All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

September 9 will go down in Lawrance family history. At 11:00 as I was leaving a meeting, I got a call from our daycare center. Come quickly, Josh has fallen and knocked out his front teeth. I rushed to daycare calling the pediatrician on my way. She referred me to a pediatric dentist. When I reached Josh, blood was gushing out of his mouth and he was screaming.

The daycare director drove me directly to Fishers Pediatric Dentistry. They were excellent. They took x-rays and learned that he had fractured the bone that his teeth were in, so they could not save the teeth. He had to have them removed. Fortunately, the permanent teeth were not damaged. It was his front center right and the one to the right of it. To make sure that Josh was getting the best care, they even called in an oral surgeon from two doors down. The recommended that we not go back during the procedure. We could hear him screaming, but knew that he was in good hands. When he got back to us, he quickly fell asleep in my arms. The pain was gone.

Children are so resilient. He napped well that afternoon and was back to his normal personality afterward. He even slept through the night.

He will have a "hockey player" gap in his mouth until his permanent teeth come in around age 7. There is a chance that that front teeth will come in uneven and he'll need braces. Other than that, he should be fine long-term.

We have pictures taken by the dentist. Feel free to e-mail me if you want to see them. They are a bit gruesome for the blog!

Josh's summer in review

I have been negligent once again in updating this blog. I’ve been taking Josh notes over the last few months. Here are some glimpses of the life and times of Joshua William…

Some of you may remember that I planted some seeds when Josh was a month old. Here is his tree!

Aggie is Josh's buddy. He wants to be just like her, so he fusses until I put the collar on him. I took it away that day and he bawled.

"Little Hands on the Farm" at the Indiana State Fair.

Josh with his cousins, Ethan and Allison. Happy Fourth of July.

Playing in the sprinkler.

Pool with Daddy.

June 14: He went through a phase after an ear infection where he put everything in his ears. He didn’t understand that peas are not the same as cotton balls. Last night Ken went up in the attic and some insulation fell. This morning it was in Josh’s ears.

He’s picking up words daily. At this time his words included: apple, “she” (fishie), “bopper” (diaper), ball, ma ma, da da, “tee” (teeth), uh oh (this was his first word), and “boo” (book).

He loves to read books. He will page through them alone. His favorites are: “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” “How Big?” and “The Hungry Caterpiller”. He does motions to the first two.

He has started learning animal sounds. “Key” (kitty) say “mou” and the cow says “ooo”.

We’ve been teaching him baby sign language for words that he cannot say. He knows how to sign: more, milk, eat, drink, and please.

June 21: Josh woke up and started talking to himself. He was saying “Key mou” (Kitty meow).

June 22: Josh continues to pick up words. He has added: eat, ear, baa (sheep sound), and “pee” (piggy). All dogs are “Add-ies” (after our dog, Aggie).

July 5: After breakfast, Josh went straight to his books. We had spent the weekend at the lake and he missed his toys. He collected a few books and took them to the bottom step of the stairwell to “read”.

July 6: Josh picked up his seahorse stuffed animal. I told him that it was a seahorse and he neighed.

July 14: We noticed Josh getting his first molars.

July 17: Josh learned a bad word this weekend, “MINE”.

July 19: Josh learned how to get up on the sofa.

Early August: Josh started speaking in two word sentences. Some of our favorite new words that he says are: “I cow” (I don’t know), “wower” (flower), “tur-dle” (turtle).

August 20: Josh ate his first meal at the table. It was only dry pancakes, but he thought he was big stuff. Now he thinks that the table is pretty cool. We caught him climbing up onto the chair and then up onto the table.

Baking with Mommy

We taught Josh the sign for help. He LOVES to help. To keep him from playing in the dog food, I let him “help” me pour the kibble into Aggie’s bowl. He helps put his clothes in the laundry basket and his toys away. I let him stand up on a chair to help bake zucchini bread a few weeks ago. He likes that so much that I cannot cook anything anymore without him wanting to help. We quickly had to teach the word “hot”. So now he says “hot” and blows (to cool hot food). It is adorable. We baked sugar cookies this weekend. He learned rapidly that cookie dough is yummy. I couldn’t stop him from eating it. I had to push his chair away from the counter to keep him out of it.

Helping Mommy water the "wowers".

September 1- Josh continues to learn words every day. I think that he looks like Ken but got his mom’s talkative personality. The only problem is pronunciation. He really likes trucks- especially dump trucks. Unfortunately he pronounces “truck” “fruck”. Adding the “dump”, often without the p, makes it sound like he is cursing at us. He got fussy in DSW shoe store and started begging for his truck. I had to explain to another customer that he wasn’t really saying what she thought he was saying.

September 5- Josh ate dog poop. I just wasn’t fast enough…

September 8- This will be a post in itself...