Lately I have had so much to write in my blog about that I have not known where to begin. So I guess I will just begin with the beginning of my thoughts. Jonah has pneumonia. You would never know it right now with the racket he is making behind me as he plays with trucks in my bed with his sister. It is really the nights that are the hardest for him, he comes in complaining that we have the heat on too high, or saying "put the fire out" when there is no fire going, fevers high and he is stripping down naked and shivering. I called the doctor today and she had an Xray ordered and low and behold he has pneumonia. I dont even really know what that means other than it sounds really scary and now I have to talk him in to taking medicine twice a day.
Sadie had an appt last week to have four teeth pulled. Once again she handled it true to Sadie style talking about it for weeks, spending inordinate amounts of time upstairs in her room putting together every puzzle she could find and finishing off the Harry Potter series (so much for my theory that she would never get in to Harry Potter). She went in to our crappy dentist's office (more on why he is crappy later) last week with trepidation and misery in her face. It was just she and I. The dentist made no small talk, pulled out the biggest needle I have ever seen and called Sadie a "drama queen" and "foolish" for refusing to let him lay his hands on her. Needless to say once I realized he had no child skills at all and possibly some other mental problems we left there with her four teeth in tact and a referral for an oral surgeon.
Today was the oral surgeon's turn. We spend all week processing that mean dentist and his mean words and how some people take their bad days out on kids and how it was not her fault to be afraid and how I would never let anyone hurt her and all that good stuff. We went in to the oral surgeon's office with some obvious skepticism and prepared to leave if we needed to.
What a difference a little kindness makes. He clearly had children and grandchildren and lots of kid experience. Plus he obviously valued children and Sadie. This was very important to me and to her. We talked about our previous experience and he was so kind to both of us. He told us he would use general anesthesia because clearly Sadie had had a rough experience and the teeth really did need to come out.
I can't tell you what a difference this dentist made to us and to Sadie. Gary still has a hard time going to the ophthalmologist because when he was a kid the ophthalmologist was terribly mean to him and he still suffers. Luckily we have a great ophthalmologist, Dr. Sorkin who everybody in our family adores.
In the middle of all of this craziness is my now 6 year old Nora who celebrated her 6th bday on Sunday with a collection of her closest buddies. She is at a great age right now, asking me how she can help in the midst of sick children and tooth pulling. She rooted right along side me today with Sadie and told me her theory about how the sun hangs there in the sky suspended like that (more on that theory in some other post along the way).
By the way, Dr. Kowalski is crappy doctors name. I need to find a new one.