Random Bits of Life

We've had some changes both big and small lately.  Here is just my way of jotting them down for future reference...

Jack lost his first tooth right after Christmas.  I was late losing my teeth and had most of them pulled by a dentist so I was a little worried at Jack, at 7 3/4 years old, was headed down the same path.  Luckily, it came out fairly quickly after it became loose and didn't cause Jack any problems.  The tooth fairy wrote him a lovely little note and left him $5 spending money and a 1922 silver dollar.

Logan is also down a tooth but this was was pulled by a dentist.  He got a really bad infection and was in a lot of pain.  (Giving that child antibiotics has been the bane of my existence for 10 days now.)  On the upside for Logan, he also got an old silver dollar, $5 and a note from the tooth fairy.

Both tooth fairy notes were written in teeny tiny cursive which, as Jack will tell you, Mama doesn't know how to do thereby proving the existence of the tooth fairy.
_______________________________
I also learned from Jack that he is certain that Santa is for real because on the years we have Christmas at my parents house, Santa is clearly the one bringing presents because my parents don't live near any stores.  Oh, the things they will tell themselves to believe...
_______________________________
Which reminds me of the time I had the boys convinced that for chicken and stars soup, I used a long lasso to pull the stars down to put in their soup.  They believed that for a year or two...
_______________________________
As part of our deliberate 2013, we have gone gluten-free.  It's only been two weeks but it hasn't been as hard as I thought it might be.  I think it greatly helps that Scott is totally on board in participating and being supportive.  I don't believe that any of us have celiac disease.  But there are links to gluten and mood, something that everyone in my family could be helped by.  There are also links between yeast and sinus problems, something I have suffered for 7 years.

GF breakfast has been easy once we found the right cereals though I am missing our waffles.  (I'm on the hunt for a good mix.)  Lunch as been pretty easy because the kids were never huge sandwich eaters.  All four of them are pretty happy taking a green salad to school. After-school snacks are okay too as we've found some crunchy, salty gluten-free snacks that satisfy that craving.  Dinner, which would likely be the easiest for most families is the most difficult for us.  We used to make pizzas and pastas quite frequently.  Now it is a matter of trying completely new things instead of trying to substitute gluten-free things for what we used to eat.

Though it's only been two weeks, I'm pretty glad about how we are doing.
_______________________________
A huge change we made was switching preschool for the girls.  It was an agonizing decision, one we made for a few different reasons.  We loved our old preschool and it was such a part of our family.  I miss my friends and the girls miss theirs too.  But the girls are happy at the new school.  They have each other and they knew one other girl here.  There is a lot more sitting and academics but they are catching on.  I think their favorite part is that they get a morning and afternoon snack...two snacks = two happy girls.  And of course, the snacks are 100% not gluten-free...ugh!  In the long run, having a longer day, being with kids their same age and working on academic skills will be to their advantage.  It also gives me more time apart from them which is a good thing for all of us.
_______________________________
Our last noticeable change was a new token system we started using that has almost completely cut out the amount of screen time (TV and computer) the boys were consuming.  Tokens should be it's own post so more about that soon...