Dental appointment highlights

Getting ready for my rubber dam.

Dental Assistant: Do you have any latex allergies or anything like that?

Me: No.

DA: Okey-dokey.  We can get started then.  Oh, and that is a great foil.  My hair was supposed to turn out like that, but it didn’t. 

Yeah, it really didn’t.

 

Here’s a visual of me with my rubber dam:

 Did you know they’re now providing protective eyewear and full mustaches?

 

I’ve got my dam on.

DA:  I just got back from a cruise to Alaska.  Have you ever been to Alaska?

Me:  Grunt-grunt.

DA:  It was cold and interesting.

Me:  Grunt.

DA:  Those are cute tennies.

Me:  Grunt grunt.

DA:  Where’d you get them?

Me:  Grunt grunt-grunt.

Grunt grunt grunt $!#&*%? grunt-grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt, grunt $!#&*%? moron!

 

Dr. Mode gets to work.

Dr., to DA:  What have you got over there?  Do you have a cone?

DA:  A what?

Dr., gesturing unintelligibly:  A cone…the cone.

DA, handing her an instrument:  You mean the acorn thingy?

Dr., looking at the instrument:  Yeah, that’s it.

Um, don’t these dental instrument “thingies” have actual names?!?

 

The soundtrack:

America, Neil Diamond
50 Ways to Leave Your Love, Paul Simon
Ebony & Ivory, McCartney & Wonder
something by Whitney
Back in the High Life Again, Steve Winwood
Electricity, Elton John
The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby
Don’t Wanna Lose You, Gloria Estefan

And a couple others I forgot.

 

The verdict.

Dam.

A few weekend notes

Goose came home from a birthday party with her pants in a plastic bag.  I pulled them out and there was a big, pink stain.  She’d spilled her drink.  I asked her what she was drinking, and she said Sprite.  Um, last time I looked Sprite is not pink.  I asked if it was some kind of flavored Sprite, and she said no, just plain Sprite.  How does plain Sprite leave a pink stain?  It was a mystery. 

A disturbing mystery, apparently, because I dreamt about it.  And then in the middle of the night, I woke up with a start with the thought, “The napkin!”  Obviously, she must have tried to mop up the spill on her pants with a brightly colored napkin, perhaps of the pink or purple or even red variety.  Is there a more likely place to find a brightly colored napkin than a child’s birthday party? Well, is there?!

The next morning I tried to confirm my suspicions, asking Goose if she had, indeed, tried to clean up the spill on her pants with a napkin.  She said yes.  I asked what color napkin.  She said Hannah Montana.  *Eye roll*  *Sigh*  Yes, the Hannah Montana napkin was pink.  Mystery solved!  I know, my powers of deduction are mind-blowing. 

(Oh, and just in case you were concerned, she did not return from the party pantsless—she had borrowed a pair from the birthday girl.)

---

 

A group of friends is strolling through Target.

Friend #1 is putting some items in the cart.
Friend #2 says innocently, “Oh, I loves me a good Oh.”
Friend #3 says thoughtfully, “I don’t think that I’ve ever had an ‘Oh’.”
A few moments of silence and then Friends #1-3 laugh heartily.

(It’s OK. We, I mean, this group of friends, was in the cereal aisle.)

---

 

Yesterday at church, BigHugs reached into the sacrament tray, picked up a piece of bread, and then put it back and started to select another piece. This is typical, and I always either pick up the piece she has set down and take it myself or hand it to her, reminding her that you have to eat the one you touch. (I don’t even want to think about how many parents aren’t paying attention to their children’s sacrament selection habits.  Partaking of the sacrament is an act of faith in more than one respect.) This time, I picked up her discarded piece and handed it to her, then I reached into the tray and put my fingers on something. It looked like bread, but it did not feel like bread. It was hard. Like a kitchen sponge that has completely dried up hard. But once you’ve touched a piece, there is no going back.

I thought about just palming the piece and then selecting another perhaps less petrified one, but I felt like the sacrament passer person (I would say deacon because in our church the deacons, who are of the ages of 12-13, are typically the sacrament passer persons, but yesterday there were not enough deacons so they had adults filling in) was keeping a very watchful eye on me. BigHugs’ attempt to discard her first selected piece had likely put him on alert. So I steeled myself and stuck that piece of unbreadly bread into my very own mouth.

I was not prepared for the horror that was unleashed in my person. Not only was it hard, but it tasted… wrong. Very, very wrong. Like dragged out of the dumpster from beneath the rat droppings and dead body wrong. Shudder, shudder, shudder. There are not enough tic tacs in the world to remedy that kind of taste budual assault. SHUDDER.

Later that night, as I was relating the story to Chuck, he said, “At least it was blessed.” Sorry, still shuddering.

 

How was your weekend?

It’s all about the love

BigHugs was sicker than a dog this week.

Me: I’m sorry you’re sick, sweetie.

BigHugs: It’s OK.  I still love you.  I love you more than a rooster.

Me: Um, thanks.  Do you love me more than a cow?

BigHugs:  Yes.

Me: Do you love me more than a piggy?

BigHugs:  Yes.  And I love piggies.

Is there any greater compliment than being ranked above barnyard animals?

 

Out of the blue.

BigHugs: Mom, do you love me?

Me: Yes.

BigHugs: Thank you.  For loving me.

You’re welcome.

 

Over spilled milk.

BigHugs: I’m sorry, Mom.  Do you still love me?

Me: Yes, of course I still love you. Just try to be careful with your cup.

BigHugs: OK, Mom. Thanks for not stopping loving me.

What kind of monster does she think I am?

 

Bedtime.

Me: BigHugs, go back upstairs and get in bed, please.

BigHugs: But I want to stay with you.

Me: It’s bedtime.  Get back in bed.

BigHugs, looking up with her big puppy dog eyes: But I love you.

Me: Yeah, yeah.  Go back to bed.

I am so onto her.

Bythelbs does the classics

So for the past several months I’ve been reading, reading, reading.  All kinds of reasonably entertaining fluff with a few good things sprinkled in the mix that I might actually talk about sometime in the near future. 

I started feeling a little guilty about all the time wasted on the fluffy fiction, so I decided to pick up a few classics that I had always meant to read, but never got around to.  (Because, you know, reading real literature totally makes up for neglecting the house and children.)  So far I’ve read Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby and Jane Eyre.  I’d actually like to discuss those at some point with y’all, but I don’t seem to be in writing mode right now, so I’m going to stay in reading mode.  Do you have any recommendations?  Any must-read classics no self-respecting human being could pass through this life without experiencing? 

If you don’t have any classics to recommend, I’ll welcome other suggestions as well.  What have you been reading?

It’s not so bad

You know, this is my fourth attempt at starting a post.  I have an endless supply of the typical blogging material to write about, but absolutely nothing to say.  It’s a little…disconcerting?

There’s a lot going on.  Not A LOT a lot, but, you know, just stuff.  Regular ol’ stuff.  And I’m just kind of mucking my way through it, trying to remember that life’s really not so bad.

I hope you’re smiling.

There really is something very wrong with me

Tuesday night was supposed to be curriculum night for DynaGirl’s class.  I’ve never been invited to a curriculum night at any of my children’s schools before, so I didn’t know exactly what such an event would entail, but from what I could gather you go sit in your child’s classroom and listen to her teacher tell you what they’re going to be learning that year. 

In theory, this sounds like something I would want to attend (or, at least, should want to attend–I mean, my neighbor AND her husband were planning to attend for their child), but Tuesday night also happens to be a night when Chuck, Mr. T and DynaGirl are gone at church activities, so I would have no one to watch the younger girls, and the invitation clearly stated this was a parents only activity.  Of course, I could have tried to arrange for a babysitter, but as every parent knows, there are babysitter worthy activites and non-babysitter worthy activities, and I guess for me curriculum night falls into the latter category. 

That almost sounds as if my child’s education isn’t a top priority.  Well, if it makes you feel any better, I must have been feeling somewhat guilty and conflicted about that because when the school called Tuesday morning and left a message that DynaGirl’s teacher wouldn’t be holding curriculum night for her class because she had had a death in the family, I said (out loud), “Awesome!”

See, I never would have felt so relieved about it being cancelled if I wasn’t feeling bad about choosing not to go.  Isn’t it reassuring to know that I have a conscience?

Life lesson #397: Sometimes looking like an idiot is the right thing to do

Goose started piano lessons this week.  Mr. T and DynaGirl have been taking piano for a few years now, and Goose has been anxiously awaiting her turn.  Piano lessons for three is a little pricey, but having stayed with the same teacher, we’ve at least been able to pass down the books from kid to kid.  On lesson day, I packed up the kids’ books, including the primer that Goose would be using, and sent them on their way.

When I went to pick the girls up an hour later, DynaGirl got in the car and announced that Goose had to borrow the teacher’s lesson book because I’d forgotten to pack it, and then produced a note from her teacher asking that I please send the primer for next week’s lesson.  I told DynaGirl I had sent them with the primer.  She said she looked in the bag and didn’t see it.  Mind you, this is an average sized tote containing four music books, a theory book, and the girls’ two reading books for each to pass the time during the other’s lesson, not Mary Poppins’s carpet bag in which you’d have to look behind coat racks and under armchair cushions.  There just aren’t a lot of places for a book to hide.  I opened the bag and pulled out the book.  I didn’t even have to look for it.  It practically jumped into my hand.

When we got home I told DynaGirl she should be sure to tell her teacher next lesson that I had sent the book the last time, so that she would know that I’m not the kind of idiot mother who would send her daughter to a music lesson unprepared.  Then DynaGirl said, “But I looked in the bag for the book, and my teacher even looked for the book too.  Won’t that make her look like an idiot?”  Naturally, my first thought was “better her than me”, but DynaGirl’s innocently astute and compassionate observation appealed to the better part of me—the part that is occasionally willing to look like an idiot in order to spare the beholder of my alleged idiocy the same embarrassment.  The sacrifices I make.

And I’m totally not sitting here now, two days later, still trying to figure out how I can subtly and compassionately convey my non-idiocy.  Totally.  Not.

More random conversational tidbits

BigHugs playing with her Leapfrog alphabet thingamabob.

Creepy Leapfrog Kid Voice, singing: C says “ck” and c says “sss”.  Every letter makes a sound and c says “ck”.  And “sss”.

BigHugs, singing: C says “ck”.  And “sss”.  Look, Mom, I’m doing it!  I’m learnin’!  I’m learnin’!

I hope she never grows out of that excitement.  Puh.  Who am I kidding?

 

Watching Pride & Prejudice on TV when an advertisement from Sugardaddie.com* comes on.

DynaGirl:  OK, lots of losers must watch this channel.

Goose, to me:  Good thing you didn’t use that.

Yeah, good thing.  Hey, I’m watching this channel.

*I won’t link to the website because, well, it frightened me.  But the tagline says, “Where the classy, attractive and affluent can meet.”  Um, yeah, sure.

 

In the car.

Goose:  I want my husband’s name to be Nick or John. Or something else if he’s awesome.  Nick or John would have to be awesome, too, of course.  But if he was super awesome, I wouldn’t care what his name was.

Husband wanted: only awesome Nicks or Johns or super awesome non-Nicks or non-Johns need apply.

 

I can’t remember how this came up.

DynaGirl:  Exercise isn’t exactly my specialty.

A few days later, on the couch.

DynaGirl:  I like laying down.  Laying down is my specialty.

Obviously, there is a genetic component to specialties.

 

Walking in on the end of a conversation between Mr. T and DynaGirl.

Mr. T, scoffing: It’s not like mandatory for all contortionists.

I have a feeling I’m missing out on the best material.

 

 

 

What I’ve been doing with myself

So as of yesterday, all the kids are back in school.  Halle-frackin-lujah.  Well, BigHugs starts preschool next week, but today she was invited to spend a few hours at a friend’s house, so I had a good chance to see what it would be like to have a few hours to myself.

I went to the grocery store.  I spend entirely too much time at the grocery store, both in frequency and duration of trips, and today was no exception.  I wandered around fairly aimlessly, picking up this, that and the other until I realized I’d already used up almost half of my kid-free time!  I headed to the check out stand toot-sweet and carefully arranged my purchases, as I do, only to have my cashier blantantly disregard the system.  She threw my yogurt in with Mr. T’s canned chili (that’s chili for my Mr. T, not a brand name, although, I think we would all agree Mr. T’s Canned Chili would be awesome–“I pity da fool who doesn’t eat my canned chili!”).  She set aside my skinny cow ice cream sandwiches (sometimes I like to pretend that I’m health conscious) that I had placed near the front of my order with my other frozen and refrigerated items, and packed them at the end with my Quattro Formaggio Triscuit Thin Crisps. (Why can’t they just say four cheese?  They’re triscuits, for crying out loud.)  And how in the name of all that is good and holy did Mr. T’s athletic shorts (another fine product idea–“I pity da fool who doesn’t wear my athletic shorts!”) end up with my produce instead of with my other non-food items?

By the time I unloaded all of my groceries, which took at least twice as long as it should have thanks to Bonnie (that was the checker’s name–I like to keep accurate and detailed records of these types of incidents), I only had about 45 minutes until it was time to pick up BigHugs, which I spent eating half of my box of four cheese Triscuits (stick it, Nabisco) and browsing the archives of this website.  Obviously, both worthwhile activities, but I still can’t help but think there was something else I could have been doing.

What are you doing?

Thirteen

Mr. T has officially reached adolescence.  Since the day he was born, I’ve looked forward to this day with the dread of a Y2K fatalist—like a countdown to destruction and our impending doom. 

I’ve spent the past several months wondering when everything will be different.  When we he lose interest in this?  When will he start refusing to do that?  When will he decide he’s too old or too cool to do the things I’m not ready for him to give up?  Or old enough or cool enough to do the things I’m not ready for him to try?

Late last night, I realized I’ve been bracing myself for the very worst.  As a general rule, my life strategy is to keep the expectations low to avoid disappointment.  But it’s not fair for me to assume everything will be a struggle.  Undoubtedly, our adventure through the teenage years will be fraught with peril, but surely the most essential talisman to carry on our journey is hope.

I woke up this morning to find the earth is still turning, the sun still shining.  Mr. T is still making me laugh and making me crazy in the usual dosages.  Come what may, he’ll still be mine.  And I’ll love him just the same.

Happy Birthday, Mr. T! 

 

Good thing there’s no charge for awesomeness, or we’d never be able to afford you.