And To Think She's "Gifted"

So Caroline was getting ready for her bath, and by getting ready I mean, standing in front of the tv in our bedroom, channel set to Disney, volume blaring to decibels uncomfortable to adult ears, staring mindlessly at the screen with mouth agape, all the while ignoring my demands of "get in the tub already" shouted at 30 second intervals, until a commercial comes on and she says "ok, ok, I'm getting in already" Easily distracted like her dad; stubborn, with a smidgen of sarcasm thrown in for emphasis, like me. Perfect combo.
Anyway, after I got Caroline to stop roller skating in the basement, she found her way upstairs to start the bath process and she yelled down to me, as I was unloading the dishwasher,

"hey mom, you finally put that soft thing on your bed."

And I replied, in my usual sarcastic manner gentle motherly tone ,

"you mean the BLANKET?"

"Oh yeah, that's what I meant" she said.

The good news is she could probably balance my checkbook better than I could. For that reason alone, I'll forgive the fact that she allowed the oh-so-difficult word "blanket" to escape from her vocabulary memory bank.

Silly girl.

Caroline makes life fun. And busy.
Today we made two different trips to two different dentists. The first stop was at the endodontist to have the teeth, with the fractured roots, evaluated. The good news is that the roots are healing as well as expected and six months post injury, it appears that she still won't need root canals. However, the endodontist noticed an iffy spot on the back of the tooth that was broken and built up with tooth colored composite. She suggested a trip to the regular dentist to have that evaluated.

The endo appointment was EARLY, so I dropped Caroline off at school, only five minutes late, believe it or not. Once I got home, I called the regular dentist. Worried that the spot might allow decay to seep in and create a painful situation, I wanted this taken care of ASAP. Surprisingly, they had an afternoon appointment open. I quickly said yes, all the while knowing that Caroline wouldn't be all that amused to be picked up early from school.

She wasn't. But she got over it.
Because it's not like she had a choice. Life is like that sometimes.

The doctor took five minutes to patch up the iffy spot and we were on our merry way. She said that in a year or so they'll completely redo the broken tooth to make it look more aesthetically pleasing, but for now, they don't want to irritate the healing root.

Thankful that this wasn't an occasion where fluoride was applied, therefore banning eating and drinking for 30 minutes, sweet talked her way into patronizing the McDonald's next door. I ordered a latte, but half way through I decided it was kind of gross. The first few sips were fine, so I'm not sure what happened. Caroline, on the other hand, was introduced to the deliciousness of the pumpkin milkshake. She was impressed. As she should be.

I'm happy to report that everything is going well on the health front. Caroline's teeth are in working order and she received the all clear from the pediatric Pulmonologist we visited this summer. I guess we can classify her two bouts of pneumonia in nine months as a medical mystery, especially since she's always been such a healthy kid. Caroline produced a clear chest xray a few weeks ago, which means she doesn't have any lung abnormalities, so who knows what went wrong. All I know is that I'm mucho paranoid that any fever she gets will signify another bout of pneumonia. To top it all off, this endless talk about the flu/H1N1/ DEATH/EPIDEMIC/PLAGUE has me all knotted up and yet, being the stubborn person that I am, I'm resistant to the Government's relentless insistence that we vaccinate. Vaccinate or DIE. It's hard to decipher between TRUE fear and concern for a REAL problem and government issued panic for the sake of getting people to comply to guidelines a select few have deemed important.

Great, now I sound like a conspiracy theorist.