Alyosha visits the Dentist

Alyosha had 2! cavities that he needed to have fixed-- curse you dried fruits! Apparently dried fruit and not flossing are the culprits. He was a great patient, bribed by cheap surprise toys from a token operated machine. I guess it was good that we never gave him a chance to buy anything from one of those becaue it was so special that he was willing to go under the drill to try it out. Though now he is an ultimate flosser, his special magic token toys were lost 5 minutes after we got home and I let him watch the Lion King to forget his numb cheek.

Teeth

The big boys were playing on the playground with a thousand other kids on the sunny Monday afternoon. They took time out to entertain their brother who can't climb on the ladders and slide the slides yet.
Niki showing off his toothless smile. He is lucky enough that he doesn't have to go to the dentist yet; he doesn't really feel left out of the bunch because of that. In fact, it looks like he is pretty happy about it.
Luka is getting an x-ray of his front teeth. He was amazing, just letting the dentist do anything and everything she needed. He even held the film between his teeth like a pro.
Alyosha did great with the dentist too. He whispered that he was a little afraid , but the dentists were so great with kids that he is counting down until the next time he has to go. He doesn't know the difference between getting a cleaning and a filling though! (The dentist said he would get laughing gas--so he will be happy and floating in space)

They found 4! cavities. One I knew of, but the other 3 were a surprise. They are tiny little cavities between his teeth. The dentist said we probably didn't need to do anything about them because he should be losing his teeth in a year or so, but it would be a good idea to get rid of them just to make sure. On his x-rays we could see his adult teeth just waiting to come out. She said if he flosses every day- he wouldn't have any cavities at all.

The pediatric dentists at OHSU are great. They made the kids feel comfortable and somehow hypnotised them into doing everything and anything they asked. Luka didn't have any cavities, but he has a little dent in a front tooth that he got when he fell down once, so he will have a filling put in just to keep everything healthy for the future. I like it when we find good doctors and dentists :-)

Chicken Pox Upon Our House!

We rang in the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Ox, with the chicken pox. Saturday morning, the day we thought everyone was healthy for the first time in 2 weeks, we were dressing to go to the New Year festival when we noticed red spots all over Alyosha's body. The Pediatrician on call was sure from my description that Alyosha didn't have chicken pox because no kid gets the chicken pox anymore. His assurance wasn't because he listened to the description, it was because chicken pox has been wiped out by 95% in the United States since the vaccine has been mandatory in the early 1990's. He said that we were fine to go ahead to the festival because half of the kids there have viruses anyway and we would fit in just fine. So, off we went to enjoy the dragon dances and the new year of the ox.

Monday morning we decided to go have the spots checked out, but I had my first acupuncture appointment, so the boys went to the hospital on their own. It is so rare for kids to get the chicken pox nowadays, that when the first competent (ie. experienced) doctor saw them, the boys got put into the quarantine room and about 10 doctors who had never seen them before came in to see a real live case. Some thought that we were crazy parents wanting our kids to get sick with this deadly virus. Others wanted to take Luka and immunize him right away, or else they thought we would be admitting him into the hospital within a week for a case of 'sibling' chicken pox so bad he would never survive.

Roma didn't make the final decision until I got there and one of the pediatric professors (not a resident) talked to us again. I told her that we don't know where our future will bring us. Since it has been proven that the chicken pox vaccine needs a booster every so often, perhaps like a tetanus shot, I wanted the kids to have a natural immunity that will last a lifetime--like the rest of the world has. The Dr. Professor was open enough to understand where we were coming from and even agreed that the chicken pox aren't dangerous for healthy kids. We got our final diagnosis and left just as we came, only with a little more information.

Our complication was the little one still hiding from the viruses and crises of the world inside my tummy. It isn't good for a newborn to be exposed to the chicken pox. I totally believe in vaccines; I know that they have saved many lives. I am against unnecessary drugs, precautions and vaccines that prevent our bodies from being exposed to things that our bodies should be able to handle, even if it is difficult. If our body doesn't practice fighting things it is capable of fighting, it will not have the practice to fight the new illnesses we might not have vaccine for. God, genetics and evolution are pretty intelligent and the baby will be safe against the chicken pox because when I was 6 years old, I had the chicken pox which gave me a lifelong immunity (we tested my blood just to make sure) and newborns have all of the mother's immunities -- as long as they are 100% breast fed -- for the first 2-3 months of their lives.