Holy Toddlerville, Batman!

So, once again I am way overdue with an update. And once again I lack much time (or energy) to do it properly. So here’s the quick end of things:

Grayson’s dental “surgery” is scheduled for this Friday, April 18th. For those who aren’t aware, Grayson’s teeth are very decayed, and the problem started before he was even a year old. Possibly he was born with an enamel defect in his baby teeth, which I also had as a baby. We first noticed what seemed like tiny little chips in his two front teeth, but everyone we talked to seemed unconcerned about it, including our pediatrician. By the time I finally wised up and just listened to my instincts to take him to a dentist, he already had cavities in 7 of his 16 teeth — 3 or 4 of them severe. The problem is most visible in his four top front teeth (central and lateral incisors). Those teeth are basically worn away to little, brownish, pitted nubs. Remarkably, it doesn’t seem to bother him very much. He has rarely demonstrated any pain or sensitivity in his mouth; mainly, he has learned to eat hard or chewy things with the side of his mouth. Anyway, to make a long story longer, we are having all of the teeth taken care of on Friday. We have to take him to Rockford Ambulatory, where they will anesthetize him and do several extractions, caps, crowns, and apply sealants to the rest. We are very nervous, but it will be a relief to take care of this. Over a year ago, we put him on a diet that is sometimes effective in remineralizing teeth. We gave him only whole milk to drink and very little water; we supplemented with fluoride tablets and brushed religiously with fluoride toothpaste. He rarely consumed refined sugar. The most sugar he consumed, outside of a birthday, was yogurt or whole fruit. He has always had a healthy appetite and really likes a large variety of foods, including vegetables, so we were lucky there. We gave no candy, no juice, no desserts except for rare and special occasions. I really can’t say that any of it helped at all. But it was still nice to give him that foundation — I am hoping that by feeding him in a healthy way, it will help us to get healthier too!
Talking: He is talking up a storm. 4 and 5 word sentences mostly. Just a few weeks ago, if he wanted to know what I was doing, he’d say, “Do, Mama?” which was fantastically cute, but recently he started saying, “What’s Mama doin’?” and the like. He can count to about 15, though doesn’t seem to be able to count actual objects past two. Any group of like items is counted like this: “One, two! Two tractors, Mama!” I suppose we’ll get there! His speech is probably pretty typical of a 2 year old — not great at “L” or “R”, and the occasional, but very cute, lispy “S”. We’ve caught him singing snatches of the alphabet song, and he plays with the letter magnets on the fridge. He knows they are letters, but he doesn’t know the correct ones yet. He’s also become very aware of words in our books (we read a LOT of books here!) and seems to be very interested in what they say.
Sleeping: He’s been in his own bed, in his own room, since the day after his 2nd birthday. We’ve had ups and downs, the downs mostly relating to illnesses. He has had 3 ear infections since the beginning of the year, which is discouraging. He’s currently fighting an ear infection, but despite that we seem to be on a pretty good track. What a difference this has made for all of us! He really took to it so well.

Here are some pictures — click on any of them and you will see the rest of the pictures in the set. Please keep Grayson in your thoughts and prayers this weekend as he recovers from his dental work.

Playing with his Wedgits — the coolest toy around!