spring break woo

by

Dental Randomosity, or 2,114 Words About the Dentist

Nicole posted about her recent dental experiences the other day, and I don’t want to be a copycat in any way, but it must be dentistry season or something because I have a LOT of dental topics to cover. 

Over-Communicators: First, like Nicole, I get WAY too many communications from my dentist. They have an email newsletter (why?) and they send reminder texts and reminder emails and for a long time, they were sending “we have an appointment available!” texts that they have fortunately either discontinued or stopped sending to me in particular.  I don’t need to hear from my dentist this often. Does anyone?

For my recent appointment, I got a confirmation text at FIVE AM which was then immediately followed by a phone call. (And then the chime alerting me to a voicemail.) They also sent an email, but I don’t have email notifications enabled on my phone so it didn’t bother me immediately. Out of spite, I refused to confirm my appointment. That’ll show ‘em.

Listen. Because my husband is a physician, and is plagued by cancellations and no-shows, I know better than many how important it is for healthcare providers to remind patients about their appointment time. But three simultaneous notifications is a little aggressive, no? 

Routine Cleaning, Visit 1 of 3: I have been to the dentist three times in the past six weeks, which is really far too many times a person should need to go to the dentist. In my opinion. The first visit was for a routine cleaning. While I was there, I mentioned that I have been having pain in one of my molars. I live in absolute terror of needing another root canal – not because the root canal itself was so bad; it wasn’t, as I was knocked out, but because the cold test they do to confirm dead/dying root was the single most painful experience of my life so far. I am not eager to repeat it. 

The dentist said that the molar pain could be that the root needs canaling (I don’t know how to talk about dentistry)… or it could be that my gums are receding a little bit and exposing the nerve… or it could be the imperceptible beginning of a cavity… or it could be because I clench my teeth.

Since I get terrible headaches on the regular, we kind of settled on the teeth-clenching issue as being our first area of attack. (Well, plus I am once again using exclusively toothpaste for sensitive teeth, which does seem to be helping a bit.) The plan of attack seems to be getting a night guard. I am hopeful that the night guard will help prevent me from clenching my jaw while I sleep, and that this will keep the headaches at bay. 

The Old Night Guard: The fact is, I have had a “dental appliance” for over a decade that is supposed to solve the jaw clenching problem. But I used it only a few times when I got it, and have tried it a few times since only to shove it back into my drawer as quickly as possible. I hate it. It is small – maybe the size of… a pencil sharpener? an overlarge die? I am really struggling to come up with something the exact shape and size. Slightly smaller than one of those miniature boxes of Nerds? It attaches to my upper front teeth and keeps me from closing my teeth together. 

The first thing I hate about it is that it fits SO tightly. It’s slightly difficult to pop on, but it is far far worse to remove. I feel like the only way I will ever get it out of my mouth is to break my top front teeth in half. Releasing it in the morning is extremely stressful.

The second thing I hate about it is that it is small. I have a (possibly irrational) fear that I will swallow it or choke on it at night. The last time I used it – I think in a desperate attempt to stave off the last root canal; is this foreshadowing because I don’t like it – I woke up and couldn’t find it and was CERTAIN that I had swallowed it in the night. As my husband and the dentist pointed out, it fits so snugly on my teeth that there is no way it could have fallen off in the night. So I must have removed it myself while I was asleep. To that I say: it is so incredibly difficult to remove, there’s no way I did it while unconscious. But probably no one else removed it for me. In any event, I am no less fearful of swallowing the stupid thing while I sleep. So I don’t wear it and every time I complain to the dentist about jaw pain/headaches, he gives me an exasperated look and asks if I am wearing my appliance. 

New Favorite Dentist: A new dentist recently joined our practice. I was telling her all about my jaw clenching woes and my fear of the appliance I already own. She immediately won me over by saying, “Well, you definitely don’t want to worry about swallowing your night guard!” like it was a completely reasonable worry to have. And then she set me up to be fitted for a new, un-swallowable (and MUCH more comfortable) night guard. Also, I have never had a woman dentist before, and she seems cool and fun and I wish we could be best friends. 

Observation: I am noticing that I never refer to my male healthcare workers as cool and fun. Hmm. Hmmmmmm.

Best Filling Ever, Visit #2: Also during my routine cleaning appointment, the new dentist looked at a tooth that has had, for YEARS, a little divot in it. I am sure that the old dentist was keeping a close eye on it, and apparently something has recently changed to make it catch the attention of the new dentist. “You need a filling,” she said.

Yay. Good times.

When I went back for the filling, I was extremely nervous. I have mentioned before how much anxiety I get at the dentist, but mouth shots really fire up the ol’ anxiety engine. “How many shots will I need?” I asked. And she said, none, the filling was small enough she thought she could do it without numbing me at all. At which point I grew more nervous. I told her that I have a very low pain tolerance and that I was afraid it would hurt. She seemed to take this seriously, which I appreciated. She said she would be happy to numb me for the procedure, but that she thought the numbing shots would be much worse than the filling. So I tensed every single muscle in my body and prepared for the worst.

You guys. It took five seconds and was completely painless. Completely. Painless. She simply put some faux-enamel or whatever it is they use for fillings into the divot in my tooth, used some magical hardening tool to set it, and was done. Someone else sanded it down, and the whole ordeal was over. BEST FILLING EVER.

Of Doppelgangers and Flattery: The person who did both my filling and the subsequent scanning for my nightguard was new to me. Instead of my regular hygienist, or any of the three dentists in the practice, this person must have been… a dental technician? A hygienist? I have no idea. No one introduced me to her or told me her title or anything, and I guess that’s on me for just trustingly walking back to a reclining chair and opening my mouth for a stranger with a bunch of pokey tools at her disposal. 

She was very nice, despite the pokey tool availability. After the filling, she fitted me for the nightguard. To do so, she took a 3D scan of my upper teeth using a very odd machine about the size of an electric toothbrush. As she was scanning my teeth, she said that I look JUST like her friend’s daughter. It must have been quite a close resemblance, because she mentioned it several times, and then told me some details about the friend’s daughter as though that might remind me that I was indeed her twin or something. (I am being snarky, but truly I have no idea what to do in that kind of situation! How do you respond when someone insists that you look identical to someone you’ve never met? I have never had a doppelganger before!)

She asked me how old I am. I told her, in that awkward lisping way one does while someone else’s hands are in their mouth, that I am 41. She stopped scanning my teeth, stepped back, and removed her protective eyewear. “You’re kidding,” she said. “My friend’s daughter just turned 30.” I don’t generally think of myself as looking either younger or older than I am, but it was very pleasing to be mistaken for a 30-year-old youth. 

Night Guard Fitting, Last Appointment (for Now):  Once the scan was turned into a 3D model of my upper teeth, I had to return once more to the dentist. This time, the dentist had to fit the night guard to my bite. At first, she said it was very important that my bite be even, otherwise wearing the guard could cause me pain. So she put that weird dark paper (Google tells me it is called “articulating paper”) in between my night guard and my bottom teeth and had me bite down on all sides, then she would use a special tool to grind away the parts that were uneven. She did this for thirty minutes, grinding the night guard down, blowing all the dust off of it, reinserting it into my mouth, asking me if it felt even, having me bite down on the articulating paper, removing the guard, grinding some more. I began to get the sense that she was growing weary of the repetition. “Is it getting better?” she’d ask, of the evenness of my bite. I started telling her it was getting a bit better, even though it didn’t seem better to me. Eventually, I asked her what would happen if it was uneven. “Well, you might have some pain,” she said. “You can always bring it back in and we can adjust it later.” So the next time she inserted the night guard, I told her it was great. 

Was this a bad move? Maybe! But I hate things like that! I want the thing to be correct, to work correctly. The dentist presumably wants the thing to work correctly too. But it was taking SO LONG to get it right. And even though the dentist never said so in so many words, I could tell she was getting antsy, which made me want to move things along. Plus, I started doubting my own perceptions. Maybe this was exactly how it was supposed to feel! Maybe my bite is weird to begin with! But now maybe the night guard is not going to work as well as it could??? And then I will have to go back, a FOURTH time, to get it recalibrated? UGH.

Carla, Future Animal Dentist: Carla, lucky spring breaker that she is, came with me to the night guard fitting appointment. She was very interested in every single thing the dentist did, and asked five million questions (including quizzing the dental assistant about why she wanted to work with teeth and asking if they used a 3D printer to make my night guard), and the dentist seemed to love her inquisitiveness. She answered every question and even showed Carla how to work the various little tools on her tray – the grinder thing, the air blowy thing, the water sprayer thing. She kept asking Carla if she wanted to be a dentist, and Carla – ever agreeable – said yes! Of course! A dentist! even though she has never once expressed interest in dentistry in her life. 

Then, as is Carla’s way, she said, “Maybe I could be a dentist for animals!” The dentist and the dental assistant and I kind of laughed gently at this, although for all I know maybe there ARE dentists for your pets, and Carla went on: “Yes! I will be an animal dentist! And I will make night guards for cats and dogs and horses!” 

Personalization: The dentist sent me home with my not-too-ill-fitting night guard in a little box. She gave the box to Carla to carry and told her that she could decorate it for me. Which Carla did.  

by

Dinners This Week

Carla is on spring break and I have somehow already forgotten how… challenging it is to have her around all the time. It’s lovely on the one hand, of course. This morning she came and snuggled up to me in bed and we chit-chatted while the fog of night evaporated around me. But on the other hand, I have all of my normal things to do with the addition of a small child who needs to be entertained. 

And do not get me wrong! I am Very Good at requiring her to entertain herself. She is excellent at playing independently. But even a child who is good at playing independently is incapable of playing independently all day for multiple days in a row. 

I have taken a note from my own playbook from last spring break, which was, of course AWFUL, knowing, as we did, that we would not be returning to school after spring break for an unknown amount of time… and perhaps not at all. (We did not go back until late September.) Anyway, last year’s playbook included making up a detailed schedule of tasks to do each day, to give us a sense of purpose and stave off boredom/despair. 

Because I now have Extensive Experience, and can (sometimes) learn from that experience, I have kept our lists short: Math problems, 30 minutes of reading, a short research project (we had Grand Plans to study all the states last summer and did not even make it halfway, so we are renewing our efforts), some sort of exercise, and then the rest of the day free. Well, except we also have PLAYDATES on the schedule, which is new from last year. We are getting together with a couple of school friends, outdoors and masked, at various points throughout the week. Plus, we are doing baking projects for St. Patrick’s Day. A baking project is always useful in getting a person through the week.

We couldn’t agree on a single baking project, so we have settled on two:

  • Pot of Gold Cupcakes: This was Carla’s choice. And frankly, they are darling. (I am Deeply Suspicious of the rainbow Airheads though.) In a totally out-of-character move (you know I love to make things As Difficult As Possible) (which I already am doing, by making TWO desserts), I bought boxed cupcake mix for this project. I got Funfetti cupcake mix, too, and I typically object to Funfetti for no actual reason. But we will be making the frosting and putting the cupcakes together and that feels like A Lot without tracking down and executing a delicious homemade cupcake recipe too. 
  • Mint Chocolate Chip Brownies: This was my husband’s choice. He so rarely makes a food request that I decided to make these also. Plus, to be honest, the cupcakes sound cuter than they do delicious. And chocolate plus mint sounds actually delicious. We will probably eat a brownie each and send the rest off to my husband’s office. I got a mix for the brownies too, but I think I will use butter and milk + coffee instead of vegetable oil and water, to try to coax it in a semi-homemade direction.

The prospect of TWO ENTIRE WEEKS (yes) of just me and Carla, coupled with coming off a Call Week, added to the absolute nightmare of the Daylight Saving Time Change, means that I have been completely incapable of coming up with anything to eat for dinner. So my dinner options for this week are a little… uninspired. 

Dinners for the Week of March 16-22

  • Sweet and Spicy Glazed Pork Chops with Side Salad: I am 90% sure I have some pork chops in the freezer, just waiting for this treatment.
  • Another round of Not-Skillet Chicken Enchiladas: We had these last week and they were delicious PLUS the recipe produced enough sauce and chicken for an entire second batch. They are in the freezer, ready to be popped into the oven. 
  • Tacos: This is a Carla Request and who am I to deny her?
  • Chipotle Chicken Tortilla Soup: This has become one of my favorite recipes and so what if this week seems to have a heavily Tex-Mex theme? I already have the veggies in the freezer, chopped and ready to go. And aside from the completely optional step of straining the blended tomatoes, this is a SUPER easy meal to toss in the slow cooker.
  • White Bean Enchilada Soup: Continuing to lean in to the Tex-Mex theme, and also it is supposed to snow at some point this week???? I have a friend in Denver who got walloped this week and I’m not anticipating that, at least. But a nice warm bowl of soup sounds like just the antidote to a resurgence of winter weather. And, as with the tortilla soup, I already have all the veggies waiting for me in the freezer. This will be a good one to postpone if we need to, also, because it doesn’t really call for anything fresh. (Except the veggies. Which, as I said, are HANDLED.)
  • Caprese Salad with Balsamic Chicken and Balsamic Dressing: This is for a day when we just can’t deal with another second of Tex-Mex flavors. And by “we” I mean my poor agreeable husband, because I could eat tacos and their ilk every day.
  • Dinner with FRIENDS: One of our dear friends is celebrating a Big Birthday this week and we are going to try to get together for dinner, outside, possibly at their house. I am SO EXCITED. This sort of cautious meeting-up with a couple of friends/families isn’t anything NEW; we’ve been doing distanced, masked (except while eating) outdoor get togethers since last summer. But it feels different now, somehow, like throwing on your winter coat when you know spring is just around the corner. Sure, it’s bulky and tiresome, but you only have to wear it for just a few more weeks and then you can spin around in the fresh air and sunshine without even a light jacket! Birds are chirping and daffodils are nudging their heads through the dirt and even the near-freezing temperatures have a little hint of springtime promise. We have come through this long, endless winter. Finally, spring is almost here. It’s coming! It’s on the way! 
by

Friday Randomosity: Spring Break Recovery Edition

Today is the last week day of Spring Break. (Our spring break was two weeks long; we went out of town for one of those weeks.) (The first week went by MUCH more quickly than the second week has.)

Since my husband is on call, I have two remaining days of entertaining Carla, and then she is back to school on Monday. It has been a long week, through no fault of Carla’s. But I am not cut out for two weeks of spring break. Nor for being solely responsible for entertaining my child. Why yes, I am one of those people who says I need a vacation from my vacation.

  • It is no secret that I am an introvert. And being a parent has only heightened my need for alone time, I think. Not because I don’t enjoy being with Carla. On the contrary: I love spending time with her, and I especially love it when I have enough energy to plan and do fun things with her. But I need time to myself. It is essential for my mental well-being. Normally, after spending a lovely, fun-filled week with my husband and child, in-laws, sister, and niece (as we did last week), I would prefer to close myself in my office with my computer, some tea, and maybe some Reese’s peanut butter eggs and not talk to ANYONE for a good three days. This is not hyperbole. I am 100% serious. Instead, this week, I had my lovely energetic and talkative child at home with me all day every day. I also had multiple appointments scheduled, because I figured they would help break up the time. Instead, I ended up compounding the problem by needing to interact with additional people. By today, I am DONE. I have a friend who is returning from spring break tomorrow who wants to get our kids together and I cannot FATHOM such an idea. I cannot wait until Monday when I am going to drop Carla off at school, come home, and sit in my office silently All. Day. Long. I am even dreading the social interaction that will come with drop off. Since it was a long break, Carla’s teachers sent the kids home with everything in their cubbies so the classroom could undergo a good thorough cleaning. So Carla has a bunch of stuff to take with her, which means I will need to walk with her to her classroom. And that means running into parents – parents I like! and am friendly with! and want to talk to! – who will want to chat about spring break. I don’t think I can do it, Internet.

Matcha latte

Reese’s peanut butter egg not pictured because I am brashly using an old photo from a previous post.

  • I’m afraid Carla has had a pretty boring spring break. I am trying really hard not to feel too guilty about it. We have been spending time together and playing together every day. And she did have a WHOLE WEEK of sunshine and grandparents and swimming pool and cousin. But I do worry that she’ll grow up and remember how I kept her closed up in the house for spring break and all she did was watch TV. (That is NOT all we’ve done! We’ve gone bike riding! And for walks! And to the grocery store twice! And we went out for donuts one morning! And to the library! And to Tuesday Morning and Kohl’s! Okay, okay, so it’s not the most exciting roundup of things, and, yes, there was definitely some TV in there, but we Did Things.)

Donut

This was Carla’s donut. I ate mine too fast to photograph it.

  • Playdates are not the solution. Perhaps you are giving me the side-eye, because this half of the break would have been much better and more enjoyable for Carla if I had managed to set up some playdates. This was my husband’s feeling, in fact. However, the execution is not quite so simple. First of all, the vast majority of our friends are also on spring break, in exotic locations like Australia and Bermuda. By “our friends” I mean families that have a kid that Carla knows and likes and a parent that I know and like. Second of all, of the families that are or may be in town, they all have multiple kids. And I really still don’t “get” how to do playdates with those families. If you invite one kid, are you automatically inviting ALL of the kids in the family? Seems like that’s only fair. But that means a playdate at my house isn’t a great idea; our house is small and we don’t really have toys for non-five-year-olds. Plus I am not of a mental state to have a bunch of people in my house (see above re: introvert). Which means that out-of-the-house playdates would be the best solution, but… that requires planning. And THAT’s exhausting. What can we do? Where can we go? Can I really handle chasing my kid and her friend and possible siblings through the natural history museum? Do I really want to drive 30 minutes to the indoor playground? It’s been rainy the past couple of days, so outdoor playgrounds are out. And most of these families are people I’m not super familiar with. There’s one friend Carla would love to play with, but I have never met either of her parents. It is so hard to gear myself up for meeting a brand-new person on a regular basis, and I am definitely not up for it this week, when I have already exhausted my small-talk stores on conversations with my in-laws. I don’t think sitting across from another parent, staring blankly and fretfully into the ether as I try to think of something halfway interesting to say, would make such a great impression. So! Nothing it is!

 

  • Plus, as I mentioned, I have already shot myself in the foot by scheduling additional adult interactions this week. The window madness continues, for instance. A friend had recommended someone she’d worked with, and he – no longer at the window company – had passed my name on to someone else who still works there. Apparently my friend had told him how frustrated I’ve been with the Hard Sales tactics, so they sent me their lowest pressure person very best salesman. And truly, he was excellent. I know that he was using tried and true sales tactics, just as the other salesmen had done. But his were invisible. By the time he left – THREE HOURS LATER OMG – I was completely sold on the idea of fiberglass windows, when before I had only wanted to consider vinyl. And I was willing to strongly entertain his bid, which was three times as high as several of the other window people I’d met with. He was that good. And he was very nice, as have been all the other window salespeople I’ve talked to. But THREE HOURS is much too long to be talking to a stranger, feigning interest in Window Facts that you’ve heard several times already, wondering how many times you need to offer someone water/soda/a sandwich over the course of three hours, and deflecting bored-child questions. When it was over, I felt mentally drained. And of course, my poor aforementioned bored child had to watch TV the entire time because when it was off, she kept interrupting. And this guy wasn’t really a Kid Person, so he had no idea how to interact with/deflect her, and kept getting flustered when she’d do something totally normal, like ask why the window he brought was so small or volunteer that we’d had donuts for breakfast or complain, “WHEN is he going to LEAVE?” After I discussed things with my husband, I remembered that our house is not a three-times-as-high-as-other-window-bids kind of place, and I have one more  window sales call to endure before we either make a decision or I run screaming into the sea.
  • As our one non-shopping excursion this week, we went to a Cat Café. If you are wondering what a Cat Café is, it is an establishment that has a tiny coffee-shop space on one side, and then a much larger Cat Habitat on the other, and people can pay to spend time with the cats. It recently opened in a nearby town, and I knew Carla would be over the moon to go. And the weather was obligingly dreadful, so there would be no bike riding or playing on the backyard playset. We had to make a reservation, and when we arrived there was a long line of other cat fans so I’m glad we didn’t try to wing it. The café part was truly minuscule. You could order coffee or tea and the staff would bring it to you in the cat habitat; we didn’t order anything; I would be terrified that I’d spill tea on a cat. The cat habitat was like an enormous living room, with lots of human seating and bookcases and tons of cat-friendly apparati to climb on and play with.

Cat cafe1

That orange cat didn’t budge from his perch the entire time, even when a tween-age boy started throwing cat toys at him to “get his attention.” And this may be the closest you’ll ever get to seeing a picture of me on this blog, so savor it, Internet.

Carla was the youngest person there that day, and I discovered that she doesn’t really GET cats. She loves them, that’s clear. And I don’t know why I’d expect her to GET cats, when she hasn’t spent any time around them outside of Pet Smart.  But she thought they would be snuggly and friendly in the way that dogs are. Oh, Carla. Cats are SO not dogs. She immediately went up to a cat that was playing with one of the café staff members (who was in the habitat with us the whole time, introducing the cats, telling us about their personalities and backgrounds, trying to get them to be playful) and tried to pet it, and the cat, who was in the middle of playing, bit her on the arm. She was FINE, it didn’t break the skin. But of course she was surprised and betrayed and it probably hurt a bit and so she cried for quite a while. I took her to the bathroom to wash her arm and tried to talk to her about how cats are. Independent. Feisty. Unpredictable. Claws and teeth. I’d done a little of that before, but it’s one thing for your mom to drone on and on about cats in the car and another to be confronted, face to face, with a cat-being-a-cat. She calmed down and we went back in and eventually she got some cats to chase balls and attack little cloth fish and she even got to pet some of them. She was much more interested in playing with the cats; I would have preferred to have a big purring cat on my lap, but they were (understandably) a little wary of all these new humans milling about and seemed more interested in playing, hissing at each other, or sleeping in nooks that humans couldn’t reach.

Cat cafe 3

This cat was very amenable to receiving scritches and pats.

I wasn’t sure that it was a successful visit. There was the rocky beginning. And not a single cat snuggled with us. We were there for an hour, though, which was enough time for the shock of being bitten to wear off. By the end of our appointment, Carla was begging me to take her back. We’ll see. I think it would be much more satisfying if it were just you (and your kid) and the cats, rather than being one of twelve additional people. But it was still a fun, novel experience.

Cat cafe2

All the books were cat themed, as was the decor.

  • One of the other ways I tried to Make Things Fun this week was by throwing a couple of Movie Nights into the spring break mix. Movie Night, Movie Afternoon, whatever. We’d make popcorn and snuggle up and Carla was pretty delighted by that. I think we may make Movie Nights a weekly event, she seems to get such a kick out of them. One of the movies we watched was the live action 101 Dalmatians starring Glenn Close and Joley Richardson and… Jeff… Not Bridges… Jeff… Daniels. Jeff Daniels. I don’t know why I get them mixed up. Oh! And Hugh Laurie is in there as well, pre-House days, I guess. This movie is from 2000, but it holds up pretty well. There are some mildly violent acts – Home Alone style. And some salty language (you, know, like “butt” and “shut up” – nothing too outlandish). Glenn Close is fantastic as Cruella De Vil. Her outfits alone make the movie worth watching; she wears press-on nails on the OUTSIDE of her gloves! And the whole time I was watching it, I was marveling at a) the sheer number of animals featured in the film and b) the dogs’ (in particular) stellar acting ability. Pongo is one well-trained pupper, that’s for sure. It was an entertaining movie, but the part that I found most scoff-worthy is that the Joley Richardson and Jeff Not-Bridges characters meet and then immediately, on their first “date,” decide to get married. I mean. What?! I get the whole love-at-first-sight thing. And falling in reckless, lifelong love seems perfectly acceptable for DALMATIANS, or, like, animated characters like Anna and Hans (although at least in that movie, Elsa and Kristof both object strenuously to getting engaged to a stranger) but… come on. Seems like a lazy way to move the plot forward. Couldn’t they have already been married… and then Pongo spots Perdita out at some adopt-a-thon event, and that’s how the dogs get together? Or maybe both dogs live at Joley Richardson’s house and Jeff Not-Bridges visits them as he’s getting to know Joley? Well. Aside from that ridiculously unbelievable plot point (yes, more unbelievable than animals talking to each other), it was a very enjoyable flick.

Dalmatians

photo from amazon.com

  • Did you know that there are no Os in the word “Dalmatians”? I did not, until I just wrote the bullet above.

 

  • I am really looking forward to getting back to my writing next week. Two weeks away from my work in progress is a LONG time. I did work on a story while I was out of town – a continuation of a story I started writing last year over spring break. But it feels like a distraction from the main project rather than anything meaningful.

 

  • And now, I must go start on The Folding of the Spring Break Laundry. I have been very successful in washing the clothing. Where I have been less successful is in the folding, which is really the ABSOLUTE WORST.

Laundry

My personal shame.

Did you have spring break this year? If so, did you do anything fun?