Look out for falling....teeth!

It has begun once again in the Shiflet household.  Teeth falling out like rocks from the side of an unstable cliff.  Kathlena has entered that time where whistling will cease; pronouncing "th" can only sound like "f" sounds and no food is too soft to keep from dislodging one of these loosie goosies!
It all began last Friday.  Kathlena was enjoying her usual ham and cheese sandwich.  Very soft and perfectly harmless right?  Well, not today...a few bites in and Kathlena with a quizzical look on her face said "Emily, did you put tomatoes on my sandwich?"  Emily looks at her sandwich seeing red stuff on it and thinks to herself, "did I put tomatoes on her sandwich?  No, so what is that red stuff?"  After a few minutes of investigation and questions it is discovered that the red stuff was not tomatoes at all, but blood from a missing bottom tooth.  Only the tooth in question was no where to be found!  Oops, it must have gone down the hatch with the sandwich that dislodged it.  This was quite disappointing for Kathlena as she has been waiting for well over a year for this exciting rite of passage to be bestowed upon her--losing her first tooth!!!.  She, however could not be convinced that she actually swallowed the tooth.  Now in her defense we have no concrete evidence of the tooth's whereabouts since,  well...uh Mom was willing to just "let it go...;)"  So, sadly I have no first tooth to baggie up, label, date and put in Mom's treasure chest of children's teeth she collects for each child.  Somehow though this is fitting for my out of the box, uncontainably energetic Kathlena.  It makes for a much better story.
Now fast forward to today and once again we are eating lunch on a beautiful Friday afternoon.  Only this time the culprit is a glass of water.  Apparently, it bumped her loosie goosie top front tooth knocking it into a rather unpleasant looking position of sticking straight out.  Upon Mom's inspection it is discovered that the tooth must only be hanging by a thread, but a tough thread at that because despite my twisting and tugging it would not release itself into the safety of Mom's hand to be stored and recorded neatly in Mom's treasure chest of teeth.  The front ones are so priceless and this was going to smooth over last weeks debacle of "loosing" the first tooth.  But, once again Mom's plan is foiled!!! Somehow while "not really jumping off the couch, more like sliding she claims" the front tooth flies out to some unknown hiding place in the living room.  While we are excited to have yet another baby tooth extracted sadly it too is lost!  We looked high and low for it to no avail.  My hope now is that my meticulous 10month old who combs and scours the floors for tiny objects to put in his month and scare his poor mother to death will not be the recipient of the "lost" tooth.
Well maybe next week I will finally get to have a tooth of Kathlena's to put in my treasure box, but for now I only have this great memory. ;)

Furry Muffins--Emily and Kathlena's Story

It was already a stressful morning, the day we leave for vacation always is. We had woken up well, let's just say not as early as we would've liked, we still had most of the packing left to do, and we were trying to get to the beach in time to swim, but we hadn't even got breakfast finished yet. Mother was making Blueberry Muffins when Kathlena and I (Emily) came in to help. After what seemed like forever the muffins were at last ready to go into the oven. I greased the muffin pans and set them on the counter between the oven and the pantry. I heard footsteps above me "I guess somebody's in the attic" I said. "Dad's looking for another Rubbermaid tub" Mom replied. (This time we decided to go to tubs instead of suitcases). I turned to empty the dishwasher, we all were relieved that the muffins were finally going into the oven. Mom went over to pour the batter into the pan, Kathlena went over to watch. I was bent over the silverware drawer with my back to them when I heard a loud crash behind me and Kathlena scream.. I turned to see Dad's right leg hanging from the ceiling directly above where Mom stood.

There was a yellow cloud of insulation pouring down all over Mom who was still pouring.

It was all over her, the floor, the counter, and...

...the freshly poured muffins.

It wasn't so funny when it happened but by the next day we were able to laugh about it and the following week after our vacation we had it repaired. After we paint over it you'll never even be able to tell that the hole was there.

However, the incident was quite traumatic for Kathlena, for some time afterwards she was shaking so badly that she couldn't speak other than "it was so scary". But after awhile even Kathlena was able to laugh at it...at least a little. Now she has fun telling the story over and over again for her brothers who missed out on the action.

Here's Kathlena's side of the story captured on film:

We arrived at the beach house without further incident though we didn't make it in time to swim. Andrew and Kathlena were simply beaming with excitement as you can see in the pictures below.