Prebble Family Tales

Sorry to shut down the comments after having only recently opened them up for everybody, but Sir Gareth is getting hit pretty hard by spam comments (which I’ve been deleting on a daily basis).

If anybody would like an account for posting comments, please mail tprebble@efn.org with an account request.

We’ve seen it and done it all with Gareth by now…replaced tubes, had multiple surgeries, faced many emergencies and odd situations. Through it all, I think I’ve managed to stay relatively calm and collected. However, the normal kid thing of wiggly teeth has thrown me for a loop!

As Trav writes below, Gareth has had a loose tooth for some time now. Every night I have made Trav pull on it to see if he could get it to come out. But no luck. Then today as Gareth and I were playing I noticed the tooth was horizontal in his mouth, just barely hanging there so I decided to give it a yank. Sure enough, the tooth popped out into my hand. As I inspected the tooth, it looked as though only part of it had come out so I went into this complete panic. What if part is still in his gum? What if that part comes out and lodges in his trach? What if he gets some weird infection from part of the tooth staying in? AACK! I called the dentist while hugging my little guy and cleaning him up. The dental receptionist (who I’m sure thought I was a complete nut!) told me that there were no appointments for the day and that I should calm down as most baby teeth do not have roots left when they fall out. Not satisfied with that answer, I called the next best expert…my mom. She tried to calm me down while searching online for any bit of info that might ease my panic a bit more. Together we decided that I should call the pediatrician. Unfortunately our trusted pediatrician is out of town for the week, but the doctor on-call spoke with me and told me to relax and “just monitor the situation–call if anything changes.” So I finished cleaning up Gareth (who after the bleeding and pain stopped thought it was a riot that his mom was in such a tizzy!) and let him play video games as a reward for dealing with the turmoil and I did a little house cleaning to calm down (yes, vacuuming is therapy for me.) My fantastically supportive mom stopped by a little while later to check out the situation in person. She looked at the tooth and Gareth’s gums and deemed all to be fine. Gareth is doing well tonight and it really looks as though everything’s going to be okay.

Crisis over…time to go check on the tooth fairy!

One of Gare’s Leapster TV games is Finding Nemo, which he enjoys despite having never seen the movie. Noting a deficiency in his popular culture catalog, we bought it for him over the weekend. He got about a third of the way through the movie last night before falling asleep. Maybe he’ll get further along tonight.

That second tooth is still in his mouth. It’s hanging on for dear life, avoiding any and all contact with the fairy of teeths. Gare continues to push at it with his tongue but has now added his fist to the efforts. He is well aware that he has $1 worth of tooth that he can’t cash in until it’s out of his head. UPDATE - I came home only to find that the tooth had been extracted. It also set off a mild panic in the household, but that’s not my story to tell.

Gare’s latest music craze is Choo-Choo Soul. Choo-Choo Soul is a short shown during the Disney channel’s “Playhouse Disney” programming block, which happens to be where Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is placed. That’s how we got introduced to Genevieve (the conductor), the nameless engineer, and scads of dancing kids. Turns out that Choo-Choo Soul existed before the interstitials were created and had even released an album that is now available only on iTunes. Click, click, burn. Now we have it on CD and have effectively used it as a reward system. As in, “If you stay in bed tonight, you can listen to Choo-Choo Soul with Jo (his nurse) in the morning.” That sometimes works.

This winter weather is taking its toll on Gare’s patience. He’ll often walk over to his bike and hit it to let me know he wants to ride. We’ve done a few pedaling sessions in the house to help pass the season, but it’s going to be a while before we get out for more excursions.

Speaking of post-winter projects, Gareth has decided that he wants to re-do his bedroom with a Cars theme. He continues to shun Star Wars. It’s time to find him a therapist.

Gareth got a chance to play his favorite fighting videogame at school yesterday. The students from the EPICS program were back to observe Gareth’s use of other joystick controllers, so Gare got a chance to step out of his classroom and into a room with a TV, a Dreamcast, and his favorite game - Soul Calibur. He also got to play his Cars game on the Leapster.

The students had some great ideas for joystick interfaces that were not only perfect for Gare but were also entirely novel. I’ve never seen anything in the various accessibility catalogs that matches what they’re designing. They’re off to a good start.

Gare’s second loose tooth remains both loose and rooted. His first adult tooth continues to push upward, and there is now a concern that the loose tooth will cause the new tooth to grow in crooked. I’m not entirely sure I buy that since there is a perfectly well-rooted baby tooth to the other side of the new tooth, but I’m no dentist.

We were scheduled to have Gare’s transition to kindergarten meeting today, but it was canceled due to a two hour delay for the school district.