Mass Exodus

The tooth fairy has been working overtime around here lately!! We have been calling it the Mass Exodus of teeth leaving Haylie's mouth. Just about once a week a tooth falls out of her mouth - it's insane! I feel like I should call the dentist and ask if this is normal but I'm guessing I already know the answer. The poor girl has lost so many teeth she barely has any molars left and hence has a hard time chewing things like carrots or apples. Even the few remaining molars she has are starting to feel loose and therefore hurt when chomped on! We have been cutting things into smaller bites so she can get her food down easier. 

In total I think Haylie has lost about 14 teeth. She lost about 8 of them starting just before Kindergarten (most of them fell out in Kindergarten) and then a couple in first grade. She lost the other 6 in the last month or two!!!

Well, with all this activity lately the tooth fairy is bound to drop the ball every now and then. Haylie had another sudden loose tooth that came out almost immediately after she informed us that the tooth was loose. This time it happened while we were in Tahoe and just about to walk out the door and head back home. A smart tooth fairy would have put it in her calendar right that moment but alas, that is not what happened. Instead the Tooth Fairy failed to show up and the disappointment in the morning was so so sad! We assured Haylie the tooth fairy got confused and probably went to Tahoe since that's where the tooth fell out and where she had been staying for the past several days. She said the tooth had fallen into the crack of her bed so maybe the tooth fairy couldn't find it, Either way we were confident the tooth fairy would find it / her the next night and bring her money. 

When the tooth fairy arrived the next night - this sad letter was waiting: "Dear Tooth Fairy, Why did you not come last night? I was counting on you. Signed, Haylie" Oh my, the tooth fairy nearly cried but pulled it together just enough to write the response below. The tooth fairy left Haylie $4 instead of her regular $2. Haylie was so happy the next day because she had been really hoping for $4 since she needed that much to buy something specific with her allowance. In the end she was kind of glad the tooth fairy didn't find her the first night but the tooth fairy is still recovering from the trauma!!! :)

The Busy Tooth Fairy

The tooth fairy has been pretty busy at our house lately. Miss Haylie has lost 4 teeth in last two weeks. Most of them have been molars but all of them have fallen out fast. 

Suddenly she will tell us her tooth is about to fall out and then a few minutes later, it's out. We never even knew it was loose. Recently, after the advice of her friend Noelle, Haylie has decided to start writing letters to the tooth fairy. She asks questions like, What is your favorite color? Do you speak other languages? Can I have your picture?

This has created all sorts of new work for the Tooth Fairy, responding to letters late at night and trying to keep her new handwriting consistent!

The last tooth Haylie lost, suddenly fell out at the cabin one day. Haylie was staying the night there so we had some great concern if the tooth fairy would be able to find her and leave her regular $2. Thankfully, Grandpa came to the rescue. He used Google to find the tooth fairy's email address and they quickly fired off a note to Fairy Land explaining Haylie's change of location. The tooth fairy found her that night and was so pleased Haylie had sent an email, the generous tooth fairy even gave her an extra $.  She/he wrote a note that was different handwriting but Haylie was so pleased that the tooth fairy found her, she didn't even notice! James, unfortunately, is still eagerly awaiting his first chance to get a visit from the tooth fairy!!!

She's a Runner

When it was announced in class that Student Council elections were coming up, Haylie knew right away she wanted to run for something. She brought home the paperwork and asked if she could run. I asked her why she wanted to run and she said "it would just be so cool to actually have a part in something at school, to do something important and and be a part of helping the school." I figured that was a good enough reason! So, we just needed to decide what she would run for. As a fourth grader her choices were: Secretary, Treasurer or Vice President. She knew she didn't want to run for Treasurer since she has decided she's not very good at Math. So it was between Secretary and VP.  She wanted us to tell her which one she should choose, but we only offered to discuss the pros and cons with her, saying she needed to decide in the end. We discussed the responsibilities of each role: that the Secretary is more of a helper, who keeps notes for the team and helps to record everything the Council does; whereas the VP is more of a leader who helps run the meetings and directs the team along with the President. She expressed her concern about her leadership skills and her ability to direct people (she tends to be a little more of a follower and sometimes easy going to a fault); she knows she isn;t great at being the leader in situations but she acknowledged that she's a really good helper and enjoys that kind of role a lot. She likes to write and could probably help keep good notes. After talking and thinking about it for a little bit in this train of thought, she stated, "I know what I'm going to run for!" I figured the obvious conclusion was Secretary based on our discussion, so I was shocked when her next sentence was, "I'm going to run for Vice President!" "Great!" I said and asked her why she chose that. She told me that if she became the Secretary, it would help her get better at something she's already good at, but if she ran for Vice President it would help her grow and get better in an area where she struggles. She told me she needs to challenge herself and learn to be more of a leader, get better in areas she's not good at, instead of take the easy way and just be a better helper. I wished I had a recorder at that moment to tape her explaining this to me. Honestly I was almost trying to convince her to run for Secretary in our earlier discussion because it really was a better fit and the more comfortable choice for her. I was truly blown away at the maturity of her response and she really taught me a lesson that day. I tend to only put effort into the things I already know I will be good at. I love that Haylie had the courage to be more!!!

Funny enough, in the end, she did end up running for Secretary. By the time everyone's forms were turned in, half of her friends who were originally going to run had decided they didn't want to anymore. She had several friends running for Vice President and no one she knew well was running for Secretary. She preferred not to run against her friends if she didn't have to. 

She had to make a poster and write a speech and then deliver it to half the school. There wasn't any real campaigning allowed, although they could walk around at recess and ask people to vote for them if they wanted. She was much too busy at recess playing with her friends so it would all come down to speech day (as with most of the kids). We practiced for a couple days and then the big day came. She was so nervous!!!! 

When she got up to give her speech I was overwhelmed with emotion watching my baby girl stand up and talk in front of a couple hundred kids. She did great!! She raced through a couple parts when the nerves got to her but I was so impressed with her courage and her poise as she asked for her classmates to vote for her!!!

The vote was calculated that day and unfortunately she didn't win. We didn't tell her but the odds were unfortunately stacked against her. There was only one 5th grader and four fourth graders running for Secretary. The fifth grader won. Haylie was a little sad after school but our response was: going out to dinner to celebrate!!! She gave a great speech in front of half of her school despite her previous claims that she gets stage fright. At dinner last night she told us she's running for President next year!!

When she went back to school today, she found out the Student Council is also made up of Class Representatives. Only the people who ran for election can be a class representative and out of the four kids in her class, she was voted as the winner. She was soooo excited to run out after school and tell me she still gets to be part of the Student Council. In fact, she thinks she got the better end of the deal because she doesn't have to type up the notes from the meeting or have a ton of responsibilities. She gets to represent her class in the meetings, vote on the decision items, and then report back in front of her class after every meeting. Not sure what I think about that part, but personally, I'm sort of glad we had the loss yesterday so she could learn how to get back up and know how proud we are of her win or lose. We are her biggest fans!!!

This Chair

James had croup this week, and what started as a cold and yucky cough, quickly turned into a midnight trip to the emergency room. James woke up in the middle of the night gasping for air and struggling to breathe. We have had some pretty scary moments as he has dealt with asthma, but not many others have truly compared to this. We quickly raced to give him a breathing treatment but it seemed to only make things worse as he couldn't even breathe in the steam or albuterol the device was producing. For the first time ever I almost called 911 but we opted to throw James in the car (pull  Haylie out of her bed) and race to the emergency room ourselves. After James and Micah stood in the garage for a short time while I grabbed Haylie and everyone's blankets / sweaters, etc. James started getting a little better. We arrived at the emergency room and he was breathing relatively normal but they still gave him a dose of Steroids to endure he didn't have any further problems. 

When we arrived home, we put our tired boy to bed on the chair in our room so we could monitor him and ensure he was breathing the rest of the night. As he lay there I watched him breathe in and out and I was so grateful he was ok. Strangely enough, I couldn't help but think about the chair he was sleeping in and how thankful I was for that chair holding my baby.  Our big green chair was one we bought when we moved into our first home at the beginning of our marriage about 13 years ago. I remember we bought it at Naturewood and they were having a special where we could choose any custom fabric for the chair. We chose a soft, green velvet mostly because the color matched our new bedding and room decor. At the time, little did we know what a big role that chair would play in our everyday lives. Just a few years after purchasing our green chair, we had our first baby and miss Haylie and I spent nearly all of her first three months of life, morning and middle of the night in that chair, nursing, sleeping and playing. I took her newborn announcement photos on that chair and I took James' on the ottoman. When James came along, we too spent hours on that chair nursing and resting. Much of the early bonding with my two little babies took place in that chair. Both of our kids have slept in that chair throughout their lives whether it was together on sleepover nights with us or separate, after nightmares, feeling sick or a particularly rough night. I have done countless morning devotions in that chair and our kids love to sit there and read or rest while I'm getting ready in the mornings. I am thankful for the comfort and safety that chair provides and I'm thankful to continue to watch my babies grow and breathe before my eyes. We have redecorated our room a couple times since getting that chair and I'm sure we will redecorate a few more times but so far any new decor has centered around matching that chair and I can't see getting rid of it anytime soon.