Fairies and Stings

Last week as we were getting gas before piano lessons, Hollyn and Kieran alerted me to the fact Kieran' tooth had just become loose. (He'd been trying to get his seatbelt with his mouth, per Hollyn's encouragement.) I turned around and saw blood coming out of his mouth and it did indeed look quite loose.  It was the one that had been broken in half vertically several years ago and miraculously was neither dead nor caused him any pain. But it wasn't as stable as it would have been. I couldn't investigate from the front seat, but because of the bleeding and not knowing if it's history should make me concerned at all, I called Dad's office to ask about popping in after our lessons.

Once settled at the piano teacher's house, I checked out his tooth. It was VERY wiggly, clearly could come out now, but Kieran didn't want to go for the idea of me pulling it out myself. So we went ahead to Dad's office on our way home. Kieran sat wide-eyed in the dental chair, not having any idea why everyone was surrounding him, or why they stuck an odd-flavored qtip around his loose tooth. He continued to sit quietly but confusedly as Dad slipped a knotted floss over the tooth and popped it right out. Kieran didn't even budge, he was so unaware. He did say he felt it and it hurt, but only for a second. It was so quick his brain had to backtrack to think about it.

We talked the toothfairy up quite a bit, but he didn't really understand what it was all about. Something about putting his tooth under his pillow and getting money??? I snapped this picture of him that evening and sure enough in the morning he told me, "I slept with my head under my pillow for the tooth fairy!" 😆 I think he thought he'd get money for any teeth under his pillow, lol.

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The other night Asher and I went blackberry picking up the street. On the side with the bushes there is no sidewalk, which probably helped the selection be rather good. We wanted to take all the kids though, so we went out together yesterday evening. Wanting to go somewhere less "right next to the street", we went over to the top of Witham Hill upon a recommondation that there were "tons" there. Must have been picked over because the selection was really not good. So we headed back towards our house. In the process of turning around at the Old Mill Center (Kieran's preschool), looking for somewhere to park, we noticed a bunch of bushes that looked well-laden right there by the parking lot.  We hopped out to try those and not too many minutes into it, Nate suddenly calls to Hollyn who was with him, "Go back! Go!" Then he scoops her up and runs out of the bush. Kieran and I were literally right next to them, and followed quickly behind. It was too late for both Hollyn and Nate though. Each of them had gotten stung by a yellow jacket. :-(

After some tears and the option to go home, Hollyn decided she would persevere. So we made our way over to the street-side where Asher and I had done well and finished up for a bit. Around the time we were wrapping up, Nate pointed out that I was picking right next to pioson oak. - we came home and immediately washed up with dishsoap. In the end we had a smaller loot than I'd anticipated, and what we did get came at a cost, but darn it - we were getting some blackberries!!!

Kieran is a good little picker and loved it, even though ironically he doesn't really like blackberries, (The ripe ones don't make up for the under-ripe ones you often get). But everyone had to bow to Mom, the champion of berry picking! Overall I think the kids enjoyed the experience too.