100 Stroke Club
Greetings to you all.
Another event to crow about, and Xavier is button-popping proud. At his swim lesson today, he did 100 continuous back strokes.
Xavier said he got really tired around sixty strokes, but he did not want to stop.
Way to go, Xavier!
Xavier Loses His First Baby Tooth
Greetings to everyone.
Wow, what a rite of passage.
For more than two years now, Xavier has been willing a loose tooth in his mouth. At least once a week we heard, "Dad! I have a loose tooth!"
His last visit to the dentist, he had such high hopes the dentist would pronounce the truth of his loose tooth.
Disappointingly for him, the dentist did not. Rather, he informed Xavier that when baby teeth stay in longer, it means healthier teeth, both baby teeth and adult teeth.
The constant mantra of "I have a loose tooth" became ignored background noise to us until the sixteenth of July this year.
Rebecca was at work, I was working from home and Xavier was playing Minecraft.
His constant talking to himself changed to an excited tone. "Dad, my tooth feels funny." He walked over with his finger in his mouth.
I took a look and was taken aback at what I saw. Behind his row of baby teeth, his first adult tooth, and it was nearly fully in.
And still, none of his baby teeth were loose. I called the Dentist and made an appointment to have it looked at.
The day after I made the appointment, one of the baby incisors in front of the new tooth loosened up. Over the course of the next week, it grew looser and looser.
The dentist was unconcerned with what he saw, and explained the balance of tension between the tongue and lips to move teeth into place. Of course, braces are not off the table either.
This morning, as Xavier stepped down into Middle Earth on his way to play Minecraft. "Dad!" he called excitedly. "It came out!"
We asked the dentist if he knew what the going rate the Tooth Fairy was paying out was. He only said he thought the cleaner the tooth, the more money.
Xavier, this morning, has gone from his hopes at one dollar to three or possibly four dollars because his tooth is healthy and clean.
Xavier the Gardner
Greetings to you all.
Earlier this year, after we finished hauling the dirt for Rebecca's planter boxes off the front lawn, we ordered another six yards of soil for Xavier's garden, which is in the front lawn.
The last two years, Xavier's garden has grown weeds better than pumpkins and his other plants.
This year, Xavier has a goal of growing a pumpkin big enough he can hide in. On Halloween, he hopes to hide in it until someone comes to the door, then pop out with a "Boo!"
To that end, we bought two types of pumpkin: 100-200 pounders and 400-500 pounders. We started his pumpkins in the house in peat pots.
When the weather improved, we moved them to the new soil hill in his garden. We covered them with Hot Kaps until the plants grew too big. About mid June we took the Kaps off.
The birds over the winter helped seed his garden with sunflowers. Interestingly, nearly all the sunflowers perfectly bordered his fifteen foot diameter garden.
In the center, we planted four of the 400-500# plants and six of the 100-200# plants. On the north side, Xavier planted four tomato plants we bought off a neighbor. To the west, Xavier put in two cucumber vines and a zucchini. On the lower part, he planted two pumpkin plants that produce tiny pumpkins.
At the bottom of his garden, the first plants to come up—even before the planter box project began, his Yukon Gold Potatoes. These plants were a birthday gift from Xavier's Grandpa Danny two years ago. We missed a few in last year's harvest. They produce beautiful plants and nice potatoes.
We ended up over-planting the hill. The pumpkins have taken over everything. Growing at two feet of vine a day in every direction, they have started pushing over the sunflower retaining wall. Already, Xavier has three nice candidates. We estimate these three to weight between twenty and twenty-five pounds already.
Of course, Xavier competes his garden against Rebecca's. But, he also enjoys helping Mom in her garden.
This year, he has enjoyed harvesting the lettuce and spinach greens. After some quick tutelage from Rebecca, he knows what to pick and when. Often he'll come in the house with a handful of greens for the day.
We have already eaten several of his zucchini (Rebecca cooked a fantastic stuffed zucchini dish the other night), and he has given some of his zucchini away to the neighbors.