How do you say "Ball"?

If you're Edward, than most balls are "Bah". But not footballs. Footballs are "BAAAAAHHH! BAAAAAHHHH!"

Hee hee. This boy cracks me up.

Movies

John and I love movies. We rarely get to see them in the theaters anymore, but when we do, we try to go see something at an arthouse venue. An independent or international film. They're our favorites. (Plus cheesy sci-fi, of course.)

On friday night, we had family in town and they kicked us out of our house. For the whole night. We had a leisurely dinner with no kids yelling or running around. Then we went to see Slumdog Millionare . This was the best movie we've seen in a while. Afterward, we found the hotel, umm... did some stuff, and then took some Unisom for the best sleep we've had in ages. Thanks Grandma J and Mo!

A conversation I had with my brother on the way to the theater made me want to share some of our favorite movies that you've probably never heard of. In no particular order:

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring - This is our favorite movie. Really. Our absolute favorite. You have to watch it with no distractions. Soak it in. The use of silence is breathtaking. And the scenery... you just have to watch it.

Absolute Giganten - Unfortunately this isn't available in the US. We caught it at Sundance way back when. (If you live in UT and aren't taking advantage of Sundance, you are missing out.) BUT, you can watch the fooseball scene. You'll never see fooseball played like this again.

Quitting - Another Sundance find. This is a true story about a Chinese actor quitting drugs. All of his family, friends, and fellow rehabbers joined in to reenact his recovery. We own this one if you live close enough to borrow it.

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not - A love story... sort of. I'm not going to say any more than that.

The Emperor's New Clothes - What if Napoleon only faked his death on Elba? And tried to go back and return to power. Serious and funny.

Delicatessen - A dark comedy in a post-apocalyptic world. The entire movie is set within an apartment building that has a delicatessen on the ground floor. We love the Caro/Jeunet directing team and their bizarre ideas. You will either love or hate this movie. We love it.

The City of Lost Children - Another Caro/Jeunet masterpiece, and this time with an actor we love, Ron Perlman. This is even stranger than Delicatessen, so we only recommend it if you're up for something dark and bizarre.

Spirited Away - This is a Hayao Miyazaki. If you don't know his work, you need to. We particularly like this one.

The Station Agent - A beautiful finish for this list. Quiet, powerful, funny, poignant. Peter Dinklage is wonderful. Oh man. I'm moving this the top of our Netflix queue. It's been too long.

Edward at almost 13 months

Edward is such a talker. He babbles nearly all the time. Even with his pacifier hanging out of his mouth. Combined with signs and gestures, he makes himself understood reasonable well. Our current favorite is when he does different voices for different toys. High pitched screechy noises for some, and deeper daddy type voices for other.

The words he says right now (that I can remember) are:
Uh-oh
Whoa
Side (outside)
Uh-sat (what's that)
Mama
Dada
Ama (grandma)
Eeta (Ethan)
Paa (pacifier)
Baa (bottle)
Bah (ball)
Up (cup)
*grunt* (I'm poopy.) This really is a vocalized response when you ask if he needs a diaper change, not just the grunt you thought of.
Moo (cow)
Boo (scaring you)
Rar (lion)

Of course, he still signs eat and all done. And shakes his head no.

He has also learned to beep noses. That's less fun at bedtime when he can reach my nose and beep it from every angle. Mom flinches when you jab the inside of her nose. But it's cute the rest of the day.

Edward's walking has gone from a few steps to a definate goal, to walking just because it's a way to get around. He still doesn't take more than five or six steps before switching to a crawl, but if he's standing, he'll walk a while first. Even switching surfaces easily.

Our little guy is getting bigger by the second. He seems less and less like a baby every day, and more and more like a kid. I love watching this stage!

Mommy Milestone

I got to make my first call to Poison Control today. Yay!

Edward found a cold pack that had fallen out of the freezer. I used to let him gum them on occasion b/c he didn't have teeth and the cold felt good. BAD IDEA. He has a tooth now. When I discovered him, Edward grinned up at me with red gel all over his mouth.

Luckily, they're not toxic. The nice guy at Poison Control was quick to tell me that Edward was fine. Then he said that he may have some minor irritation, but giving him something to drink and cleaning him up would help prevent that. It sounded like they have calls about these cold packs relatively often. Often enough that he didn't need to look up anything.

I expected that the call would be lengthy with lots of questions about how it happened and exactly what brand the unlabeled cold pack was. But it was quick and painless. The only questions they asked were for tracking data - age, sex, and zip code. The whole call was less than a minute.

I'm glad that my first call to them was easy and a non-issue. Because I'll know how helpful they are when one of the boys eats something that's actually poisonous. Rumor has it they'll call 911 for you and stay on the phone until help arrives. To keep answering questions and give first aid instructions. Lets hope I never have to find out!

Dental Adventures, Part 1

Did you know that you don't have to wait until your kids need braces to spend thousands of dollars on their teeth? Ethan is teaching us new things every day!

Ethan had a cleaning today with his new dentist. He was a champ. The boy went in for the cleaning portion ALL BY HIMSELF! This office prefers it that way if the child is ready. I hadn't told about that part because I figured it would freak him out. (It probably would have.) But as soon as the hygenist saw his Cars T-shirt and told him that she had Lightning McQueen toothbrushes, he was off. Mom or no mom. I did poke my head in a few minutes later, but the boy was chatting away. He was just fine.

The x-rays didn't go quite as well, but they got two. That's two more than last time!

After a LONG wait for the dentist, he came in to check Ethan's teeth. As expected, the boy has cavities. Plural. We were very aware of one (that we couldn't get the previous dentist to treat! ARGH!) and expected one or two more. But the boys mouth needs some serious work.

I had to check the treatment work-up to make sure I had my numbers right. Ethan needs five fillings. Bad, but not horrible. He also needs two pulpotomies. To avoid medical jargon, lets think of them as partial root-canals. Yes, I just said root-canals. My four year old will have two crowns. CROWNS.

And how do you do a root canal on a four year old who won't even let you get an x-ray? That's right, sedation. Full-on general anesthesia. At the hospital. In a surgery suite.

I'm kind of freaking out over here. I can handle just about anything in the medical world, but I have this thing about general anesthesia. I'm afraid of it. And I'm really afraid of how Ethan will do coming out of it.

We've told Ethan that the yucky spot on his front tooth needs to be fixed before it hurts. So the dentist will fix it while he's sleeping and he'll wake up with a new tooth. He's actually excited for a new tooth.

We're aiming for the surgery date in mid-February. (The pedi-dentist only books the suite once a month or so.) We have to pre-pay, so we may not make it, but we're hoping.

Anyone else have to put their young kid through general anesthesia? How did it go?

PS - I think I should probably mention that we take very good care of Ethan's teeth. I discussed with the dr why his teeth have so many issues. First, genetics. I have incredibly soft enamel that decays when you look at it funny. Ethan inherited it. Second, spacing. Ethan also has my teeny tiny mouth. I'm missing two full sets of teeth and still barely have room in there. Ethan's teeth are packed so tightly together that brushing is not as effective as it should be. We need to floss morning and night. And third, the gain weight diet. Remember all that whole milk/cream stuff that Ethan used to drink? He had to drink so much of it that he took a cup to bed with him. We knew it risked damaging his teeth, but didn't expect the other problems to compound the issue. We stopped doing that more than a year ago. Plus we have always been cautious about sticky foods and don't allow juice. We've done just about everything right. But what was started before has only gotten worse. At least we have the option of sedation and don't have to traumatize him.

Way Back When... We Went to Florida

With all of the sudden trips last fall, and then the holidays, I never managed to catch up here on the blog. I'm going to attempt some of it.

If you remember, we went to Florida at the beginning of October. After a fun day at the beach with friends, we got down to the real business. Disneyworld. We spent the week with my mom (Grandma L), her husband (Grandpa T), T's oldest daughter's family, and a friend of my mom's from New Zealand. Quite a crowd.

We did it all. Magic Kingdom (the equivalent of Disneyland for you westerners), Epcot, Animal Kingdom, even a water park. (Did you know Disney had waterparks? I did!) Plus, we went to the awesome Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom. Seriously so fun.

I would share horror stories, but there really weren't any. No one was hurt or became violently ill. No one got lost. Even the babies were angels the whole time. We had a great time.

(Our only recommendation when you have a large group of varying ages is to not try to stay together too much. Split up for a few hours and meet back up. There are things to do together, but everyone will have more fun if they have some time when they can go on the rides that THEY want to go on.)

Here are some snapshots from Epcot, and then a character breakfast and the safari at Animal Kingdom.

Us in front of the iconic Spaceship Earth

Ethan was a little bit freaked out by the shark teeth

John and Ethan with Goofy (you can see some of the "cousins" as well)

The whole clan with Mickey

Edward being adorable at breakfast.

The Safari ride at Animal Kingdom is my all time favorite.
You actually go through the habitats, getting amazingly close to the animals.

This rhino was a troublemaker. He has been known ram the jeeps and often stands right in their way. We had to stop and wait for him to move and then he stood about three feet away eyeing us while we inched by. I was so busy holding onto the kids I didn't get any up-close pictures.

He did it!

Edward took his first wobbly steps this morning. About five of them. And John was still home to see it. We all cheered, but the boy was too interested in his toy to pay attention to us.

I'm so glad that he finally decided he could walk. He's been on the verge for more than a month but was waiting until he was more sure footed. I wish he'd have the same caution when it comes to climbing! Now I need to gear up for having a little runner again. I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet.

2009? When did that happen?

It seems like only a few weeks ago that it was the end of 2007 and I was very pregnant with Edward. I'm feeling stunned that it's more than a year later, that I have a one year old and a four year old, that I'm in a house, in TEXAS of all places, and that we're moving beyond the "temporary" stage of our lives.

So, at this beginning of a new year, it's time for resolutions. Here are the ones that aren't too small or too personal to share.

1. John got me a Wii Fit for Christmas. I excitedly started it up and was almost immediately learned that my bad back (which is not in the shape it needs to be) bumped my "Wii Fit Age" up by many, many years. So I resolve to strengthen my core body muscles, with both the Wii and swimming when I can manage it.

2. See that list of books on the sidebar? Those are the books I've started and fully intend to finish. When I find time. I resolve to read all of those books this year. And have a completely new list over there.

3. I've been cooking. A lot. Enough that I want to be sure I keep it going. So I resolve to do this. I think it'll be fun to share. I've already started with a few from the last week or so to give you a glimpse.

4. I've been building up our food storage. We have so far to go, but I quickly realized that I had no idea what to do with it. I resolve to learn how to use our food storage to make delicious and nutritious meals so that I could sustain us with it if I had to.

5. Finally, I resolve to say thank you more. I'm becoming more aware of my own mental blocks with this. Somehow, I got this idea into my head that family members or friends simply do things for each other. That it's part of being a family or a friend. That its expected. In part because I don't expect a thank you when I do these type of things. This isn't really a conscious thing, but it affects the way I treat those I love. And I don't like it. Going forward, I'm going to make a conscious effect to thank those around me.

What are your resolutions? And do you want to help me with mine? I could sure use some babysitting over here.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Updating the blog. New look. New links. New fun little tidbits if you look hard enough.