the salad days

We finally hit the salad days of summer over here.  (Actually, I just looked up “salad days” and it would appear that isn’t exactly what I meant.)  Maybe I should say, the sweetest days of summer?

The weather has finally come around to a solid 72-73 degrees and sunny.  I am laying in the grass in the shade on a blanket with M reading right beside me, while L plays in the yard (taking occasional breaks to come sit on me or pepper me with questions or draft me into some imaginary play she is working on.)

Life is good.

I am thinking these will be the memories I think back on when my girls are all grown up and have moved out and I am missing them desperately (please, oh please, let them some day move out).

I imagine my future self will not remember that these sweet memories were preceded by a weekend where Mr. A was very sick and excessively crabby and not much help at all with the girls (which made ME quite crabby).  Or that the children were driving me so crazy I voluntarily blacktopped the driveway so I could escape them.  Or that L is frequently destroying my peaceful feelings by yelling nonsense words directly in my ear.

That is why memories are often better than reality.

But even with all the irritations of real life, these are the good times.  I hope you are enjoying your summer as much as I am.

Princess Tooth

Oh my god.  The experience of installing L’s crown was horrific.  She freaked out and refused to allow the nitrous.  Then, she screamed her way through the whole procedure.

The dentist handled it very well and L tried to be brave, but jeez louise, that was terrible.  I had the option of stopping and rescheduling with valium, but I chose to just get it over with.

She will almost certainly will have dental PTSD after that.

To add insult to dental trauma, now L won’t be able to eat suckers, fruit snacks or sugared gum.  Honestly, these are like her three very favorite things in the entire world.  I wish I had had them pull the tooth and put in a spacer instead.  At least then, if it came out it wouldn’t hurt.  If this crown ever comes off, I will have them pull the tooth.

We are off to get her some vegan soft serve ice cream to sooth her jangled nerves. (Yes, I realize that bribing with more sugar is incredibly ironic given her tooth situation, but jesus, the kid deserves some kind of reward.)

When it Rains, It Pours

Some summer vacation nuggets to pass the time:

-It feels like the weather here has gone back and forth between pouring rain and scorching hot and humid. If this is what climate change is going to do to the Midwest, I am going to take my toys and go…well, somewhere with better weather.

-Today, we found out that L has a gaping hole in one of her molars.  A molar that was just fine in May when we visited the dentist.  Apparently, a filling fell out (or was cracked out by all the sucker and/or gum chomping she does) and in less than two weeks since I first noticed a brown spot on her tooth about a quarter of the tooth is gone.  She will now have a lovely silver princess tooth (crown).  Awesome.

-Next week, M is going to have her own dental procedure (fillings, extractions) which will cost in the neighborhood of $400.

-Did I mention this is a no-spending month for us while we try to pay off the last bits of our China trip?  Between the $650 on dental work and $400 on car repairs this month, the no-spending month is not helping the trip payments at all.   All this avoiding of Target is getting me nowhere.

-Have I mentioned yet that summer vacation is killing me slowly?

-Thanks a lot! I made it into the top 25 on the voting thing!

-M went to a friend’s house today and it appears she and her friend made the incredibly bad choice of dumping baby powder all over her friend’s sibling’s room.  I haven’t decided exactly what logical punishment is most appropriate for that bad judgement.  Should she write an essay of apology? Clean my dirty basement?  I don’t know.  The friend’s mom wouldn’t let me pick her up early or make her clean up the mess there herself (because the girls would have entirely too much fun playing in the mess while cleaning).