Easter Eggs and Cavities

Ruby enjoyed her first Easter egg hunt of 2010 at my parents' church last Saturday. It was a little chilly, but she had a great time! I'm sure that pesky Easter Bunny will be hiding more eggs here at home and at Grandma's house on Sunday.

Hopefully she doesn't get a whole lot of candy this Easter. Poor girl had two cavities filled last Thursday and, boy, has it been a long week! She has been having awful sleep terrors, she literally screams when she's eating, and she's been an overly stressed-out grouch the rest of the time. We even took her back to the dentist to make sure there was nothing wrong. I had visions of her filling having fallen out and the bare root of her tooth being exposed for days on end. But no, the dentist didn't find anything that looked wrong.

Thankfully, by this evening I believe we're all just about back to normal. She still wouldn't let me brush her teeth around the fillings, but I'm hoping that will get better in the next day or two as well. If I can't brush her teeth, she'll get more cavities and this will happen all over again!!

But I learned a valuable lesson this week. I learned that I should never stop doing the attachment/bonding activities that I did with Ruby in those first weeks we had her. After coming to a breaking point on Tuesday morning (literally... don't ask), I forced myself to take a step back and see what was happening. The girl was most likely traumatized by the experience and how did I react? With frustration and anger. She was crabby. She screamed. She was having a sleep terror episode once an hour or more for several nights in a row and during her afternoon naps. And as a result, I was tired and stressed out and crabby myself. And I just got more and more frustrated with her for continuing to be crabby. But after doing some trusty internet research on how to handle sleep terrors I realized that what Ruby needed was to feel secure. She had had a very scary experience at the dentist (she was sedated, but not completely "out" so she had some consciousness during the whole procedure) and what she needed from me was patience, reassurance... Bonding. Once I had this figured out, I could see the changes in her almost immediately. I hope I will never forget this lesson.

So, things are back on the bright side. Today was unseasonably warm, so I got out the clothesline and hung my laundry out to dry. Is there anything better than the smell of laundry that has dried in the sunshine? I think not! I'm even going to do another load of laundry tomorrow, even though it's Friday and I normally don't do any housework on Fridays (not that I'm so great at housework any other day of the week!), just because it's supposed to be back in the 80s.