Being Sara

Xander hates brushing his teeth. He hates having his teeth brushed. This is a fight we have twice a day. I pin him down on the changing table, and brush his six teeth, his gums and his tongue. I’ve tried different flavors of toothpaste, I’ve tried just brushing with water. I’ve tried letting him brush his own teeth. I’ve tried showing him how I brush my teeth. We still fight about it, twice a day. I’ve read lots of articles on teeth brushing. I’ve tried most of the suggestions. I haven’t yet tried getting a character based toothbrush, but since Xander doesn’t yet watch television, and thus doesn’t know who Elmo is, I don’t think that getting him an Elmo toothbrush is going to change things much. I really don’t enjoy this daily fight, and obviously neither does Xander. Unfortunately, most of the parents I’ve spoken with say their kids have always enjoyed brushing their teeth, so they don’t have many suggestions for me. So I’m asking the internet community at large. How do you get an unwilling kid to brush his teeth?

I love my son, and I wouldn’t trade the experience of being his mother for anything. That being said, before he was born, I wanted a girl. I wanted a girl to dress in skirts and pretty dresses. I wanted a girl to play dolls with and have tea parties with. So far, I haven’t missed that stuff too much. Playing trucks is ok, and for the most part, dressing Xander is just as fun as I imagined it would be to dress a little girl. The one complaint I have is with department stores and holiday clothing. I have been to lots of department stores, and this time of year I always scope out the holiday outfits.

In every single store, there are racks upon racks of little red velvet dresses. Dresses with lace, dresses with polka dots, dresses in every style and holiday color you could imagine. Then I begin my search for the boy’s holiday clothes. In places like Sears or JC Penny, there is typically a big column of dresses - 3 racks wide and 4 racks tall on all 4 sides of the column. The boys section is 2 racks wide, 3 racks tall covering two sides of a column. These clothes are far more generic - red sweater vests, black pants. I finally found a cute sweater with a little train on the front this year. Of course they only had one, and it was too small. Places like WalMart are even worse. They don’t seem to have any holiday clothing for boys, unless you count the red on the Emo shirts.

Why is it that girls can get dressed up but boys can’t? I don’t understand why little boys get shafted when it comes to holiday clothes. Why not more sweaters with winter stuff on them - snowmen, toys, teddy bears, etc. And why are these clothes always buried. Why is it that the girl’s dresses are right on the edge of an aisle, but the boys clothes aren’t next to them - they’re buried in the back of the clothing section.

I just want there to be some equality. I want to walk into a store, and not have to dig through an entire section of clothes looking for a holiday outfit. Every time I walk by those red velvet dresses I get angry at the inequality I see. I know in the grand scheme of things this is really nothing, but it still irritates me for the whole season.

baby, toddler, boy, boys, parent, parents, parenting, mother, mothers, motherhood, Christmas, holiday, holiday shopping, holiday clothes, holiday clothing, boys clothing, girls clothing, inequality, Sears, JC Penny, WalMart

Just after Thanksgiving Xander came down with the flu. It started with some restless nights, and then he started eating less. Then at about 3am on Sunday morning after Thanksgiving I awoke to Xander and Zach covered in vomit. It was of course, miserable getting the two of them cleaned up. And just after we had all settled down again - Xander in our bed, the little guy got sick again, necessitating a change of my clothes and the sheets….

The next week went pretty much like that. The only plus was that after the first day, Xander didn’t have any real food coming back up, so it was mostly just water. After 3 days we called our doctor, and after 4, we made an appointment with them. They had us giving Xander 1 tablespoon of water every 5 minutes until he could keep it down. From there, we gradually introduced Gatorade, and then finally after a week of this, we started introducing carbohydrate-heavy food. The doctor told us that the sweet smell to Xander’s breath was his body burning muscle instead of fat, because he had already used up all of his reserves of fatty cells.

It was a very long week. As I get paid hourly, we couldn’t afford for me to stay home, so Zach stayed home with Xander for three days. I felt terrible that I couldn’t stay home with him, and he was just so miserable - he was just a limp noodle for almost a week. As he was starting to recover, and starting to feel hungry again, it was so hard on us - he would stumble to the refrigerator, and then hold onto the handles and cry - clearly indicating that he wanted something to eat or drink, but since he was barely able to keep down Gatorade, we couldn’t really give him much to eat at that point.

Finally, he was able to keep down some peanut butter toast, and then some buttered noodles, and then he was ready to eat just about anything. It was so hard to see him so sick, and know that there wasn’t anything we could do to help him. The flu is a miserable experience - even if you aren’t the one getting sick.

baby, toddler, parent, parents, parenting, mother, mothers, motherhood, illness, sickness, flu, vomit, Gatorade