I am your dentist...

1st birthday means 1st trip to the dentist. We picked someone who was, by all accounts, the most kid-friendly. Talk about kid-friendly: this place had a playground in the waiting room!!! A far cry from my old dentist's office. About the coolest thing my old dentist had going for him was a poor-excuse-for-a -"treasure- box" filled with sad plastic toys.

Anyway, Jacob really, really enjoyed the waiting room!

Can you guess what he didn't enjoy? That's right: everything else. The nice lady tried to brush his teeth...nope, not havin' it. Not even with yummy-tasting toothpaste. She then handed the brush off to me. Nope, no good. Good 'ol mom was useless. I guess they weren't too used to a kid pitching a fit in their kool (that's how they spell it) dental office because we had many employees pop in to see who was making such a fuss.

The dentist, himself, was very friendly and taught me how "embrace" a screaming 1-yr.-old so as to have his pearlies examined. "Embrace" is such a sweet word and not one that I'd use to describe the steel grip I had on my child. You would have thought that the Steve Martin character from Little Shop of Horrors was trying to expel a tooth from Jacob sans Novocaine.

Fast forward to today. I receive in the mail my Estimate of Benefits from the insurance company. You can imagine my surprise when I noticed that they charged me for brushing Jacob's teeth and and a Fluoride treatment. Ok, so here's the deal:

#1. No one, I repeat, no one got a single bristle of that toothbrush into this kid's mouth. Not the nice hygienist, not me. So, funny that I should be charged $54.00 for that.

#2. Think back to the days when kids had Fluoride treatments in school. Remember how those went down? They would spray some stuff in a little plastic cup, tell you to swish around for, oh, say, 30 seconds, and then, the fun part: spitting out that stuff into the sink! Do you think a 1yr. old could follow these instructions? Even my child, who is skilled, crafty, brave and a wiz at following directions, would have had a difficult time with this. So, why was I charged $27.00 for something that A. didn't take place and B. could not have taken place, developmentally speaking? I was baffled, too!

A small war has been waged on Kool Smiles Dentistry (the small war being because of the ridiculous charges, not that they don't know how to properly spell cool. Although, that may warrant some kind of under-the-breath comment when I talk to their office manager tomorrow. I mean, this is a place pandering to kids. Why are you going to teach and encourage children to misspell words? Dentists should be role models, not come across like they make Harpy Bipthday banners for Dollar Tree). We'll see how it turns out. In the meantime, we're going to leave the teeth-brushing to dad!Oh, they had a poor-excuse-for-a-treasure-box, too. What did Jacob choose? A sad-looking plastic slinky. Good to know some things never change.

Harpy Bipthday!!

As you know, Jacob celebrated his 1st birthday last week. What you may not know is just how wild and crazy things got around here at his party.

To begin, Jacob spent his actual birthday doing what all kids want to do on their birthday: getting shots at the doctor.

That was great!! And those shots have a way of making kids feel great for several days!! So, perfect timing!

We busied ourselves all day Saturday in preparation for the big night!! While putting up the decorations, we noticed that one of the "Happy Birthday" signs was made by some illiterate dumb-o:

I should have marched myself right up to that Dollar Tree and demanded my $1 back, but I didn't want to make Jacob uncomfortable on his birthday. So, I let it go.

Once the guests arrived, everybody got down to business!

I guess the water was a cold.

Raise your hand if it's your bipthday!

Harpy Bipthday to you....Harpy Bipthday to you....Harpy Bipthday, dear Jacob....Harpy Bipthday to you!



Jacob felt too much pressure to smash his cake, so he played it cool and allowed me to feed him.

Isn't it really cool how he ate his cake in just the right way so as to make the remnants on his face match his shirt? Amazing!

Thanks to this motley crew, Jacob's 1st birthday party was a success!!

Thanks, too, to Dad and Paula for helping me pull off the social event of the year!

Next year, the Bipthday Boy turns 2. Wonder how that party will go down? Lampshades on heads? Streaking? TPing homes? With this party animal, there's no tellin'!

In case you missed it....

Jacob celebrated his 1st birthday on the 15th. I'm kinda emotional about it, so I'm only going to present you with pictures instead of an outrageously funny narrative interspersed with pictures. Don't worry, lads, I'll be up and at 'em by the next post!

Weighing in at 8lbs. 6oz. and standing tall at 20 1/4 inches on August 15, 2007 @ 6:10 p.m.:

It's Jacob Patrick Simpson!!!

By 2 months, he's 14lbs. and 24 1/2 inches.


Month 4, he was weighing 17lbs 6oz and was 27 1/4 inches.


At 6 months, 19lbs, 12oz and 28 3/4 inches.
9 months: 22lbs. 4oz. and 30 inches.
And now, at a year, 22lbs 13oz and 32 inches.
Happy 1st birthday to my most favorite, sweet and healthy boy!

Patent Pending

Dolly hates...ooops! didn't mean to use that word. Dolly HATES (yeah, that conveys my meaning better) to have his diaper changed. To hear him tell it, we make him contort his body while insisting he eat beets or something when it's diaper changin' time. Actually, he can't be bothered with laying down for what would be 5 seconds. What he fails to understand is that the process would only take 5 seconds if he'd just sit still and hush up. But, no, not Jacob. Changing a diaper (aka wrestling a kid) takes at least 5 minutes in this house.

I have found, however, that he can be appeased with a novel trinket, which bides me some time (usually only, like, 7-9 seconds, though). Recently, though, I've discovered something that will hold his attention for a lot longer. This item even carries over into the rest of the day. What is this amazing object, you ask?

Yep, that, my friends, is an old gas medicine bottle. See, the top of the dropper can be used as a diaper changing pacifier. So, those of you out there who wrangle with a kid at diaper time, try it and see what you think. You know you want to! And don't get any funny ideas. I've been in touch with my attorney and I've been to the invention.com website and I'm patenting this baby!