grrlTravels

the dentist promises I am not a bad mom

The fateful decision was to get E. corn on the cob for lunch. It didn't seem all that fateful, and then it was, and then we got to feel like lousy parents.

The weekend was going fine. It was K.'s big birthday weekend and so we were away celebrating. K.'s preferred method of celebrating involves theme parks, and since my preferred method involves flea markets and/or fabric stores I really can't say nasty things to him about it. The hotel was fine except that it offered a bit too little for a bit too many dollars. The kids were fine except when we were trying to sleep. The car was fine except when it was telling us that we had a flat tire when we really didn't. But really, it was all just fine.

We went to the chocolate-themed amusement park on Sunday per K.'s request, a park which I can highly recommend to those of you who like amusement parks and have small children. It was chock full of kiddie rides, so many kiddie rides that your head began to spin with the wonderful spinniness of it all. We took full advantage of the many wonders therein, meaning that I was dizzy by noon, nauseated by 1:30, and had a pounding headache by 3:15. (I do not like getting old. Oldness means that I cannot throw my body through the air any which way with abandon without consequences. The spinning used to be good, so, so good, and now it is not all that good. It is more just spinny, with a hint of vomit.)

Lunch was around 2, and K. stood in line while the kids and I looked at ducks and fish. We looked at the ducks and the fish until we were really quite sick of them and still no K. More ducks. More fish. Ducks. Fish. ducks. fish. ducksfishducksfishdishfuc... and there was K. with some food. He had gotten some mac n' cheese for E. which I would not have, and some corn on the cob which I probably wouldn't have. Then again there are days when I forget to feed the kids until it is really too late to be called breakfast or even brunch, and sometimes lunch, so I sat to eat my sandwich. E. tried to eat the macaroni but he ended up playing with it mostly. And he tried to eat the corn, but he ended up telling us his tooth hurt.

We both dismissed him almost immediately. K. said, "EAT THE CORN. BITE IT." I said, "He is just messing around and he isn't really hungry and he can't concetrate on food and he doesn't know how to eat the corn off the cob." E. repeated that his tooth hurt. We threw all of his food away, I tried to spend $3.50 on a bottle of gatorade (THREE FIFTY. I mean seriously, THREE FIFTY.) and we went on the airplane ride and the frog hoppers and the kissing tower.

Much, much later E. was walking towards me and I happened to really look in his mouth and suddenly I was cold. So, so cold. There was something wrong with his bottom front tooth. I whispered to K. there is something wrong with his tooth. get a good look at it. and K. did and he turned to me and said, "Yep. That tooth is coming out." I got all wild looking and he said, "What's wrong?" and I said, "He is much too young for his tooth to be coming out. He's only 4!" and I turned my head away and started to cry.

We interrogated E. for a long time, casually, hours and hours of asking, "Honey, do you think you hit your mouth yesterday or today?" "Sweetie, did you bang your chin on the roller coaster?" "E., think about it, when did your tooth start hurting?" All to no avail. We could not recall the dire situation which had occasioned our son's tooth to be so traumatized that it was loose, so very, very loose, and ready to fall out of his head.

This afternoon the dentist pronounced his tooth situation "completely normal", caused by either "trauma, or the tooth is just ready to come out" and patted us on the head and sent us home. He did mention that the adult tooth might not show up right away, perhaps not for a few months, perhaps not even for a year or longer. Which causes me wonder just a tiny bit how completely normal the current tooth situation really is.

And now in exactly one hour I have to go to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned and if that doesn't bite then I don't know what does.

The catsup on his chin is for effect.

Or because our personal hygiene is somewhat lacking.