1st Time at the Dentist

Today marked Marshall's 1st dentist visit.  Since Marshall is kind of hit and miss with new people I knew I wanted to find someone who had a good track record with children.  So I hit Google to see what our options were.  As luck would have it, there was a pediatric dentist about 2 miles away from our house.  I read their reviews and followed their Facebook page for a few weeks and saw nothing but positive feedback for the dentists and their staff so I went ahead and made an appointment.

When we first walked in, the first thing you see is a white board where they welcome their new patients.  I thought that was a nice touch.


Of course, what is a children's doctor's office without a play area?  As soon as Marshall saw that, all hesitation about walking into the room went right out the door.

Once we got inside the exam room, Marshall got nervous again with both the dentist and the assistant in the room.  So Freddy got in the chair and let Marshall sit on his lap.  Somehow, with Marshall almost clenching his teeth, the dentist was able to clean his teeth and do an exam.  All the while Marshall was yelling "I don't want to brush my teeth!"  
The diagnosis:  No cavities and four 2-year molars breaking through.
Once the cleaning and exam were done, Marshall was all smiles as soon as he heard "Do you want to pick a prize?"  He even gave the assistant a high-five.  Overall, the whole experience went 100 times better then I expected.
Afterwards, we treated Marshall to lunch at Old McDonald's (aka McDonald's!).


~AKO

Street Fair Fun

Today we ran into (literally) the All About Downtown street fair in Jersey City.  Marshall had his Gymboree class this morning and the street fair was happening right outside so after class we went over to check it out.


There were some nice vendors from the area that we had no idea existed so it was interesting to see the different products displayed.  Marshall, of course, enjoyed the kids area with the bounce houses and slides.


Before we left we stopped by to see the girls at the Gymboree table and Marsh played a few games of beanbag toss.

After our busy day at the street fair, Marshall slept the entire way home :)
~AKO

Milestones

On February 14th, 2011, we dropped Marshall off at his new day care as I had to go back to work 2 days later.  I selected his "1st day of day care" outfit carefully.

When we dropped him off, he had his own crib and cubby for his supplies.  They let us take some pictures of the area.

Of course, as any mommy dropping their baby off at day care for the first time I was a wreck.  And to top it off we had to go to a funeral that day for one of Freddy's Army buddies who had recently passed away.  Anyway, Marshall was perfectly fine when we picked him up...

Fastforward 2 1/2 quick years later and Marshall has finished up his last day at day care.  Friday was his last day and Monday he starts pre-school.  His teachers were kind enough to take some photos of his last day and got pictures of Marshall with all of the teachers that he's had over the past couple of years.

 
They even brought in some munchkins for the kids for his last day.  We couldn't have asked for a better day care experience then what we've had over the past 2 1/2 years.  It is a little bittersweet as Marshall moves on to the next milestone tomorrow for his 1st day of pre-school.
~AKO