"Back In My Day...."

Dear Daughter (from the backseat): "Mommy, some day can I have a Rubik's Cube?"

Me: "...well, yeah, I suppose so...."

Dear Daughter: "Thanks, Mommy!"

(silence)

Me: "You know, I had a Rubiks' Cube when I was a kid. In fact, the Rubik's Cube was invented when I was a kid!"

Dear Daughter: "Wow! So you must be pretty old then, huh?"

*sigh* It's starting to look that way.

Tuba Lessons

Dear Daughter: "Mommy...can I have tuba lessons some day? PULEEEEEEEEEZE?!!!"


Um...yeah. Tuba lessons. Whatever.

She Likes to Dress the Part

Dear Daughter puts the P.A.R.T.Y. in tea party. Who cares if Diet Coke and bananas are a bit non-traditional?

More Dental Drama

My oldest baby lost her first tooth last Monday, and it didn't happen the way I always assumed it would. She did not wiggle the little tooth out herself and squeal with delight at the idea of the Tooth Fairy coming. Instead, at her routine dental exam, the dentist decided that these two lower front teeth were not likely to work themselves out on their own. I posted a few months ago about Dear Daughter having a second set of permanent teeth coming in behind the two baby ones up front. At that time, the dentist office thought they would loosen up and fall out on their own, but that was nearly four months ago.

As I sat in the waiting room for what I thought would only be a routine exam and cleaning on Dear Daughter's teeth, the dental assistant came out to tell me the dentist's opinion and to suggest just removing them while Daughter was still in the chair. I was afraid this is how it would go, but I was surprised that they wanted to take care of it right now. It made sense, and it made things more convenient. Daughter was already in the chair. Why come back in a week or two when we could do it now? "How is she doing?" I asked the assistant. She replied with confidence that she was doing just fine and that she always does just fine with them. She was clearly proud of my girl. The assistant went back in to assist with the procedure of extracting my firstborn baby's teeth. I waited in the lobby and apparently experienced more anxiety than my daughter did over the whole ordeal.

Fifteen minutes later the assistant returned to me to tell me it was done and that my daughter was doing great and how proud of her she is...and she went on and on about how great my little girl is and how sweet she is and how she didn't even flinch or cry or complain or resist or anything and, and, and.... I was escorted to my daughter's side. I entered the room behind Dear Daughter, still sitting in the exam chair. All I saw was the back of her head. When I spoke to her, she turned and grinned at me with a wad of bloody gauze wedged in the front of her lower gum and said allk happy and nonchalantly, "Hi Mommy!" she was all happy go lucky and excited over the little trinkets she was given in her dental care bag to take home. She was completely unconcerned about the fact that she just had two teeth ripped out of her mouth and she was chomping on bloody gauze. The assistant again went on and on about what a sweet girl she is what a great job we're doing with her as her parents and she just beamed at my daughter. I was proud of my girl, to say the least.

Another change in the gauze wad and a moment at the reception desk to drop a chunk of change (we do not have dental insurance and apparently extractions are rather expensive), and we were in the car and on our way to Dairy Queen. I promised my girl a treat to "take the edge off." In the car I asked her if the shot in her gums hurt a little. She responded cheerily with a muffled voice through the bloody gauze wad, "It hurt more than just a LITTLE!" I looked at her in the rear view mirror. She was grinning happily and proud of herself as she added, "and I didn't flinch or yell or even shed a single tear!" I then asked if she felt anything when they pulled the teeth out, like a little tug or something. She said nonchalantly, "No... (pause) ...but I DID feel and hear like a CRUNCHING sound when they yanked it out...." I winced, and my stomach turned a bit. I was glad I was facing forward and Daugther could only see the back of my head. I looked again at her face in the rear view mirror. She was smiling happily through the bloody gauze wad and humming a little happy tune as we pulled into Dairy Queen.

As we got out of the car I asked her if her mouth was numb and if it bothered her. I checked the damage in her mouth and saw two gaping bloody holes in the gums in front of the two perment teeth that are pushing through. They had stopped bleeding, so I told Daughter she didn't need to chomp on the gauze anymore. Daughter responded that the numbness didn't bother her. I reminded her that that was the worst part for her when she had to go through her dental surgery a year ago. She said casually, "Yeah...but I'm older now, and I can handle things like this now!"

And so my firstborn baby has now lost TWO teeth and she's barely 5 1/2 years old. It's not how I imagined approaching this milestone in her life. Regardless, I'm all weepy at the thought that my little girl is old enough to be losing the very same teeth that I was weepy about her getting in the first place just five short years ago.

This parenting thing sure is an emotional journey!

Make a Joyful Noise?

I began teaching Dear Daughter piano lessons a few months ago, soon after selling my "sentimental" acoustic piano (gifted to me by my grandparents when I was about 7 years old). As I've said in at least one previous post, parting with that piano wasn't easy. I moved it cross country at least twice and probably about a dozen times in between. We were inseparable from the time I acquired it. I even moved it into my apartment in college while I was studying piano and completing my music degree. I'm sure my neighbors all had "opinions" of their neighbor banging out Chopin and Bach, which I know they could hear through their walls. I had that piano in at least six different apartments over the years.

I considered going digital a few different times over the years, but could never bring myself to it until the point that Dear Husband decided to install a wood stove. Part of the deal was that if he installed the stove, I got a new piano. This was because the only place in our new home where the piano could live was in the same room where the stove was to be installed.
The wood heat would have dried out the soundboard and destroyed it.

I knew what I wanted to replace my acoustic with if I ever did it. I did my research years ago. Since that time, the model was upgraded. It is touted as the "flagship" of the digital pianos. Upon selling my acoustic to some nice young woman who was serious about her piano studies (I wouldn't let the piano go to just anyone), Dear Husband and I went shopping. Early last fall we came home with my very own Yamaha CP300. I was in love. It is the next best thing to a 30 foot Steinway grand, IMO. I've played on those monsters before in performance halls. This digital beauty has an amazing keyboard action that mimics a concert grand piano. It even has a vibration feature programmed into it that makes the instrument feel like a full size grand under your fingers. And it has a sound that I wouldn't be able to distinguish from a full size grand if I were listening with closed eyes. It also has some other great electronic features for MIDI and recording. I haven't learned those yet; I bought this thing purely for it's sound. It is the only digital piano I could accept in place of an acoustic because it literally feels like an acoustic in my hands, only much better than the little spinet acoustic I sold. It has much better tone and keyboard control than my little acoustic ever did. Have I mentioned that I'm in love?

It's a $2,200.00 "toy" that my children love to play with. Fortunately, they are gentle with it and aside from an occasional reminder to be "gentle," and sometimes a little trouble sharing, I am okay with them playing with it as long as I am close by to supervise.








From the looks of their faces, the kids were eating something chocolate before these pictures were taken.

This last one is my favorite. Dear Son is into whatever he is singing while his big sister plays along.

Good thing we live in the country now and the nearest neighbors are not so "near" anymore.

"What De Het?"

All parents of small children know they need to be careful what they say, as their children are sure to repeat it. The first time I was faced with Dear Daughter repeating my words was when she was about 20 months old and just finishing her potty training. She started to parrot "Oh crap!" one day, and I decided that even though "crap" isn't such a bad word, I wasn't sure I liked my 20 month old child saying it.

And yes, I said 20 months old and finishing potty training. Before you revere me too highly though, I'll confess that my boy-child (now three years and two months old) is STILL trying to get the concept. He understands it. He can do it when he wants to. He has been known to tell me he needs to go (even number two) while in public and make it to the toilet in time without any accidents. However, for some reason he has still not decided that he is ready for this to be a permanent and full time arrangement. Lately he has been running to his bedroom and closing the door and pooping in his pull up and then staying in "hiding" in his bedroom. Apparently his reasoning is that somehow I will never discover what he has done and he can just hide it forever. This reasoning falls apart though when he gets tired of carrying turds in his pants and begs me to change him.

But I digress.

Somewhere along the way Dear Son has heard me, and prolly his dad too, say "What the heck?" Now there are certainly much worse words to be said and much worse things to hear your young child parroting back. And if you've read my spot for very long, you know that my language is not always especially "refined" despite the fact that four letter words are not common place in my vernacular. You'll remember that phrases like "pissed off" do not offend me, nor do words such as "ass." It would stand to make sense that "What the heck?" does not bother me either. It is, however, amusing to hear my barely three year old son in the back seat of the car seeing something intriguing outside his window and stating with great incredulousness, "What de het?"

I've been a bit absent in the past weeks (months!). The drama in my professional life had become all consuming. But fortunately I am stepping out of that now and into something new. The new direction has also been a bit consuming as I have had an incredible amount of redirecting and reorienting to get in order. My feet have still not quite landed, but I'm seeing more clearly and feeling more centered. I can best sum up the past six months of my life in the words of my boy-child: "What de het?"

Social Faux Pas

My kids aren't afraid to speak their minds. I'm pretty sure I know where they get that. You're probably pretty sure, too.

Yesterday I was unloading them from the family mobile and there was a very elderly lady standing nearby, within ear shot. She leaned on her cane and fished a cigarette from her purse and lit up. Dear Son piped up loudly, "Why does she have a smoker, Mommy? Why?" I tried to casually shush him, silently hoping the lady didn't hear. If she did, she ignored it. She was grinning at Dear Son and waving at him. No doubt he reminded her of her own great grandson or something. As she grinned at him with her "smoker" hanging out of her mouth, Son scowled back at her and said loudly, "Why is that lady waving at me, Mommy? Why?" I shushed him again. This time I was pretty sure she heard him.

Meanwhile, Dear Daughter had climbed out of her own door of the family mobile and we all began to walk past the woman, who was still leaning on her cane and puffing on her "smoker" and grinning at the kids. Dear Daughter skeptically sized her up and said to her, "Why are you smoking? Don't you know that it's bad for your lungs?" I was mortified as the woman's smile faded a bit. I offered the woman a nonchalant smile as a sort of peace offering, desperately hoping the woman was hard of hearing. Nonetheless, I waited until we were out of earshot before I informed my Dear Daughter that what she said was absolutely correct. However, it is not appropriate to say it out loud. She protested, "But Mommy! Why would she smoke like that? Doesn't she know it is bad for her?" Her little brother piped up in her defense, "Yeah! Why was that lady having that 'smoker'?" I reaffirmed again that it is indeed bad for a person's health to smoke. Then I reasserted that it still is not polite to try to "correct" a grown up...even if they are right.

All the while I was wondering to myself how someone who puffed on "smokers" like that could live to be the estimated 85 years of age that this lady looked, and I thought that perhaps if my children had only met her sooner, she could have been better educated on the effects of smoking and in quitting, perhaps could have extended her life to about 120 years or something.