Our Tooth Fairy Has Alzheimers

On Tuesday night, Joe finally succeeded in pulling out a tooth that Adam had loose for several months. It had caused much trouble because the incoming tooth came in quite far behind it and only wore away the roots on the back of the tooth. When it finally came out, it had a ginormous root on the front side. That happened shortly before bed, so we got a baggie and put the tooth in it and the kids went to bed.
The next morning Adam got up and was excited to take a picture of his new smile. He forgot to check for any money from the tooth fairy...which I quickly realized was a good thing. He got downstairs and was about to eat breakfast when he remembered... he quickly ran upstairs and was gone for about 5 minutes. When he came down he was extremely mopey. I figured he had realized the tooth fairy didn't come, but I asked him anyway. He said that he couldn't even find his tooth or any money from the tooth fairy. I told him I would look later.
After I ran my errands, (which just happened to include a trip to the bank to get a roll of dollar coins)I went and figured out the situation. I was able to tell Adam when he got home from school that indeed the tooth fairy did come and left him 3 dollar coins, it just happened to be on his table. He remembered then that he had put his tooth on the table because he has formulated a theory that the tooth fairy doesn't come if you put your tooth under your pillow. This is due to some unfortunate past experiences.
Too bad he's only our first kid.... what will happen by the time #4 starts losing teeth?

Goats!

Yes, you read that correctly...meet Brooks and Dunn the newest members of our agricultural family. Brooks is the larger one, but Dunn is the leader.
They are going to perform an important task for us....clearing the underbrush on our island.

Yes, this is Joe's brainchild, I'll let you know in a few months how it turns out.

The Talk

Warning...this is post is for mature audiences. I share this because as I have mentioned this coming up to other moms I get one response..." I can't wait to hear how that goes." I understand, until I did this I was curious how it would go, and maybe this will help some other moms out there overcome their fears.

When Adam was just a baby, Joe was worried about him growing up and being a teenager. He heard about the book "How to Talk to Your Child about Sex" by Linda and Richard Eyre, so he bought it. We read the cover and then put it on our shelf until last month, when I finally read it. The premise of the book is that if you are the one to start the discussion about sex with your child and you do it in an open and loving way, then you open lines of communication between you and your child about sex and they will be more interested in viewing it in the same way that you do. They say that if you talk to your children about it and it is familar to them and they understand how special it is, then they will be more likely to wait to try it out until they are in a committed and healthy relationship, or married. All that said, they suggest you have a special night when your child is 8 to let them know. They even suggest some books to bring to have your child read.

Well, that night for us with Adam was last night. If you know my husband you know that he doesn't have any qualms about talking about sex, me on the other hand...I have a few. I was a little nervous about the whole thing, but since Adam is a boy, Joe got to lead the discussion.

It went well, but not at all like I thought it would. We went to Chili's, which was a great choice because we could get a booth and it was loud enough that no one could overhear our conversation. (We took only Adam, this was his special night). Joe told him about how he was old enough now to understand more about how the world works and we were going to tell him about how babies are really made. We asked him if he knew anything about it... no, our sweet Adam is completely innocent and naive. Then we had him read the book, "Where Did I Come From?" by Peter Mayle. It went fine, he was reading the book and nibbling on chips until he read the part, well, you know-THAT PART. He read it completely deadpan while he nibbled a chip completely non-phased. I looked up at Joe and he was laughing (quietly though). I lost it, I started laughing really hard that my eyes watered, however, I didn't want Adam to know that I was- so I had to look away. He never did figure out we were laughing, but it took a couple of minutes to recover. Anyway, he read through the anatomy part pretty quickly, not really that interested and then got to the sperm and egg part and was more interested (he really is my son). By the end, we explained a few alternative words for "making love" so he knew what people were talking about and explained he should come talk to us with questions, and told him this is a secret he shouldn't tell others about it. He was SO done, and was eager for us to change the conversation, he acted more bored with the conversation than anything else.

After dinner, we went and got ice cream and he asked only one related question...."so, after the baby is made in mommy, then Jesus puts the spirit in it through the Holy Ghost?" Really, we have a sweet child.

I was completely surprised that Adam was not at all interested in the mechanics of the process, but just the scientific part. I thought we were having a discussion about sex, but he came away thinking that we just had a discussion about how babies are made. This shocked me, and I wondered if we presented it too early, but then I realized that that is just the point. Now he has heard about it all and when the other boys at school talk about it, he will be able to say, oh ya, I heard about that, I understand that...it's not a big deal and he won't (hopefully) dwell on it and think about it in an inappropriate way.

I'm sure it will be a totally different experience with each of our children.

Adam's Baptism

Adam was baptized into our church on his birthday. It was an unusual day to do it, Monday, but my parents were going to be in town until Tuesday, so we were able to do it on his birthday and they could come.
As we approached his birthday, we talked a lot about baptism and what it means. Adam was a little unsure about the level of his testimony. We discussed in length about how testimonies can be small, but that is okay. We let him choose whether he wanted to be baptized, and he chose to be baptized. I am so proud of him, and the good choices that he makes.

It was a beautiful day on Monday, but at about 5:30 pm it started to downpour. It was pretty rainy until after the baptism.
Adam was baptized by his father and confirmed by Grandpa Stratton. It was a nice program, Adam gave a talk on baptism, and I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost.

This is our family before the baptism. I am so lucky to have such beautiful children.

After the baptism, while Joe and Adam were changing, we watched a little video of pictures of him from when he was a baby. It was fun to see how he changed as he grew up. He is such a sweet child.

Adam's Birthday

Adam just turned 8, can you believe it? His Grammie and Grandpa came to visit us this weekend, so they got to help celebrate his birthday with him, and see his baptism. We don't really like cakes in our family, so he got a large chocolate chip cookie for us to sing to him.

Wow, there are getting to be a lot of candles, check out the smoke:

I got him some presents, not too many. Joe decided that he needed to get the kids another 4-wheeler, so he gave it to Adam for his birthday. Now Michael will get Adam's old one and Ellie will get Michael's old one. So really it is Ellie getting a 4-wheeler here.

I told Joe I thought perhaps we might be spoiling the kids. He said he didn't think our kids were spoiled...spoiled is saying something like..."Daddy, I want a pony."
A couple of weeks after we had that discussion Adam comes to dinner and says he knows what he wants for Christmas next year. He whispers in Joe's ear that he wants a horse.

Point proven.