Birthdays and Black Teeth.

Yup that's right... BLACK teeth. That's the latest side effect of Quinn being on Iron supplements. Nice eh? His two front teeth look as if they died at the root. I sorta noticed when I was brushing Quinn's teeth last week before I put him to bed. I think I mentally blocked out the image in my head thinking, "maybe he ate a piece of dark candy." The next day my Mom pointed it out. I immediately did what any parent would do... I googled "black teeth."

I guess this is a known side effect of being on iron supplements. Aparently I didn't read up enough on these liquid supplements before I began giving them to Quinn. Gaah! I called the pediatrician and tried to describe the situation to the receptionist. I got an immediate response from the advice nurse who tried to convince me that Quinn fell and had a tooth injury. When the actual pediatrician called back, she explained it was a side effect of the Iron supps.

The good news is the dentist could probably buff the stain out when Quinn goes for a cleaning. The bad news....Quinn has to go to the dentist for a cleaning. Lord help me get this kid in a chair at the dentist's office. I think I'd rather have my cavities filled. Literally. The other good news is that Dr. Ward was willing to let me try to get Quinn's Iron levels up by switching up his diet and ditching the supplements. Yeah!

Here are some pictures from Quin's birthday party. It was a lot of fun. We had the party at a play place called Funtastic. Here is what it looked like.

It was lots of fun for the kids and the adults. There were rope ladders, twisty slides, and floor puzzles. What more could you do for a 4th birthday? Below is Quinn's special tractor cake. His Aunt Doodle (Daphne) made it by Quinn's special request. We have no clue where he gets his interest in John Deere tractors.....???

Mmmmmmm cake time!

It looks like Quinn had some help with those birthday candles.

It would have been nice for me to get a picture of Chase too but for some reason I was running all over Funtastic making sure everyone was having a good time and I hardly got a chance to touch my camera. :( Maybe I'll get a chance at Quinn's 5th birthday.

MRI

Quinn had his MRI today and it went well. We made the mistake of dropping by Starbucks on the way there to the hospital to give yours truly a caffeine fix. It quickly turned into a plea by Quinn for milk and food. He was hungry and let us know. How do you deny your child food when he's hungry? That part was hard on me.

When we checked in the receptionist allowed Quinn to choose which movie to watch. He picked Thomas (of course). I filled out all the paperwork and gave them a list of my important information while the nurse put some numbing cream on Quinn's hands for the IV insertion. When we brought him to the back to start his IV, he began crying and screaming because he wanted to continue to watch Thomas. We compromised by letting him watch Thomas in the lobby while sitting in my lap and the nurse poked his arm for the IV. Even with a numb arm, he began screaming and crying. The nurse gave him the special syringe of "milk of amnesia" to put him to sleep. Almost immediately, he peed all over my lap and fell into a deep sleep.

It was a dramatic start to his procedure but the rest went without a hitch. Grant ran home and grabbed some extra clothes for us and a special gift for Quinn when he woke up. I went to the bathroom and cleaned up. Thank God I decided to wear flip flops today. ha ha.. After about an hour and 15 minutes, the nurse called me back to see him. I brought my little point and shoot camera and snapped this picture of him. He was so sweet all snuggled up on his bed.

Do you see why I love him so much?

I can't get enough of this kid.

But this is how I prefer to see my little man.

Daddy snapped this one this weekend when we were at the lake.

We had a few laughs after we got home with Quinn walking around in a daze. It didn't last long though. He's already skipping through the house playing with his new Bob the Builder dump truck and excavator. We wont get the results for another 3 days or so. Oh, and they didn't let me see his scan. :( Hopefully I'll get a sneak peak of his MRI when we have our follow up with the neurologist.

But does it taste good?

What does it take to get medicine that tastes good? Why should it matter that medicine tastes good? Why can't I keep my checking balance over $100? Is this a lot to ask?

So I finally made the right connections and got the prescription for the Iron supplement called in to the pharmacy. The pediatrician called in a chewable tablet in the hopes that Quinn would take a chewable tablet as opposed to a yucky tasting liquid. I hoped that I could crush up the tablet and spoon it into his morning and nightly doses of Depakote Frosting Delight. Mmmmm.... Sounds good eh? I wonder how many more pills or supplements I can squeeze into a tablespoon of frosting.

Anyhoo, the pharmacy said they don't have the chewable form of Iron supps and they called 3 other pharmacies for me that also don't carry the chewable tablets. GAAH! I explained to the pharmacist that it's nearly impossible to get something into my son's mouth unless it tastes good. The pharmacist was an earnest and diligent young man and seemed committed to helping me out. He brought back, 3 different brands of liquid iron supplements and went over the ingredients with me. The first one was lemon flavored. Could lemon flavor cover the taste or would it taste like cleaning solution? The second one didn't have a specific "flavor" but the first ingredient was "sugar" and it looked like a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. I'm about 99% positive that hydrogen peroxide doesn't taste good. The 3rd bottle didn't have a specific flavor either but the first ingredient was "sugar" and it had an orange label on it. I looked up at the pharmacist and thought, "surely if it has sugar in it and an orange label....it must taste good." I'll take bottle number 3, thank you very much.

I'm not sure what drove me to do this...but on the way home I decided to open the bottle and sniff it out to see if it smelled good. It didn't really have a scent so I dipped my little finger in it and went in for a taste....
.
.
.
.
Oh my god, it was as if I were sucking on the bottom of an old and nasty iron skillet. I had to spit....the traffic light turned green and I had people behind me. I thought I was going to die and urgently needed to spit.

Speaking of spitting....Did you read my last post? I managed to get the window down and hawk a spit ball out the window of my car while turning left at the light. I'm sure that was a sight for the young man in the car behind me. He was probably thinking, "Who is this crazy lady in a minivan hawking a luggie out the window?"

When I got home, I filled up the dropper with the iron supplement and turned to Quinn. He looked at me, opened up his mouth, sucked down the liquid, and ran off without saying a word.