Diary of a Tooth Fairy

Tonight Savannah came to me to let me know that she had a loose tooth. When she first started losing them, she'd come to me at the first sign of a wiggle, but now she waits until they are literally ready to leap from her mouth, which is much better from my perspective. I've never enjoyed that portion of motherhood that asks me to put my delicate fingers into a slobbery mouth... Ewwww! Anyway, it took me all of 30 seconds to reach in and wrest it from it's perch, and another 30 seconds for her to grab my wallet so that the "tooth fairy" could visit. There's no mystery there anymore since the night the tooth fairy couldn't outlast her and then didn't wake up early enough to slip her the loot! Actually, Evan came to my rescue that time after hearing her cries and slipped some money on the floor beside the bed for her to find. Stupid tooth fairy anyway!

Savannah doesn't have too many teeth left to lose at this point, and I swear if she loses many more in the coming days I'm going to have to use the blender to prepare all her food. She seems to be on a streak, and the tooth fairy is going to have to take out a loan at this rate!

Every time one of my children has ever lost a tooth, it has always reminded me of my Grandma Mary. Born blind, she was a truly amazing woman who could do anything. What many people didn't know about her, except for her still-traumatized grandkids, is that she was a frustrated dentist in disguise. And not one of those kid-friendly, pastel-clad dentists like my kids go to today, but one of those that are nicknamed "the Butcher!" :-) I learned at a very early age that if you had a tooth that was even thinking about coming loose, you'd better keep it to yourself for as long as you could because if Grandma found out about it, that baby was coming out now! I have vivid memories of her trying to get one of my teeth out. She tried her fingers, pliers, tying it to the door with a string (you should have seen my leap after that door when she shut it!), and making me eat an apple, all to no avail... After that experience, I kept loose teeth well-guarded, more closely than state secrets!

When I had Evan and Braden, I was lucky enough that she was able to provide daycare for them as she had with all of us other grandkids when we were growing up. The boys were her pride and joy, and she loved them dearly. However, that inner-demon, errr...dentist, had not gone away. I can remember when Braden was teething that she would use her fingers and literally "massage" the tooth through the gums. I know it had to hurt like crazy at the time, but he sure didn't suffer through teething as long as other babies. I would never have the heart to do that myself, but she really became gleeful at the prospect!

It's funny how little things like Savannah's tooth tonight can bring up such fond memories. She's been gone several years now, but when I think about losing teeth, her smiling face and her silly "Oh goody!!!" leap immediately to mind.

Say What?!?!

Part of the reason I wanted to start this blog was to have a record of the strange/ comical/ touching things that come out of my children's mouths. Many times all three can even be rolled into the course of one 2-minute conversation. Last night was a perfect example...

Yesterday I did my weekly shopping with both Evan and Savannah in tow, which is usually a recipe for pushing me completely over the edge. As usual, I was teetering on the brink and once again asking myself "WHY, WHY, WHY did I bring them both????!!!" I'm a fairly bright woman, and I should KNOW how it would turn out... But alas, there we were. Evan has an uncanny ability to know when he's reaching dangerous levels, so he then employed his "I'm too cute, you can't kill me" method of survival: turning on his considerable charm and wit. Both he and Braden can do the most authentic Australian accents you've ever heard, and they both were huge fans of the late Steve Irwin. Soooo... Evan spent the last 30 minutes giving the running voice-over in his best Crocodile Hunter voice: "Crikey, let's take a look at this she-devil! Look at those eyes..." And on and on it went. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't help but laugh along with both of them.

Then, while cooking dinner in the kitchen (my most-awesome lemon-chicken spaghetti), Evan was playing on the laptop at the kitchen table and being his usual smart-alecky self, giving me a hard time about everything. I turned around to give him a retort, and saw that he had stuffed one of my little ceramic frogs up his nose (mind you, he IS 16 now; you would think he would be past this in the child-rearing stage, but anything to get mom's goat!).

Without even thinking about it, I snapped: "Evan, get the frog out of your nose!" Braden just happened to be wandering through on his way outside and drily commented, "Now there's something you don't hear every day..."

Well, maybe not in other peoples' homes! I know that I find myself saying things like that all the time, and they're so commonplace that I don't even find it odd anymore. :-)

Then, even later in the evening, Savannah and I had to run into Logan. On the way back, she asked me "Mommy, can I ask you something?" I learned several years ago on a "just-us-girls" weekend trip to Idaho that those are dangerous words. It was apparent that she had been thinking about MANY intense things for quite some time, and now I was effectively held hostage. That was the LONGEST, most PAINFUL trip I've ever had!

Anyway, there were those words again. I'm a big believer in being totally honest with your kids, answering their every question to the best of your ability, but being mindful of age-appropriate explanations. Taking a deep breath, I shored myself up for whatever was coming. "Sure honey, what's on your mind?"

"Why do you and daddy kiss all the time?" But it wasn't just the word "kiss." It was "KEE-YISS," dripping with the most disgust and horror that can only come from a 9-year old girl's mouth. First off, Tom and I don't Kee-Yiss all the time: I get a hug and a peck in the morning, and another when he comes home from work, if he remembers... :-) That's it each day, sum total. But apparently for Savannah, that is just too much!

Sheesh... Is it any wonder that I'm ready for the funny farm?

Happy birthday to Evan

16 years ago today, I gave birth to one of the cutest baby boys ever to walk the face of the earth (cutest, that is, until 20 months later when the other cutest baby boy was born to create a tie)...

Yes, Evan turns 16 today, which is very exciting to both of us. However, it also means that I'm getting to be REALLY OLD. Ah well... I figure I've earned all of these gray hairs. Not surprisingly, most of them have probably come courtesy of my Ev-Man, but that's a post for another day :).

Anyway, when Evan was born, I had planned on creating a journal to record all the cute things he did. A short 2 1/2 years later I actually purchased two journals: one for each boy. And I wrote in each of them for approximately 2-3 days. I know, I suck... I always figured that "one day" when I had the time, I would sit down and write up all the stories before I forgot them. Well, I think we all know how that's gone, especially considering my track record as of late (such as leaving Evan waiting for hours at the high school, as one example among many).

I have been feeling very sentimental lately, what with Evan reaching this big milestone, and also since I've gotten on facebook and reconnected with some friends from my high school days, among other things. So tonight, in honor of Ev's birthday, I record for all posterity the story of his birth, which is the only story in his journal:

March 22, 1995

Dear Evan,
You were born October 30, 1992 in Ogden, Utah, and you were 2 days overdue. I started labor on a Thursday night (the 29th) while your father and I were out to eat at the Athenian Restaurant (apparently you didn't care for Greek food!) with your Grandma and Grandpa Vaux. While I was in the hospital, they monitored my contractions to see how we were doing. You apparently had other ideas about being born, because after each contraction would push you down a little bit, you would wiggle back up to where you had started! After what seemed like an eternity, you were finally born at 3:27 p.m. in the middle of the first big storm of the season. I can vividly remember being in the middle of labor and the electricity and lights in the hospital kept flickering on and off. When you were finally born, and they placed you in my arms, I cried. Never had I seen such a beautiful baby, and I fell completely in love with you in that one instant.

It's funny, but even though I can no longer remember what I had for lunch yesterday, that memory is still as ingrained in my head as it was in 1995 when I wrote it.

And I'm still just as much in love with you now, seeing the young man you are becoming, as I was back then when all I could do was imagine your future.

I love you, and happy birthday!

Walt Disney had some SERIOUS issues...

I know I'm not the first to mention it, but just WHAT exactly is so appealing about a giant rodent that people will plan vacations and spend big bucks to go celebrate it? I like Disneyland as much as the next person (although admittedly it's been almost 20 years since I've been there and the thing I remember most was a GREAT stuffed baked potato that we had for lunch at one of the stands), but after my most recent adventure, I just don't get how Walt sat down one day looking for a way to get rich and decided to create a lovable mouse character. Where had he been? Had he SEEN how disgusting they really are? It's obvious that there was not information about the hantavirus back then. And can you imagine the risk of the virus there would be if mice were really as big as Mickey and Minnie?!

Anyway, now that the weather's getting colder (at least here in Utah), the mice in the area are starting to pick up and move to nicer digs, namely my house. We live out in the "country" in a neighborhood where all the lots have to be at least 1.25 acres, so we're pretty much surrounded by fields. We have cats outside, but they are apparently unionized and won't do their jobs to the best of their ability.

But I digress: the past few weeks we have seen mice in several rooms of the house, so I went shopping and bought the little poison bait bars to place discreetly in the rooms. I also bought a few glue traps, great little pieces of REALLY sticky glue that fold into little tents: in theory you place them against the wall and the mice, who LOVE hugging the walls, run into them and get stuck. Notice the emphasis on "in theory." What actually happens is that you place them against the wall, the mice run along the edge, take a sharp turn to go around the trap, and continue on their way.

The night before last I went to bed, and actually got to SLEEP (an accomplishment if you've read my other posts) without any sort of sleep aid. Life was good! Then I awoke at 2:45 a.m. to the very distinct feeling of having my finger gnawed on. For such little animals, their bite hurts like none other. I jerked awake, and then my poor befuddled brain tried to rationalize that it couldn't possibly have been a mouse, or any other type of animal, feasting on my finger. However, the throbbing then commenced so I blearily trudged to the bathroom to assess the damage. Hmmm... blood, and a tiny little gnawed-looking hole. Definitely a bite.

I washed it a million times, and then put a huge glob of Neosporin on it and bandaged it up. I wandered out to the kitchen and spent the next 30 minutes googling "mouse bite," "rabies," and "what was wrong with Walt Disney anyway?" I couldn't find answers that were as definitive as I'd like about mice and rabies, or Walt either. Some sites said there was no chance of contracting rabies, others said there were slight chances, others gave the encouraging news that "only 2 people in the U.S. have survived rabies once they've contracted the disease." Now that's cheery...

After spending the next 4 hours with a giant case of the heebie-jeebies (and again, NO SLEEP ** sigh**), I went to work. I decided that I'd feel much better if I went in to the Instacare and got the bite checked out. One hour and 1 freshly administered tetanus shot later, I've been assured that I will live...

Our house is now beginning to resemble the house on the movie "Mouse Trap," and I have decided to use the money I'm currently throwing away on my 401(k) to invest in an assortment of mouse-torturing devices.

The kids called me at work today to report the first victim: found in my bedroom trap. Ahhh... victory is so sweet! I may have him stuffed and mounted.

The New Love of My Life

We bought our current home almost 8 years ago now, which has been heaven, even though the current house has often presented many challenges. When Tom and I first met, he had just purchased a 2-bedroom bachelor pad which was just way too small for his newly-enlarged family. So, not quite a year after we married we packed up and moved into a larger home, one of many such moves to come. The first 6 years we were married, we moved 6 times, and not just house-to-house but town-to-town. Needless to say, you would have to physically dynamite me out of this place, just because the thought of packing everything up one more time is enough to send me screaming for the hills.

The first few years in this house were like a honeymoon phase, easily overlooking the things that we disliked because we were so blissfully happy not to be moving again. Soon though, just like in the best of marriages, the honeymoon was over and I started noticing things: the kitchen's too small, there's absolutely no closet space, a person could literally freeze to death in the basement bedrooms, etc. etc. Feeling picked upon, the house soon proceeded to act with classic passive-agressiveness: the swamp cooler developed a never-ending leak, one which still torments us to this day; the water main to the house broke in our yard, making it our responsibility to pay for, in the middle of winter when it would be ridiculously expensive to dig up and replace; and my all-time favorite, the propane tank with a leak that NOBODY from the petroleum company could find (of course, they didn't have much incentive: we were paying $150-$200 per week just to keep the water heater running; it's truly a miracle we didn't all get blown to bits).

Finally, after much love and affection, things seemed to fall into place and we haven't had to fork out much money for major home repairs. In the past year, however, the appliances in the home have decided to get in on the act. First to go was the dishwasher, which we've never bothered to replace. Why, when we have three dishwashers, er, I mean loving children to do them for us? Two years ago the trusty old refrigerator that we had died a violent death, so we replaced it. A few months later, the kitchen stove followed suit, so we replaced it a year ago. This year it was the dryer. Actually, it had been going out on me since last summer, but we kept suffering along, until I finally put my foot down: I could either get a new dryer or we could all dry clothes one piece at a time with the handheld hair dryer. I got the new dryer.

Well, for the last few months, the washer has been acting up. There have been several close calls where I really thought it was done, but then, like a prize boxer, it would bounce back up and work for a little while longer. This last week it too finally gave up the ghost.

Like any good consumer, I studied up on the internet and had myself armed with the best brands for the money, the benefits of a front loader vs. top loaders, etc. Tom balked some at the extra cost for a front loader, but I persevered, and by Saturday afternoon we headed out in the pickup to find a working washer.

We came home several hours later with my new 400-pound baby: a white Frigidaire front-loader with 10 different wash cycles. I woke up early Sunday morning and did 3 loads of laundry before waking the others up for church. I made my customary cup of Earl Gray tea, loaded up the shiny chrome barrel, added the soap, and pushed the start button. I then oohed and ahhed as it washed load after load of clothes with barely any water (I swear our old machine used 100 gallons per load, minimum), and spun them faster than I ever thought possible. Taking them out to put into the dryer, they are just barely damp. It honestly has cut 20-30 minutes off the time needed in the dryer.

Hopefully we are done having to purchase new appliances now, and honestly, I can't think of anything else that could possibly go out (I know, I know, I should NEVER have sent that statement out into the universe. In fact, I take it back!). I can't decide if I've reached a new low or a new high in my life, but I am unashamed to proclaim it: I (HEART) MY WASHING MACHINE!!!! Who knew that I was so easily entertained?

My new rating system

Aside from the recent whining I did a few posts ago, I really do love my job. There is always a huge variety of things that need to be done, so life rarely gets boring, which is good (usually). My previous job was maximus tediosum! One of the greatest perks are the people I work with: they really are, for the most part, a great group. One individual I work with long-ago created a rating system for us to share how our days are so we would each know just how much each of us would put up with before going postal. It's a fairly complicated affair involving the alphabet and many numeric levels, kind of like the pain scale they have at the hospital. For the life of me, I can never remember if a D1 day or a D5 day is preferable. Either way, it doesn't seem to matter as this person enjoys pushing my buttons, regardless. If I'm really in a mood, I have finally resorted to just saying "Watch it, I'm feeling SENSITIVE." Problem solved.

Today, another of my favorites from here (whom I lovingly refer to as my "cheerleader" because they are always looking for ways to help me better myself by FINISHING my degree before my youngest (9) finishes her Ph.D.) left a comment on my previous post about my always-sad lack of sleep . Rather than shamelessly plagiarize, I thought I'd share it with you all. Here, from the mysterious R:

"How do you function the next day after a day like this? In your office, you need to develop a system like the one used to monitor air quality in the valley. Here's my suggestions for how you approach the problem:

"Green Day: It is a good day. You can bring your requests for assistance to Tracy. I will smile pleasantly, not kick the dog, hum to myself, and be a team player.

"Yellow Day: Conditions are questionable. Try to complete your projects without a great deal of my help. You'll have trouble distinguishing between a smile and a grimace. I will push around small animals in my way, talk to myself, and, if the building catches on fire, you are on your own.

"Red Day: The bells are ringing in my head, Tom's snores can be heard over a fleet of B-52s, and my whimpering would arouse the passions of Mother Theresa. I'm sympathetic to the extinction of certain dogs. Professors who ask for assistance will find a burning bag of doggie doo on their front porch on my next Green Day. I know where to get the doo, and I know how to use it. In the meantime, I'm going to sharpen my elbows, get a cork for those damn dogs, and have a pleasant night at the Crystal Inn."

How could I not love where I work with friends like that?!

Hmmm: I think it's him...

Sasquatch, with a baseball cap. It could happen!