I am Jami Gertz

So my little Gianni-Be-Good, my Moose, my Pooky Head, my four year old whoIbirthedwithouttheuseofdrugsthankyouverymuchcanIgetanamen? had his teeth pulled yesterday.   Those teeth.  Those FREAKING teeth that have been plaguing us for two years finally had to go.

There were sobs and tears and yelling and hitting.
From me.
At home.
Cuz I didn't go.
I left that to the Daddy because I figured I gestated him and birthed him (withouttheuseofdrugsthankyouverymuchcanIgetanamen?) so Daddy could do the dentist thing and we'd pretty much be even.  More or less.

When he came home he was puffy eyed and sniffly and seemed out of it due to the drugs and wanted ice cream.
Daddy I mean.

Gianni looked like a rugby playing hockey pro.

And he had a blood mustache.

A BLOOD MUSTACHE.

He looked like a four year old vampire.
Not pretty.  Not right.  Very, very wrong on every level.

Remember the wee vampire in Lost Boys, Laddie, the one that comes crashing up through the bed and Star shouts, "He's just a little boy!" even though he looks like he's going to feast on everyone's throat, or maybe he just looks like any typical small child who doesn't want to go to bed?  Yeah, that one.  My baby looked like him.  Except his parents don't look like Star or Michael and we don't turn spaghetti into maggots and we don't fly and we don't hang out with Keifer at least not outside our minds and I really REALLY miss Corey Haim now.  Curses.

What was I talking about?

Oh, yes.  The guilt we feel as parents for the loss of my baby's baby teeth.  If you were hoping to get Parent of the Year Awards this year, you're welcome for narrowing down the competition.  Mike and I have officially dropped out of the running.

So we did what every self respecting parent does when they realize they've totally messed up their kid and want to redeem themselves:  they leave $10 from the tooth fairy instead of the usual fifty cents.
Parenting by Bribes - it's how we roll.  If you give Mommy a kiss, I'll give you cake.  If you snuggle Daddy, he'll buy you some Legos.  If you don't ever leave me and go to college, I'll buy you a pony.  Things like that.

So now poor Pooky Head has no front teeth (no corn on the cob!  no honeycrisp apples!  no ribs!  no fruitcake!  no taffy!  no defending himself against rabid wolverines!) and he will be wasting the afternoon at the dollar store spending like a drunken sailor, lighting cigars for fellow toddlers with his greenbacks, and buying toys that will break the second we get them in the car.

And hopefully we will get used to the gummy-I-look-like-a-hundred-year-old-man-without-his-dentures-in look.  Also the dried-shrunken-apple-head look.
After all we have a good two years to get used to it.

And maybe the last Twilight movie will be casting small vampires.

Teeth and Victor Hugo

I have a question for you:

Take Gianni yet again, for the squillionenth time, to the dentist to fix the cavities?

OR

Enroll him in the local hockey league and accidentally/on purpose forget to buy him a mouth guard?

Yeah, I thought so.  But I have to rant a bit, so hang on to your bustles.  First of all, I already know I am the world's worst mother in the history of mothers and I've known he's had these cavities for probably eight months now.  By the time we relocated and got settled in, and started health insurance, and changed health insurance, and bagged health insurance and got medicaid, and then made an appointment...well, then I had the joy of confirming my suspicions of evil sugar bugs in my pooky's teeth.  That led to dentist #2.  Of course, that led to a whole new exam.  Which led to more confirmation.  Which led to waiting another month for another appointment.  Which led to Pooky doing excellently for exactly half the appointment, then flipping himself over like a cheese omelet and refusing to open his mouth for the other half.  Which led to a temporary filling which will fall out in approximately sometime in the near future and most likely at the most inopportune time EVER, and will reveal a huge hole in his two front teeth.  So all of this oh-so wonderful experience led to yet another dentist...who guess what?  wants to see him for a regular old exam first because goodness knows they can't take the other TWO dentist's word for it because that would just be SENSIBLE and we wouldn't want to be that.  Well, that's just peachy keen except medicaid has this little bitty problem of having three exams in three months...so they aint paying.  So I am forced to pay out of pocket for a dumb exam that will tell me what everyone in the universe already knows:  the child with the world's worst mother is riddled with cavities.  Oh, and here's another gem in my ranting:  the new dentist who will have to sedate the guy wants me to sign a paper saying, and I quote, if the doctor tells me - the parent - to remove myself, I will do so IMMEDIATELY.

Ummm
whaaaa?

Can you say, no, and HELL NO?

I'm already the world worst mother, I don't particularly see the need to see myself on the five o'clock news being interviewed about why I was out in the waiting room reading Redbook when my sedated toddler was fondled by a crazy child molesting ax murderer posing as a pseudo dentist.

So, I guess I'll just enroll him hockey, help him climb trees, apprentice him to a roofer, sign him up for rugby... I'm taking suggestions at this point.

I know I should shut up and make the appointment and maybe, oh I don't know, homeschool my kids, but I recorded Les Miserables 25th Anniversary concert for Anna and so I've pretty much lost her in all things academic for the next little bit.  Although she probably knows a lot of French Revolution history and could sing it for you, it's unrealistic to get her to do long division when she's daydreaming about her Cosette next to Nick Jonas' Marius.  Nick isn't half bad either, although next to Broadway voices, he's a bit puny.  

Oh, and if you need to make a dental appointment for your own pooky because you're the world's second worst mother, and you need to find one who will sedate the pooky so he won't pull the cheese omelet act, then what you want to say on the phone is, can you anesthetize him?  NOT can you euthanize him?

Two totally different things there, and the wrong wording can make the receptionist put you on hold while she dials CPS.  You are welcome.

notes from the dental chair

This week the whole Williams' fam-damily had dentist appointments. Since that was yes, the only note-worthy happenings in my whole month of March thus far, I am blogging about that. So if you have things to do of more pressing need than my random words of dental care, say organize your sock drawer or pluck your eyebrows or watch grass grow, then feel free to skip this entry. If not, well, I warned you.

The girl's dentist is one of those pediatric places. It's decorated with a jungle theme so picture if you will, dear reader, green walls, a painted starry sky, and tons of stuffed jungle animals all over the place. The entire staff is so fabulously sweet that I'm actually quite stunned you don't aquire cavities while you're there even if you had none when you walked through the monkey decorated door. It's their job to make the little kiddies comfy and keep them from melting down in fear, so they will spontaseously break into song or a short soft shoe number to keep the tears at bay. Their voices are like what you'd hear if you turned on Sesame Street and I can only imagine that when these professionals get home at night after a eight hour shift of pretending to be Mr Rogers on speed, they collapse on their sofa with a bottle of hard liquor and watch Spike tv all night. Both of the girls did wonderfully well; they are strange little chiclets, my kids, they adore going to the dentist. Of course maybe we all would if only our grown up experiences were like theirs. After getting their names on the Wall of Fame of No Cavities and collecting their goody bags stuffed crazy full of everything to do with teeth, they then get to collect tokens with which to get more crazy stuff out of their giant vending machines. They can hardly wait for the next six months to go by.

Now, I don't much mind going to the dentist either. This is because as a child I was taken regularly and as a result of that, plus fairly good brushing and totally not flossing except for the morning that I go, and the fact that my mom had ninja like abilities to knock anything sugary out of my hands from fifty feet "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" style. So, I have never had a cavity or braces or a root canal or anything worse than a vigorous cleaning. Last time when I first got to Wyoming I figured I'd better go and I was bracing myself for cavities because after being pregnant with Moose who gave me heartburn like I had swallowed the Sahara Desert whole, I ate Tums like they were going out of style all night long, and I was too tired to brush my teeth as recommended. No cavities, but I did get Helga the Hygenist who made my gums bleed like crazy while she chattered on about her life. Then the doctor came in to take a look like they always do, and here was an excerpt from our conversation:
Doc: Why do you have a chip in your front tooth?
Me: Well, I was sewing a baby blanket for my twin neices and nephew a few years back, and the needle got stuck in the fleece, and I pulled it out with my teeth.
Doc: Oh my Lord! Hey, Loretta! You gotta hear this one!
Me repeating the story three more times to a crowd.
Doc: Well, doesn't it bother you?
Me: Uh, no, not really, seeing as how I can't see it from my perspective.
Doc: Well, it bothers me!
Me: Well, by all means, we want you to be comfortable.
Doc: Agreed! Let's file that sucker down.
Filing commences, complete with the smell of something burning. I learn later, this is my tooth.
Doc: Oh my, I feel so much better!
Me: FladIcoodgelp. (Glad I could help).
And I didn't even get tokens or a song and dance number either. But I'm not complaining exactly. Mike is there as I type and I'm sure he's being tortured in strange and new ways that I can update you all on later in the week.