Alexander the Great (and Wild)

Alexander is our wild one, and keeps us all laughing even when we shouldn't encourage him.

Enablers R' Us.  

Every day after school, we have the following conversation:

Me: How was your day?

Xander: Well, I didn't get spoken to!  Can I have a treat?

Declan was wearing a 24 hour heart monitor, and every time the clipped part fell off his pants, Xander would yell "He needs help with his phone!"

When we go to a party, I tell the kids they have to make a healthy plate of food to eat and then they can go back and get two small treats.  Xander always begs for more.  Nope, "Two and you're through!" I tell them.  Xander told me that his teacher from last year used to say "One and done".  I told him I should use that one instead.  He said "Nah, yours is way better!  Or we can say 8 is great! or 9 is fine!"

Since my parents moved in downstairs this summer, Xander's favorite past time is to go "visit Gammy & Grandpa".  He is quite the talker and shares with them what he is learning at school.  My parents think he's practically a genius (what grandparent doesn't?) and always have a funny story to share from his little visits...

Grandpa was wiping up water that had leaked out of a potted plant he had overfilled, and then was squeezing it back into the pot.  Xander said "Why are you putting the water back in when it's gonna leak out again?"

He told them a joke too...

Where do sick boats go? 

To the dock.

He is sooooo dramatic.  If I ask him to do something, he complains "Why do I always have to do everything?"  If I'm distracted when he's talking to me, he sighs "Nobody ever listens to me around here."  If I'm making a dinner he doesn't like, he mumbles "You literally know I don't like that." 

There's literally onions in the soup.

And now for the teeth saga:

Xander had a couple of cavities in his baby teeth that the dentist was watching, mostly because we didn't want to have to get fillings on baby teeth and hoped they would just fall out before they needed any work.  Unfortunately, one of the cavities got much larger by the last visit, and had spread into his roots and caused an infection.  Monday night we had to go in to the dentist to get the tooth pulled.  In the car the following conversations took place:

Me: Xander, we need to make sure you really brush your teeth, especially after a sweet dessert.

Xander: I know.  The dentist asked me if I drank soda or juice or ate candy and I told her "No!  I wish!  My mom gives us water and vegetables at every dinner!"

Me: Yes, because that's healthy.

Xander: Maybe I should just eat more protein.  But some protein has sugar in it.

Me: Well, some foods have protein and sugar in them, like yogurt.  But some foods are just protein, like eggs, chicken, and beef.

Xander: Well yeah, obviously. those proteins don't have sugar because they would taste gross with sugar on them.

While we were waiting, Xander read a book about Toothy the toothbrush.  In the middle of it, he gasped loudly.  "What's wrong?" I asked, startled.  "This book says you are supposed to brush your tongue!!"  I nodded, "You should brush your tongue.  It helps with bad breath."  He loudly declared "But it's called a TOOTHbrush not a TONGUEbrush!"

Xander: Can I get a treat if I do good at the dentist?

Me: You need to be good at the dentist no matter what, and I'm not getting you a sugary treat when eating too many sugary snacks and not brushing well is what got us into this mess. 

Xander: Well I didn't say it literally had to be a sugary treat.   It could be french fries, or a hamburger, or a happy meal, or ice cream.

Xander was a great patient, and kept everyone in stitches during his visit because he is quite the little performer if he has an audience (and he always has an audience).  He asked for gloves so he could be a dentist for Halloween, and they gave him a mask too. 

I went to take a picture of him in the mask and said "Say cheese!" and he said "You can't even see my mouth!" "But", I replied, "I can tell by your eyes if you're smiling or not."  Right after I took the photo, he declared, "I wasn't even smiling.  I was just crinkling my eyes."

When he got home, he showed his siblings his missing tooth and temporarily paralyzed cheek and then I said to get ready for bed, and he said "Can I just go show them my smile again because it makes them laugh?  They like it when I try to say F words, like Fat, because my mouth doesn't work right."

He had to go show Gammy and Grandpa too, and he told them that he "might never be able to smile again."

Oh the drama.

He put his extracted tooth under his pillow and said "Yes!  I get to go to the vending machine tomorrow at school and buy cookies!"  I told him he should save his money for something other than cookies, and he said "They have other snacks besides cookies in the vending machine!"

Reading back on all of this, I can see how much he loves sweets and why he has teeth problems.  That kid!