Braces, Husband and Family Tree project

Sean got his braces on Friday, June 15th. The orthodontist also had to put bumpers on the backs of his two top teeth to keep them from moving the braces on his bottom teeth out of place, due to his deep overbite. It took him several days to get used to them.


This past Friday, we had to go to the oral surgery place so they could check his blood pressure to make sure he's healthy enough for surgery. His appointment is this Wednesday morning. They'll give him a shot in his gum and laughing gas, then pull the baby tooth and make a small incision in his gum (yikes). They'll then attach one end of a little chain to the wayward permanent canine and the other end of the chain to his braces. The doctor said it shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes. I'll then have to take Sean to the orthodontist every few weeks so he can pull/tighten the chain and get the tooth in the right place.

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The kids and I picked Charlie up from the airport Saturday evening. He'll be home for a week (and on vacation) and then he has to go back to Texas. I hope he doesn't have to stay gone as long this time.

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I've been busy printing old photos (some from the 1800s and also photos of paintings from hundreds of years ago), documents (death certificates, draft registration cards, etc.) and census records for the family tree. I gave a bunch to my mom. She loves it and told her oldest sister about it (Aunt Wanda's coming down from TN on Wednesday), who is excited and can't wait to see what I've found and printed. Mom said she's going to give Aunt Wanda what I've given her, so I'll have to print them off for Mom again as well as print copies for myself. I see a lot ink cartridge, printer paper (including what's called parchment paper, which I'm using for documents other than census records) and photo paper purchases in my future.

Sean's Teeth

So I took Sean to the orthodontist yesterday. He's getting braces on Friday and will need oral surgery as soon as possible to fix a top front tooth (his left canine) that's growing in over another permanent tooth (the front tooth next to the canine). It's still up in the gum, but of course you can see on the x-ray that it's moving completely away from the baby tooth (which isn't loose and will have to be pulled) and coming down over the permanent tooth. If left alone, it will push out the permanent tooth and when the baby tooth that it's supposed to replace eventually comes out, there will be a gap.

After getting braces, they're going to remove the baby tooth and attach one end of a little chain to the permanent tooth that's coming down wrong and the other end of the little chain to his braces. (I still need to schedule an appointment with the oral surgen for that.) Then every few weeks they'll pull/tighten the chain so that the tooth can be guided to the right spot.

Sean also has a deep overbite (his top teeth completely cover his bottom teeth when his mouth is closed), there are gaps between his teeth on the left side of his mouth, the point of his top right canine is gone (probably grinding his teeth in his sleep; thankfully it's a baby tooth), his teeth aren't lined up properly, his lower jaw isn't positioned right because of his top teeth covering/blocking his bottom teeth, and his front teeth point inward instead of down. In other words, his mouth is a mess. :-/

The orthodontist said that if Sean doesn't get braces and get his mouth fixed, by the time he's 40 his teeth will be nubs from them rubbing and grinding and not lining up properly. :-/ He also said that Sean has the teeth/mouth of a 12 year old (Sean is 15) in terms of the number of baby teeth and permanent teeth.

His appointment Friday is at 8:00 AM and is in Summerfield. (Their office here in Greensboro doesn't have any appointments available for a couple weeks and I want to get the braces put on as soon as possible.) That means I'm going to have to get up around 6:00 AM and leave around 7:15. Ugh. I hate getting up early in the morning. Kelly will be staying the night with Mom tonight so that she doesn't have to get up that early and so I won't have to take the time to do her hair before we go.

I'll take pictures of Sean with his braces (he said he wants Carolina blue) if he'll let me.

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In other news, my favorite restaurant in Greensboro, Bianca's Italian Eatery, has closed. :-( I loved their chicken piccata, their pasta with rosemary cream sauce (their eggplant tomato sauce was also really good), almond cheesecake, blueberry chocolate cake and Key lime cream cake. *sigh* It makes me sad to know that I can never eat there again. I hope they'll open back up soon. I'll miss eating there.

Update on Sean and on the Family Tree Project

I suppose I should post an update about Sean's report card. It came on Saturday and he has passed his grade. He's officially a high schooler. Makes me feel kind of old.

Though he will be homeschooled, he's trying out for the football team of the high school in our district. (He signed up to be a kicker.) Sean said that he mentioned being homeschooled when he signed up and was told that that was okay, but I'm going to talk to the coach when I get the chance and make sure.

Sean went to his first weight training and work-out at the high school yesterday. He'll be going again this evening and Thursday evening and many more evenings during the summer.

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I've gotten busy with the family tree again here lately. I've worked on it off and on since purchasing a 6-month membership (which will end in August), but recently have begun writing down the information in journals. I'm currently writing down the information (names, dates, etc.) on my dad's side of the family.

I also want to print out the family tree, photos and documents (census records, draft cards, death certificates, etc.) and put them in scrapbooks. So I went to Target yesterday evening to buy a scrapbook or two, expecting them to be the big, thick ones like I bought many years ago, but I was disappointed. They cost more than I expected and there aren't nearly as many pages in them as there used to be. So you have to buy refill pages, which don't come with many in a pack. I'd have to buy many refills and that would get pretty expensive. So instead I bought a photo album for just $8 that's about the same size as a scrapbook. It has a lot of pages in it. I also bought a pack of refill pages. I paid less for the photo album and pack of refills combined than I would've paid for just a scrapbook.

One photo album won't hold all the information I'm going to be printing out, but it's a good start.

On the subject of printing, I also went to Best Buy yesterday and bought a new printer. Unlike my old printer, which is 10 years old or more, this one also scans, copies and prints out photos. I can't wait to get started printing out the family tree, old photos and documents.

I want to make photo albums/scrapbooks not only for myself, but for other members of my family. I want to give one to my mom of her side of the family and perhaps give some to other family on her side. And I'd like to give some to whoever wants one on my dad's side (my dad passed away in May of 2006, so unfortunately I can't share any of this information with him) and on my husband's side of my family.

I hope I can get all this done before my membership ends. I'm really nervous about not being able to get it done in time. I got a good deal on the membership and I don't expect there to be another good deal offered to me at the time my current membership ends. I sure hate to lose access to all those census records and other documents and photos I have attached to my family tree. I've saved some to my computer, but there are many more I haven't saved. Partly because I'm trying not to cram too much into my ancient computer.

*sigh* I've got a lot more work ahead of me with not much time left to get it done.

Graduation Ceremonies

Today is the last day of school for my kids' school district. Kelly "graduated" yesterday and got her report card. She passed her grade and will be going to 6th grade next school year. (Still planning on homeschooling.) Since we already know she passed, she won't be going to school today.

Sean's "graduation" was on Tuesday, but he won't get his report card until Saturday or Monday. We're not confident that he passed his grade (I'm really nervous about that) and since attendance is something they look at when deciding whether or not to promote a child to the next grade, I figure Sean needs all the help he can get. So he will be going to school today. It may not help (he missed a lot of school, had a D or two on his last report card and only passed one of three EOGs), but just in case it does, he will be going.

Of course, what stinks about it is that if they aren't going to promote him to the 9th grade, it's kind of cruel to allow him to participate in the graduation ceremony and give him a certificate for completing the 8th grade. It must make him (and other students) feel like, "Well, I must have passed my grade or they wouldn't have allowed me to participate in the ceremony or given me a certificate of completion."

We'll be on pins and needles until his report card comes. *sigh*

Anyway, Sean's graduation was Tuesday evening at 6:00. A local news anchor was the guest speaker. I took a few pictures, of course. They didn't turn out as well as I would've liked. :-/ Here's one of them:

Sean and his goofy faces. lol I think he may have been chewing his lip - a habit of his.

Kelly's graduation was 8:30 yesterday morning. (Kind of ridiculous to have the ceremony so early, in my opinion.) I had to get up at 6:00 AM (after only sleeping 4 hours) and get myself ready, get Kelly up at 7:00, had her at school by about 7:35, came back home, waited for Sean to get ready (they were supposed to go on a field trip, but it got cancelled because of rain*), left the house at 8:00 to bring him to school and then made it to Kelly's school by about 8:20.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, there were no close parking spaces by then, so I had to drive around to the front side of the school and park there. Then walk in the chilly rain (with umbrella, of course) to the auditorium. :-/ The ceremony lasted around an hour and a half and I managed to get a few good photos. Here's one:

In addition to her "Celebration Certificate" for passing 5th grade, Kelly also got an Awesome Behavior award.

After the ceremony was over, we came home for Kelly to change clothes and then we went to Cracker Barrel with my mom. She then got Sean out of school early (yet late enough to be counted "present") and brought him home shortly after that. By this point I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I took about a 3-hour nap.

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The kids are in bed sleeping and I am not tired after taking that long, late nap. I'll make my way to bed in about an hour and read some more of A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Reading usually makes me sleepy, so hopefully I can fall asleep after reading a chapter or two.


**ETA: Since they couldn't go on their field trip on Wednesday, due to the rain, they went on Thursday, the last day of school. Sean had been looking forward to it for awhile, so I'm glad they got to go.