Visit from the Tooth Fairy (originally posted 7/11/06)

No more Mr. Snaggletooth for Brady! He successfully plucked his front tooth out on Sunday. Brady said, "I dug my finger under the root of the tooth really deep and just pulled." After we cleaned up the blood, Brady practiced sticking his tongue through the new hole and smiling a big toothless grin. He was excited to collect his $2 from under his pillow the next morning.Nora is practicing her walking when we are not looking at her. If we ask her to walk, she says "No!" She likes to walk along the walls and between the furniture. It's been about a week since we said good-bye to her bottle and we may be saying good-bye to the crawling soon too.Avery and Brady are enjoying sleeping in and watching some cartoons this week. They've also spent the last 2 evenings chasing each other around the front yard with super soakers. Avery keeps asking how many more days until they get to go back to Bluffton ALONE (I'm not taking that personally...just crying occasionally now). Just 4 more days...Bailey is enjoying his new digs OUTSIDE. We were interruped during our "camping" weekend in Bluffton to hear that our dog was very sick and creating lots of gross messes for our sweet little pet sitter to clean up. Because Scott and I are so creative, we came up with a super solution. Let's just open the side garage door and leave Bailey free to get in and out of the yard whenever the urge may strike. Clean kennel = happy petsitter. So much for those super plans. We found a calling card from the local law enforcement in our front door after we arrived back home. Apparently, one of our more friendly neighbors called and complained to the police that our dog was barking all night. Fortunately, there is no need to get written up in the police blotter section of the local paper just because your animal is an idiot. Well, Bailey seemed fine when we got home, so we put him right back on regular dog food. Then, because God believes in justice, Heather got to clean out the kennel later that day, give the dog a bath and steam clean 2 messes made overnight in the dining room and family room. A visit to our vet, Dr. Withers, was in order. Now we have preventative medicine and special food for Bailey anytime we go away on vacation and he feels the need to have a nervous intestinal breakdown.Needless to say, we are now saying 'good-bye' to our family room carpet and 'hello' to new wood floors. The scented candle companies will no longer be profiting from our need to burn a pleasing aroma at least 12 hours a day in order to mask the zoo-like odor that wafts through the house from the family room. I'm pretty sure that 3 coats of oil-based polyeurathane (spelling??) will pretty much rid us of any smell issues. If we are unusually happy next week, you'll know why.Have a great Tuesday!