Princesses and abscesses.

This is a picture of Ella with a train stuck in her hair. I'm really not sure why she decided to put a motorized toy train on her head, but I guess being two, she doesn't really need a reason. Luckily, simply putting the train in reverse was sufficient to get it out. I haven't ever cut Ella's hair, because she didn't have any for so long, so I was reluctant to put it to scissors.

Ella has been playing a game with me lately, which she calls "Mommy's Princess Dress." This consists of me sitting on the floor of the kitchen (it has to be a certain spot in the kitchen) and Ella draping a blanket around my shoulders. She likes to arrange the blanket so that it lays just right on my arms and legs. Then she will announce that I need to put my keys in my pocket, and put her hand into the side of her diaper and pull out an imaginary key with a "Ta-da!" and place it in a fold of the blanket. Note that I said the side of the diaper, and not the front or back. It's to be hoped that the "key" she puts in my pocket is clean. I thought this game was very cute the first couple times we played it, but after I sat on our oak floors for almost an hour yesterday playing it, I have to admit that I'm losing my enthusiasm - but not Ella. Now, when she wants to play it, I set the kitchen timer.

Lear had a tough week last week - Thursday, Friday, and Saturday he complained off and on that his mouth hurt. We tried to figure it out ourselves, and he swore that it wasn't his tooth, but his cheek that hurt. We couldn't decide whether to take him to a dentist or a doctor, until Saturday when he was screaming and writhing in pain. The painkillers we were giving him weren't helping, and so I took him to Kid's Care. He cried and screamed all the way there, and fell asleep about a block away. He pouted while I checked him in - until he saw the fish tank, after which he was remarkably happy for a child who was screaming in pain not ten minutes earlier. The doctor looked at his mouth from every angle, and told us it was a toothache. Doctor: 1, Parents: 0. Great. It's Saturday, and we can't get him into a dentist until Monday. Oh, the fun we were in for. Monday couldn't come too fast for any of us. But come it did, and when we took him in to the dentist, we found out that he did have an abscess in one of his molars. We then had to sit through him screaming and crying while the dentist gave him a shot, although once he calmed down, he did very well. I swear he brushes every day, but I guess not well enough. He's still complaining about his cheek hurting a week later, but now I suspect that either  he really likes his Motrin, or his six-year-old molars are starting to come in as well.

Lear quote: "Well, I guess that why you shouldn't be a slime monster." (Comment made while watching the beginning of Monsters, Inc.)

Ella quote: "I want Daddy to come home NOW!"