Moving

After living with my parents for this past year, my husband and I recently decided to move back to our house in Studio City. We had been storing most of our belongings in two 10x15 storage units. This past Wednesday we hired two movers from emove and two 26 foot U-Haul trucks. It took 10 hours to move everything from the storage units to the house. We have a lot of stuff.

Since we have been without our stuff for an entire year, I wonder what we will find once we start going through the boxes and unpacking. My husband and I have been married for two years and we have never really unpacked. During the time before living with my parents we were living at the house in Studio City, but we were in the remodeling phase the entire time we lived there. Thus, we never really had the opportunity to live in the house like civilized people with furniture and kitchen utensils. In some respects it seems as if we have lived out of a suitcase the past two years.

There are some things I know we are going to want to sell or give a way once we fully unpack. Already there are certain furniture items we have decided to sell or list for free on craigslist. Does anyone have any suggestions for easy ways to sell items such as dishware, furniture, old baby clothes? Please leave comments with things that have worked or not worked!

Kari Ann Hong, DDS
1000 Newbury Road, Suite 190
Thousand Oaks, CA 91320
www.familycaredentists.com

More Kids?

I currently work three days a week as a dentist and two days a week watching my son. It has been difficult this first year of my son's life to find a balance between working and caring for him. In retrospect I feel like much of this past year I have been in survival mode due to my sleep deprivation. My son turned one about two weeks ago and he has become much easier to care for now since he is sleeping through the night.

Lately people have been asking me when I am going to have more children. That is a good question. I know I want my son to have at least one sibling. My husband was joking recently that we need to have another child to ensure a constant built in playmate for our son. I think it is beneficial for kids to have siblings so that they learn to play and share with others.

The tough thing is the idea of having another baby in the house and of all of those sleepless nights. I know of another female dentist that actually hired a night nurse/nanny the first six weeks of her son's life, to get the baby on a schedule. Hiring help sounds great in theory, but I wonder what it would be like to have another person around in those early days and weeks of a child's life. Babies need so much care and a hired nanny might not necessarily do things exactly the way I would. Although, perhaps it would be possible to find someone that took direction really well.

So the short answer to the question is yes I want more children. It's the when factor I have to work out.

Kari Ann Hong, DDS
1000 Newbury Road, Suite 190
Thousand Oaks, CA 91320
www.familycaredentists.com

Wedding Season

My husband was the best man for one of his dear friends in Scottdale, Arizona this past Saturday. A wedding is always cause for pictures and I took quite a few of the wedding party. Since I am in the teeth business I have a tendency to study smiles. One of the first things I notice in a picture is whether or not the subjects in the picture are showing their teeth. Many times when people are embarrassed about their appearance of their teeth, they purposefully smile with their lips closed. The next thing I notice in a picture is the color of the teeth and the last thing I notice is alignment of the teeth.

I was pleasantly suprised that for the most part the wedding party all smiled with their teeth showing. The one thing that would have really enhanced the pictures is whiter teeth. There are so many different whitening products on the market it is tough to know what to do for whiter teeth.

My recommendation is a new procedure called Deep Bleaching. It is lifetime bleaching with definite whiter and brighter results. What makes it different than other types of bleaching is that the bleach product is kept refrigerated from the manufacturer and it is a combination of in office and take home bleaching trays. The entire process takes two weeks from start to finish and only requires one night of touch up once a month thereafter. Deep bleaching is more costly than other forms of bleaching, but it has definite measurable and lasting results!

Kari Ann Hong, DDS
1000 Newbury Road, Suite 190
Thousand Oaks, CA 91320
http://www.familycaredentists.com/