November 2009

Last night Coffee tried to make me feel better about my impending trip to the dentist. He made random suggestions for distracting myself, talked about finding my “happy place”, and, at one point, started talking about how I could try picturing the dentist topless.

I raised my eyebrows at that last one and reminded him that I am not, in fact, him. My dental phobia cannot be wished away by picturing assorted aereolae, for god’s sake. I cannot ignore the loud screaming sound inside my head simply by picturing mammary tissue.

There is NOTHING less erotic than going to the dentist to have ‘something done’. Jeeeeez.

This morning, sitting in the dental chair, I had the dentist on my right and the hygienist on my left. Both female. There were 400 different tubes and doo-dads hanging out of my face and two sets of hands in my mouth and, as the two women leaned over me to do whatever they were doing, their two sets of breasts landed on top of mine.

And I started laughing.

I mean, I was snorting and tee-heeing with my mouth full of crap because I kept thinking how this – THIS – would probably have ranked as a highlight in my husband’s day if he’d been the one in that chair.

The dentist heard my choked giggle, sat back and asked if I was “doing okay?”

Yeah. Just pervin’ by proxy for my husband. All good.

*ahem*

Anyway, the end result of my appointment was that the dentist drilled out the old filling completely (and noted how big! and fat! and silver! it was) and then re-shaped the remainder of the tooth. She used some white amalgam to patch it all up and to bond some of the cracks in the tooth (deargodkillme) and polished it up. All good.

The freezing took about 4 hours to disappear and now my tooth is more sensitive than it was yesterday but holy crap, people, it’s DONE. Fixed! DONE DONE! YAY!

The kids’ appointments were pretty good too.

Oldest One apparently needs braces due to “overcrowding” but doesn’t want them. The dentist said we could wait a year and see how things were; my feeling is that it’s totally up to Oldest One to decide what he wants, providing there isn’t going to be long-term problems with his teeth if he doesn’t get braces. No one ever died from some crooked teeth and, if I’m being honest, I rather like how people look with less-than perfect smiles. He had no cavities, so he earned himself $20.

Middle One, most surprisingly, also had no cavities. I say “most surprisingly” because this is a kid who had a whole whack of teeth pulled due to unspeakable decay, has spacers in place to hold teeth where they belong, and who doesn’t usually have what I’d call “attention to detail” which isn’t a good thing when it comes to brushing and flossing. The dentist noted that he seems to be caring for them well, doesn’t seem to have any issues with his adult teeth (on xray or the ones grown in) and should ultimately be okay. Another $20 earned!

Maymo had three cavities. We have to book an appointment to have them filled in the near future. The dentist noted that he has a lot of mottling on his teeth and that it’s indicative of a high fever (before the age of 2), eating an entire tube of toothpaste, or ‘maternal issues’. (I told her that it could have been any one or more of those and that I didn’t know.) She said he has one molar that’s “disintegrating” and that his teeth are likely going to require a lot of dental work even as an adult; caps and fillings and the like. Poor kid.

And Coffee went to the dentist a few days ago, too, with no cavities or issues. Awesome!

The bill for all our dental work was around $900. And, other than my filling today, the rest was “standard” stuff like exams and x-rays and cleanings. I’m so incredibly grateful for my dental insurance coverage through school – we’ll be reimbursed for all but $50 of that. Yet another reminder of how lucky we are..

If you’re on Facebook, and we’re friends there, I’m taking bets as to what the dentist’s verdict will be on my tooth.

The person who guesses it wins a prize.

If more than one person guess correctly, I’ll draw a winner.

Go forth and bet. ;)

People often ask me what my kids think of my hair. Or Coffee’s lip piercings/hair/whatever.

I usually shrug and smile.

The kids have never asked me to look different, other than Maymo’s frequent assertions recently that he’d like me to have perpetually purple hair. No more pink – just purple. Boy-oh-boy, he hopes my hair is purple for the next few YEARS, please!

Same with Coffee’s appearance.

We’ve talked a lot to the kids about being your own person and about how we wouldn’t change our appearances unless WE wanted to do so. It’s like how we let the kids decide when/if they want a hair cut or how they’d like it done. Or how Maymo has often gone to school in an “outfit” that I’m sure makes his teacher aware that he picks out his own clothes EVERY day. They have to brush their teeth and shower and all that, and we do tell them if they’re doing something that might cause other kids to laugh at them (with the reminder that it’s OKAY to be different!) but other than health/safety/school-rules, we give them a lot of leeway.

So. Our kids have a mom with purple hair and tattoos and who wears UFC hoodies almost exclusively with her assorted black t-shirts and running shoes. And a Dad with long hair and lip rings who either wears flip-flops or combat boots along with his flannel shirts and t-shirts.

Are they embarrassed by this? I have no idea. I’m not concerned with it, either. They know that, if it bothers them, there’s no point in bringing it up. So, either they’re fine with it or not, but I don’t have to hear about it. All good. As it should be..

I like to joke, albeit in a semi-serious way, that the only way the boys can rebel is to start wearing a suit and tie and going to school to be a lawyer or an architect or something very serious along those lines.

As such, it was not a surprise to me when, some time ago, Middle One decided he wanted to start wearing a fedora and a silk tie randomly. Auntie Em and Auntie-Em’s-Husband indulged him in that; both the fedora and the tie make totally random appearances with t-shirts or dress shirts or shorts or whatever. Sometimes we don’t see them for a month and sometimes they’re on his head almost daily.

It is also not a surprise to me that Oldest One has recently asked for “more dress shirts” and “more ties” to wear to school. To his non-private, non-uniform, public elementary school. He, in particular, is approaching a phase in life when he seeks to figure out who he is and what he’s all about. Differentiate himself from the herd (or join it, depending) and from his family and start working on being Oldest-One-The-Guy. I have no idea if other kids wear dress shirts and ties to school, or not, but Oldest One is totally free to do so.

I believe that Coffee and I have seriously played this out PERFECTLY. We do not need to worry that the boys will pierce their noses with hole-punches or that they’ll want to date the scary goth girl in order to cause us concern. No, all we need to worry about are the dry-cleaning bills that will accumulate once they both start wearing suits – totally cheaper than bail. We will sleep well at night when the boys begin dating because they’ll likely save sex for marriage, shun recreational drugs and drink wine coolers ’til they’re 40…

(I kid. Maybe.)

So, that’s my latest parenting tip: if you don’t want to worry about your kids as they get older, indulge in your own rebellion.

1. One final exam.. done!
2. Coming to the realization that I need to make some changes and being able to actually figure out what to change.
3. Emails that made me laugh.
4. Dropcast
5. Blue fingernails. Finally.

This morning I wrote an exam. It didn’t feel good. I don’t think I did well.

I came home, changed into jammas. Started to relax a bit and feel a bit better.

Made myself a sandwich. Sat down, took a bite.. broke a molar in half.

Dentist appointment tomorrow morning at 9.

It’s a good thing that my first semester is nearly finished; I am *this close* to losing my ever-lovin’ mind. Midterms start tomorrow, final assignments are all due shortly (or were due this week, in some cases), and pretty much every single one of my classmates is coming unglued in some way – including me.

I feel wrung out. Tired. Irrational. Overwhelmed. Exasperated. Frustrated. Annoyed. Irritable. Lonely.

The cheese stands alone, y’know?

I mean.. there’s no one coming.

I’ll continue to be an impossible person, so long as the people who are possible remain possible.

CRITICAL THINKING.

Look, I’m not even making sense to myself anymore. My brain doesn’t want to function properly and I feel like the past few months have been some weird psychological experiment. I can’t hold reasonable conversations without gapping out.

The more time I spend around other people in my program, the more I realize that I have so many issues that I need to address; I just can’t figure out where best to begin. And now that I have a whole host of “how to do counseling” techniques memorized, I’m not even sure I could see a therapist and get anything sorted out because I’d be too busy mentally charting her/his behaviours and comparing them to my textbooks. (“Oh, look! Active listening!”)

I feel defensive. I feel angsty. I feel like I can’t trust anyone, even the people I thought I could trust, other than my husband who is pretty much the definition of “trustworthy”, of course.

I’m trying to balance perfectionism with reality. Trying to balance “group work” with “control issues”. Trying to figure out a polite balance of my strengths and weaknesses while coordinating with someone else’s strengths and weaknesses and trying, oh-god-trying, to avoid playing the martyr game and making myself insane.

I don’t know who’s my friend anymore, let alone whether I should make that plural. Classmates I thought I liked, well, maybe not so much. I don’t know. It reminds me of attempting to befriend coworkers and discovering the stupid agendas and ridiculous assumptions and, jesushchristomundo, no. NO NO NO.

But I don’t have time for friends outside of school, either, for fuck’s sake. Every night brings more homework and studying and assignments. (And don’t forget housework and 30 seconds with the kids and talking to my husband and..)

And I don’t have time to inquire as to the status of those friendships – I feel myself shutting down at the idea of the effort it would take to fish out something meaningful. I can’t start it up if I can’t sustain it, right?

Oh hell, I can’t even keep up with blog-reading and replying to email because my brain – sometimes literally – goes blank. I want to say something, comment, reply, answer.. and I’ve got nothing. It’s like a stutter of blankness.

Really.

(From: http://www.bluntcard.com/)

1. My beloved husband has an appointment, at last, to write his Canadian Citizenship test! (He has been a permanent resident for what feels like an eternity..) YAY!
2. I handed in another 40%-of-final-mark essay this morning. It was a group paper.
3. Tomorrow is my first final exam. Then there are 400,001 more of them. Then I am done my first semester!
4. I have a literal month off from school – from December 10th to January 10th. (!!!!!!)
5. For lunch today I ate smoked salmon and a greek salad. Nom.
6. Deciding not to give a shit about some stuff (admittedly after a big, long freak out) and feeling my shoulders relax.
7. An amusing conversation with someone who probably qualifies as the closest I’ve got to an “arch nemesis” – while maintaining the knowledge that this person qualifies in that way because of the particular buttons he pushes, how he pushes them, and because he keeps making me aware of some of my own weaknesses.
8. Finding “lunch spoons” and “lunch forks” at the grocery store and buying them. These are smaller-sized implements (technically considered “demi spoons” and “salad forks”) that fit perfectly into lunch bags. We had a few and then the stores all seemed to stop carrying them – I’m glad to have completed our ‘collection’. Yay!
9. Hearing someone say, “If more parents were like Violet, the world would be a better place…” from a fellow student. It was in response to a comment I made about how my kids better fucking have manners when they’re dealing with the world or I’ll kill them. I, uh, phrased it a bit less aggressively when I said it in class. :)
10. When I’m finished this blog post I’m going to start studying and will have some uninterrupted time in which to do so.

1. Recently I wrote a paper that was worth 40% of my final mark in my law class. I felt okay about it – that I had done my best, I mean – until my prof lectured our class on the “lack of critical thinking” that he witnessed while reading the papers and grading them. Then I became completely anxious about the whole thing and was convinced I had fucked it up completely. Today I got the paper back and scored 95% – 38 out of 40. To say I am “relieved” would be to understate things in a big, big way. (I did have a huge moment of panic, however, when I thought the 38 was out of 100..)
2. I wrote my final psychology test today. Now I just have one assignment left to complete and then… I AM DONE THAT COURSE! I am also very nearly finished with a bunch of other courses. Can you believe it?? First term is almost over!
3. I am not a single parent. This is a good thing for all involved, really. REALLY.
4. The glee of seeing one of my favourite UFC fighters win last night.
5. Marmalade.

1. This entire AskMe thread makes me happy on 80,000 levels.
2. Peppermint! ‘Tis the season for everything to be flavoured with peppermint!
3. Simultaneously doing laundry, studying for psychology, prepping my Christmas card list AND writing an essay. Multitasking! YEAH!
4. If I get all of my homework done, tonight I’ll be watching UFC 106. Yippee!!!
5. The smells of lemon, lavender and satsuma orange. Mmm..