At the dentist

Gabe had his dental appointment today. Unfortunately, he had to get a treatment done to his teeth because the enamel is just starting to erode.

Lovely.

In our part of Oregon, there isn't any fluoride in the water. So, during the last several years doctors started prescribing fluoride drops to babies aged 6 months and older. Our first pediatrician gave us a multi-vitamin with fluoride, but Gabe's teeth started turning grayish. Fluoride, in large doses, can cause fluorosis. And naturally, there is all this dramatic information online about the dangers of fluoride. So we stopped it, got another vitamin to take and decided we would take him to the dentist at 1 year and ask them about it.

Of course now in retrospect, I wished we'd have just gotten a separate fluoride supplement right away instead of waiting. Oh, well.

The up side is that the staff is really great and Gabe did well. The doctor showed us around the office and gave us information on teeth health, etc. The treatment itself is not invasive; just two coatings of substances that I cannot remember the names of. He sat still for it all, amazingly.

The doctor said it's completely treatable and that a lot of children his age come up against enamel problems and cavities (this didn't make me feel better, though) primarily because of diet. Drinking juices (apple, especially), canned fruit, and shockingly things like granola and honey can cause tooth decay. Even foods and drinks without added sugar can be problematic. So even with fluoride, he might have still had problems, but the likelihood would have decreased, I suppose.

One thing that surprised me was that the dentist said it's okay to brush his teeth with kiddie toothpaste (the ones with fluoride) using a rice grain-sized amount. He said the amount he'd swallow would not hurt him and this could take the place of fluoride drops. He does this for his own daughter, who is not much older than Gabe. Wow. We've been brushing his teeth with a fluoride-free paste from Whole Foods.

So, he has to get these treatments every two months, but I can't remember for how long (my mind has been sifty this morning). For now, all the fluids he'll be getting are water, plain cow's milk and breast milk.

As far as foods, I think I will rinse all canned fruit with water to get rid of that extra syrup, but try to stick with mostly fresh fruit, veggies, Gerber 3 meat meals, breads, cheese and plain whole yogurt.

Here are some photos from today:


With Craig before we left home.


At the dental office.

Teething, Cosby Show, and hot days

It's almost fall and it still feels like summer here in Portland! The temps this week might hit 90! Crazy. Since moving to Portland, I've found that the summers here are way more dry and sunny than people like to admit. The rain and overcast skies mostly occur during the winter and spring, which I don't mind at all. I love waking up to all the spooky fog and dampness.

Well, it looks like this week Gabe has some teeth coming in that I can see. His upper incisors are breaking through the gums. He is a bit cranky today; or at least has a shorter threshold for things. I have some homeopathic teething drops that work quite well; I would tell you all the name of it, but frankly I don't feel like getting up at the moment. Okay, fine. Gentle Naturals. I haven't given him Tylenol yet for pain. But we'll see when those start molars come in (!!!).

Speaking of teething, Gabe has his first dental appointment next week at Dr. Pike's office. Now, we're not getting the old Dr. Pike, but his son. I was assured that son of Pike is just as dedicated to the dental health and psychological well-being of children as father Pike. We'll be the judge of that!

I just posted an Examiner story about the 25th anniversary of The Cosby Show. It's one of my favorite sitcoms. I could watch those episodes over and over. Hope you like the story!

Walking more, eating better

Gabe is getting more comfortable with putting finger foods into his mouth, so much that I worry he is going to choke! I keep an eye on him, but I guess I'm being a worry wart mom. What he does, is puts pieces into his mouth and immediately spits it out. If he likes the taste, he'll eat some of it.

He's doing great on eating stage 3 foods. His favorites are anything with chicken or turkey in it. He doesn't gag at all on these, but will occasionally spit out a little soft carrot. He is not a fan of the ones with pasta and tomato sauce.

Gabe likes walking, though he is still holding onto our fingers when he does it. He has times during the day when that's all he wants to do. Last week, he did a few rounds of solo walking again. I think his confidence is building well and he is getting more comfortable.

Gabe's tongue and the reincarnation of "News Junkie"

Gabe's tongue is healing quite nicely. I have a friend that assured me the tongue can take a beating; she pierced her's twice and was amazed at how quickly the hole closed up! So, he is doing good. He caught some beach volleyball on TV briefly on Sunday afternoon with Craig and didn't you know, he started pretending he was serving with his soccer ball! Man, those baby brains are sponges, lol.

He still likes to walk around, holding on to one of our fingers, and can stand well alone, but hasn't taken any more independent steps like he did a week ago. I know he is making progress and will walk when he is ready.

The eating situation is improving. The gagging has lessened a lot. Ironically, after biting his tongue, his appetite increased. Yogurt is probably his favorite food right now, but he ate a whole container of YoBaby yogurts in one sitting last week; he's never done that before. He will now eat what I give him, IF he likes it. We started giving him mostly Stage 3 Gerber stuff, and he has started getting used to the chunks! He will eat some, and then start spitting some out. Vast improvement over not knowing what to do with it and gagging, right? What I do sometimes, is mix some applesauce with a chunky meat food and he really likes that. Sweet and savory can go good together, yum.

Still pretty cautious on finger foods, but he will lick and suck on stuff if he likes the taste.

In other news, I've changed the name, focus and location of my other blog, "Chronicle of a News Junkie". It is now "The Cafe au lait Chronicles", located here, and the new post there explains the reason for the change.

That's all for now!

Gabe bites his tongue (literally!)

Monday, while I was filling his juice/water bottle, Gabe was crawling towards the living room on the hardwoods. I guess he tripped or something because he landed on his chin somehow and bit into his tongue very badly. I glanced at him and heard him start to cry at about the same time and knew that it was not a normal cry. I picked him up and there was blood that seemed to gush out of his mouth (and probably a good amount of drool, but still). At first, I thought he busted his teeth out, but after not seeing any teeth on the floor, I realized he must have bitten his tongue.

Anyway, functionally, outwardly, I was trying to stop the bleeding and comfort him. Inside my head, I am like, "Aaaaack!!!" The bleeding stopped in less than 2 minutes, after 10 minutes, he forgot about it and was wanting to play. However, I had to a) check to see if he bit through his tongue and b) check the wound to see how bad it was.

Meanwhile, I called his Dr. and they told me (his own Dr. had left for the day, I talked to another) that if the bleeding stopped and he had not bitten through his tongue, to leave it be and skip the ER. After getting a good look at it, I determined that it was bad, but it was not an emergency since he indeed did not bite through his tongue and was not bleeding like it was when it first happened.

After things settled down, I told Craig at work. When he got home, he got worried, especially when he saw some spot bleeding still. So both of us were trying to determine if we needed to take him to the ER anyway. The problem was that the wound was trying to clot and heal, but through various means, he kept re-opening it, i.e., putting his hands in his mouth, gnawing on toys, etc., totally oblivious. We figured that after he went to sleep, and let it clot over during the night without interruptions, the wound would be closed enough by the morning to not be reopened as easily.

So that was the case. By Tuesday morning, it already started turning white (wounds in the mouth turn white as they heal). Here is a pic:



After reading online about the many children and adults that bite their tongues, I found that mouth wounds heal pretty quickly and rarely get infected because of the rich blood supply and saliva is apparently antiseptic, antibacterial or something to that nature. I will still watch him, but even today, Wednesday, it is looking even better.

Stressful start to the week!

Gabriel's Check-up

We're trying out a naturopath for Gabe's pediatritian and this is our second visit. So far, she is great.

We asked her of she could check to see if he had a ear infection because within the last few weeks he's been touching his ear and head a lot. Not everyday, but often enough to warrant addressing. His ears were clear, so we're thinking that teething is the culprit. We got confirmation when she felt his gums and his molars are making their way down, with one almost trying to break through on top. His gums have been very swollen for weeks, so this is no surprise.

His molars might also be part of the reason why his appetite for solids have been nil. He has his favorites which are any flavor of yogurt, Whole Foods 365 applesauce, banana, strawberry combo, and any type of smoothie. Once he ate up several bites of guacomole. All other foods, including finger foods, he either licks or plays with. Or he tries to feed it to us!

I was getting concerned about him handling chunkier foods because he gags a little whenever they make their way into his mouth. Now, he gagged a LOT worse when he was between 9-12 months old. So he has actually improved. But he is not super into chunky or finger foods. Now, I am not so concerned because I think once he starts eating more of those kinds of foods, he should be fine. But right now, he's just not interested and the Dr. said once his 1 yr. molars come in, there is a good chance his appetite and interest in chunky/finger foods will increase. She said while some kids are happy to gum their foods, others may not feel comfortable chewing their foods before their first molars come in.

And of course, we know that after 1 year, most kids slow down on the growth and just don't require as much food as we think.

Gabe is starting to really want to feed himself, too, so I just set him up with a bowl of food, 2 utensils and try to get a few bites in myself. He does show interest in our food, but only to play with it. This of course ends up being pretty messy, and I end up spending a good part of the day cleaning up and bathing him if he has gotten irredeemably messy.

Gabe is not walking alone yet, but he can walk assisted with one arm free and one hand holding on to your finger. And he can cruise along furniture and the wall just fine. I hope he will be walking by the end of the year, we'll see.

So, that's the update!

Mom's Birthday

I took my mom to the Lavender Tea Room for her birthday today. It's located in Sherwood, Oregon and I said yesterday that the ride was about 30 minutes, it ended up being a little over 40. We got there just in time for our appointment.

We were by ourselves for most of the time (two other women came in about 15 minutes before we left). We had the "Lavender Tea" that included scones with clotted cream and jam, fruit, and tea sandwiches (two cucumber with cream cheese and two mozzarella with tomato and basil). Dessert was (and these were all very small) lemon bar, brownie tart, cream puff and white chocolate dipped strawberry with almonds. The tea we had was good; but I cannot remember the name. I only remember some of what was in it: lavender, cinnamon, spearmint and some other stuff.

Well, my mom loves tea houses so it was the perfect gift for her.

And my new favorite food: clotted cream. Very popular in the UK, very hard to get here commercially. So I think I may try to make some myself!