oh, alright, if I cleaned out some things that we never use to put the things we do use in their places, I might be able to get rid of a few pieces. I'll think about it.

So, today the phone rang and as soon as the lady said "Hi, this is ______ " I remembered that I had forgotten Brayton's orthodontist appt!!! UGH! She quickly told me that they had a 1:45 appt available if we wanted to come in then. I guess it's better to have gone than to ignore this issue, but my baby has to have a mouth stretcher put in. The plus side? It might mean no braces later, however, that is not guaranteed. Some kids need braces later, some do not. It takes a total of 5 appts to get fitted, get them made, put them on and approx. 10 days to use the key to screw apart the appliance (that's what they call it) to make the roof of his mouth wider. After these 10 days, they replace the appliance with a smaller piece that will keep the mouth in the position the stretcher put it. Not fun and we are not really looking forward to it. The appts. are every week for the next 5 weeks and we start on Thursday which is just x-rays, pics of his teeth (thought that's what the x-rays were) and I think that's all for the first appt. It's at 2:00 which is good because from what I read at this website: www.harmonorthodontics.com/palatal1.htm the appliance (still don't get that term. . .) takes some getting used to. Apparently, when your tongue doesn't touch the top of your mouth, your natural instinct to swallow doesn't engage, so you gag when eating. It said to start out with soft foods and you will get used to it. I'm thinking if he has the gag reflex really badly, I will pick him up for lunch every day for the "spreading" days just so he doesn't have to worry about embarrassing himself in front of his classmates. I mean, really, can you imagine? You are gagging AND panicking ~ it could turn into a disaster! I sure feel for the little guy and he is not looking forward to it. We are trying to look at the positives ~ Chris read that some kids are able to breathe better through their nose because it opens up the back of the mouth more, which makes sense. Oh, speaking of breathing, on Saturday when we picked up Brayton from his sleepover, he was obligated to run some errands with us when we realized we didn't bring his neb to do (which he does as a prevent in the mornings). We thought it might be a good opportunity to see if he did okay during the day or if he coughed much, then we would know he still needs the neb. AND this is day #3 that he hasn't had the neb in the morning and no excessive (actually, no coughing at all!) coughing!!!! YEAH! I realize most of you won't get too excited about this, but where the studies are really conclusive on the long term side effects of this inhaler in children, we think this is HUGE!! Chris is constantly asking me if Brayton is growing because he is concerned about that being one of the side effects. Speaking of side effects, we believe (actually my husband gets all the credit for this one) that too many doctors dismiss side effects of drugs and patients don't pay enough attention to the changes in their bodies after taking a medication. After awhile the patient is taking a handful of pills because they haven't made the connection and the Dr. is treating side effects with more drugs, causing more side effects! Do you see the vicious cycle?? Okay, I'll step off the soap box for now, but just think about that for a bit and see if it doesn't improve your life! (side note, but kind of on the same thing ~ Chris' stomach has been upset for a while now and he's finally figured out that when he drinks cows milk and eats dairy products is when it's the worst! Soymilk and no cheese ~ no problems!)