My son's new look

My eldest child, Cameron, 7, had quite the dental adventure this weekend.

For many weeks, he's been sporting a bit of a Bugs-Bunny look, as his two front teeth, loose but still in there fairly tight, just seemed to move forward and down. One front adult tooth has been coming in, and his dad and I have been encouraging Cam to wiggle the baby tooth in front to make room. I don't really have a picture that captures this, unfortunately, but here's what my first-born looked like in September.

Well, on a visit with his father to Tillsonburg, Ontario this weekend, his Great Uncle Urbain, a dental surgeon, took one look at him and told Derek those two front teeth should come out pronto to give Cam his best chance at a normal bite and our bank accounts the best orthodontic outlook possible. He'd do it the next morning (a Sunday, kind soul).

I learned of this by email Saturday night and was pretty worried that I wouldn't be there to comfort, but  I was assured Cam was being very brave about it all, and that the little bit of laughing gas Uncle Urbain promised would mean he wouldn't even feel the freezing needle. When Urbain took an X-ray Sunday morning, he explained to Derek that the same thing was about to happen with Cam's eye teeth, so he might as well take all four out when our child was already frozen up. It took some yanking - apparently we have good roots on our teeth - but eventually they were all in a little clear plastic box and Cam was on his way to the next Christmas celebration.

Gulp. Here's the camera-phone pic taken shortly after. How best would we describe his new appearance? Playoff hockey game? Ah well...

It's a little hard to say goodbye to his perfect little chiclet baby teeth. But Cameron seems focussed on the gory new story he has to tell and the windfall he's about to receive when the tooth fairy comes. Cam's not in a huge rush, though, to get the teeth under his pillow, he explains.

"I'm waiting until Christmas Eve so they can run into each other."

 

 

 

 

 

Birthing baby dolls

Adriana Guerra's dolls have been getting a lot of attention lately. The Edmonton doula and entrepreneur has been the subject of blog posts on The New York Times and Toronto Life.

Geurra's beautiful, soft cloth dolls are pregnant, you see, and they each give birth to a wee little baby attached to tiny placenta with yarn umbilical cord. A snap at the baby's mouth attaches to a snap on the mother's breast to mimick breastfeeding.

The coverage has seemed to imply that the dolls offer "too much information too soon" or are somehow off-putting.

I couldn't disagree more.

Just so we understand what we're talking about, here's how perfectly normal and adorable the doll looks when not in birthing mode.

I spoke with Guerra earlier this week and she explained how the dolls came to be when she was expecting her third child.

"The two oldest didn't have any toy to play with that was related to birth," explained Guerra. "They just used regular dolls and they were just breastfeeding the dolls."

So the Uraguay-born mom, schooled in sewing from an early age, created a doll that would help explain how their new baby sister would make her way into the world.

"I didn't want to make it in a way that was going to be scary. It's a doll for a child to understand what was going to happen with me," she said.

And scary it is not.

There's an elastic opening between the dolls' legs. It doesn't look bloody or gross or even anatomically correct. But it does show where a baby comes from. And that's not too much information at all.

See? No big deal.

The toy helped pave the way for Guerra's children - who, doubtless, have far more than average exposure to conversation about childbirth, given their mom is a doula - to attend the birth of their sister.

"It was really incredible. Children learn from play. They saw the representation of what was going to happen to me with the doll. They were not fearful at all. They were very interested and asking a lot of questions."

Most of Mamamor's clients are other parents hoping to prepare siblings for a new baby.

"But some people buy them for educational purposes, you know, doulas. You can open up to talk about many things, the placenta, the position of the baby, if your baby is breach. Midwifes have them in their clinic for children coming to appointments with their parents, La Leche League for breastfeeding. And lately I've been using them from psychologists, they use them for play therapy."

What a great tool for education and play.

For those who think the concept is gross, take a good look first, and answer me this: Isn't this where babies come from? I don't want to get all granola on you, but is childbirth not the most natural thing in the world? Also, does it not make sense to have a tool with which to explain the most dramatic event that happens to the human body?

Guerra has come under fire for the price tag of the dolls, which range between $130 and $145. But she puts eight to 10 hours of work into each and the higher price tags are for dolls that are customized to exacting detail, like this special order from Dubai.

And it's a handmade item that should really be compared with similar products, like Waldorf dolls, not something you can grab at Toys 'R' Us.

If I was having a third baby, which I really, really am not, I would totally get one to explain things to my two boys.

Plus, how cute are these little shoes?

 

Cute kid(s) quote of the week

Alister, 3: "What's that?"

Dad: "Lip balm."

Alister: "Lip bomb? Like in Star Wars?"

Cameron: "Tick, tick, tick, KABOOM! My lip is BLEEDING!"

Cute kid quote of the week

Cameron, in an  ongoing discussion about how jogging pants are not appropriate for every occasion, example, Christmas concert:

"Don't judge joggers. Admit it! You're judging joggers."

Cute kid quote of the week

Alister, 3, speaking of a Dr. Seuss story:

"We have that on Daddy's 'puter with no door!"

Reuters photo