T-t-tuesday

Today we drove down to Yakima so Jimmy could have a lingual frenectomy. He's been tongue-tied since birth (a congenital anomaly that runs in Jim's family), which wreaked havoc with trying to breastfeed him until we had his pediatrician snip his frenulum to open it up a bit. At the time Jim was convinced that she didn't snip it enough, but I noticed such a dramatic improvement with nursing I didn't really pay much attention to his concerns.

Recently, though, it's started to impact Jimmy's speech. While the lisp is barely noticeable, we decided it should be addressed before he gets any older. Jimmy's dentist here in town couldn't do the procedure, so he referred us to a pediatric dentist down in Yakima. They had to put Jimmy under so he'd be completely still to prevent them from accidentally severing any nerves around the base of his tongue.

Jimmy, in spite of his usual reticence about dentists, and some real anxiety about this particular visit, performed like a champ. He didn't complain at all about not having anything to eat this morning (12 hours of no food or drink because of the general anesthesia), and when he got to the dentist, he didn't put up any resistance about taking the meds they gave him. Jim took the day off and stayed with him at the dentist's office.

Meanwhile, Audrey and I took a trip just down the road to Walmart in search of that holy grail of toilet training: big girl underpants. Did I mention we started toilet training this week? The prospect of having two in diapers is a big motivator to get it done earlier with Audrey than we did with Jimmy.

Not just any underpants would do, though—it had to be Tinkerbell underpants. The $7.75 pricetag for a seven-pack of panties (the exact same pack Macy's sells for $11.95) was enough to get me over any lingering qualms I have about the general PC-ness of shopping at Walmart. That, and for a buck apiece I will be able to dole out a pair of new panties every day she goes potty and make the magic last at least two whole weeks.

Of course, we also had to get the floppy-brimmed Tinkerbell sun-screen hat. And after picking up the boys, we stopped at Target to find sandals for Jimmy, and wound up with a pair of Tinkerbell flip-flops for Audrey while we were at it. So now she's kitted out in sparkly purple Tink, head-to-toe, inside and out.

Getting used to having a girly-girl is still an adjustment, after four solid years of snakes, snails and puppy-dog tails. I do find myself painting my toenails more often than I used to.