A (soon to be) million dollar smile

I love to see my son C smile. Thankfully, he is a happy kid so I get to see that smile a lot.

His smile has been changing over the past couple of years as he has lost baby teeth and his new (terrifyingly large) permanent adult teeth have taken up residence in his mouth. Like his mother, C has lots of gigantic teeth all fighting to try and find a home in his small mouth. The result has been a lot of trips to the dentist.

For the past couple of months we've been heading to the dentist about twice a month so that he can keep tabs on the giant tooth party happening inside C's already crowded mouth. We've always known braces were a foregone conclusion with C - when he was just 3 years old the dentist started prepping us for that eventuality. More recently, the dentist commented that C could be "the poster child for orthodontics".

About a month ago the dentist placed a small rubber spacer between some of C's back molars to move things around a bit. He said that hopefully these rubber spacers would do the job more quickly and (my favorite part) more cheaply than putting a metal appliance in C's mouth. Since you can't go wrong with the quicker and cheaper option, we were on board.

About 2 days after the spacer was placed in his mouth, C --who had been banned from gum and all things sticky-- accidentally pulled the spacer out while eating a Tootsie Pop. Apparently I forgot to say the words "No Tootsie Pops" when reciting the list of forbidden foods. I called the dentist the next morning and he got us in to replace the spacer.

Even though we managed to hide all the sticky foods, a pattern had been established. The dentist would put a spacer inside of C's mouth and then roughly 3-4 days later C would find me and announce, "Mom, my spacer fell out again." At which point I would call the dentist and schedule an appointment where things would be looked at and another spacer would be placed in the back of his mouth. This has been going on for weeks.

So, I was not surprised when C made the announcement over pancakes last week that he had lost yet another spacer. But unlike all the past times, he added "And also, my tooth hurts when I bite down." That was definitely a new development. In the hustle bustle of the day, I forgot to call the dentist which I regretted when C came home from school later that day and told me that his tooth still hurt and that it seemed to be getting worse.

We headed off to the dentist the next morning for what I was hoping might be some good news like, "Hey that 6 year molar is finally 100% in and his back teeth look great. In fact that little rubber spacer has performed a miracle -- C doesn't need braces anymore! Oh, and that pain will go away just as soon as I snap my fingers."

Sadly though, the news wasn't so good. They took an x-ray and discovered that the baby tooth next to his 6 year molar had become somehow infected and needed to be removed. Right now. So I gave my consent and they loaded C up with Novocaine and "Happy Air" and pulled that baby tooth right out of his head. Once the tooth was out, the dentist showed me the X-Ray of C's back teeth and there was not a single tooth pointing downward. All of his teeth were pointing in various odd angles, none of which looked like they'd be helpful in the chewing process at all.

With the baby tooth now gone, there was no tooth now that could help hold the spacer in place and apparently the crookedness of those back teeth would only get worse. With no cheaper or quicker options now left to available to us, it was time to bite the bullet and get a metal appliance for my son's overcrowded mouth.

In order to start the process they took molds of his mouth (which was way more traumatic for C than pulling out his baby tooth) and told me that we'd need to come back in about 3 weeks to get more x-rays, photos and to actually get the appliance installed in his mouth. And so it seems that we have already started down the road which we knew we'd be heading down eventually. The long, winding and expensive road called orthodontics.

We got the information in the mail yesterday that laid out for us the total price of his new orthodontics as well as what portion our insurance would cover (which was not 100% like I had been blindly hoping it would be). Conveniently, the packet also contained a lovely brochure that gave us many different financing options.

Thankfully, Mr. Crackers had a little bit of stock that we sold to help cover the cost. We'll hold off on the financing option until they come back and hit us with the big guns...braces. For now we'll do what we can to juggle things a bit and I'll be taking plenty of pictures of what may someday be C's million dollar smile.

A change in personal style

I feel as though we've turned a corner sometime over the past couple weeks here at the House of Crackers. I've started noticing that the closer we get to K's 5th birthday, the more she seems to be moving away from her fascination with princesses and all things pink and sparkly.

My first clue that things were changing came a little more than a week and a half ago. After getting at least 2 years of wear, I decided it was finally time to suck it up and purchase a new winter coat for K this year ( 3/4 length sleeves just didn't seem like they'd work to well for playing in the snow). One of my favorite retailers was having a pre-season sale & I happened to have a gift certificate for this particular store burning a hole in my wallet, so we decided to go ahead and purchase her new coat now instead of waiting until the weather actually dropped below 70 degrees.

I gave her two of options to choose from but both of the coats I had picked were pink. As long as I can remember pink has been her favorite color. When given a choice between pink and any other color, K always picks pink. Imagine then my surprise when she asked to see one of the coats in blue. When I showed it to her I was sure she'd decide that pink was the way to go, but instead she said that she wanted the blue one. "Are you sure?" I asked. "Yep. I like the blue. It's pretty" she said.

Then she surprised me again by picking blue snow boots (I know it's early...but seriously once I started to pick out the winter gear I couldn't stop myself).

The coat came in the mail today, and I tell you she was just as excited about the blue today as she was when she picked it out last week. What is happening here?

My final hint that things are a changin' was this week when she finally selected her Halloween costume. Ever since the Halloween catalogs started arriving in our house back in early July she's picked a different costume for herself every day. And all of them have either been sparkly or fairy themed or included a skirt made from boatloads of of tulle (I should also add that most of her favorite costumes have also been priced well above $60.00, which is a lot more than her mother is willing to spend on any item of clothing for either of her children) .

But this week she made her final costume decision and she didn't change her mind no matter how many times I asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween. Instead of the princesses or the pink sparkly costumes she formerly dreamed of, she instead picked out this costume...





Holy black vinyl Batman! If that's not a dramatic shift in personal style than I don't know what is. Hmm. I have decided to focus on the fact that Batgirl is a strong and powerful female crime fighter rather than the fact she wears a relatively short skirt made of shiny black vinyl.

I am hoping that perhaps this change in preference may be somewhat influenced by my son C. A couple of weeks ago he had decided that he wanted to be a superhero for Halloween because he liked the fact that all of those costumes came with lots of padding to simulate muscles. He had been bouncing between Superman, The Flash and Spiderman for the past few days, but once K made her decision, he finally settled the matter...



So, fear not, the streets of Gotham will be safe this Halloween (until around 7:30). You can rest assured that both kids will be carrying flashlights and wearing glow necklaces this year while they make their rounds collecting candy. Nothing says responsible parenting quite like sending both of your young kids out trick-or-treating in black costumes.

A quick tour of my accidental garden

There are some strange things afoot in my garden this year. After a very hot and very dry summer, many of my plants have passed on to that big garden in the sky (in other words they've died of neglect since their owner frequently forgets to water them). But oddly, my garden seems to be thriving despite all of my efforts to the contrary. It seems as though the plants have taken matters into their own hands this year.


Every spring I get excited about the warmer temperatures and the thoughts of sitting outside on the patio surrounded by beautiful flowers while eating herbs and vegetables picked from my very own garden. So, every year I run out to one of my local nurseries and purchase flowers, herbs and tomatoes and eventually (after several reminders from Mr. Crackers that the plants won't be beautiful if they all die in the containers before I actually get them into some dirt) plant them in pots and mulched beds around the backyard. And for those first lovely weeks of summer I diligently water them and feel a fierce sense of pride in my beautiful surroundings.


And then...it gets hot. And we go on vacation. And I forget to water and those lovely flowers and plants that I purchased just 6 weeks earlier. And so they start to look like this....





(I just noticed that the flower painted on this pot is upside down...and I've had this pot for years. Yes, I know that the bottom of the pot doesn't match the top. I am really cheap when it comes to buying pots for outside...it's just something I hate to spend money on. I don't know why.)


Or in extreme cases, the pots start looking like this...



(The dead daisies that used to live in this pot have been put out of their misery so that you don't have to see the brown death that my neglect has caused. You're welcome. And yes, I know this pot is broken. As I mentioned before I hate spending money on pots for the patio. )


But then this year as plants began to die around the garden, I noticed something strange happening. New flowers and plants that I did not buy started appearing around the garden.


This was the first one I noticed. I didn't buy any wave petunias this year, and yet this plant was bravely growing in a small crack between the patio stones and the house. I have no idea how it got there nor do I understand how it has survived the past 4 weeks, but I've started watering it. I just can't bear to watch it die now.





(I have no idea what that broken pipe is that is leading directly into my house. I thought it had something to do with the heating/cooling system, but I was informed by my heating/cooling guy that it wasn't. He told me that frankly he couldn't tell what it was or where it was leading to. I'm scared of this pipe. I am also scared of all of the creatures that might be living in it. Sometimes I think of this pipe late at night & I'm sure it's some kind of highway system for all of our neighborhood rodents to gain access to our home. But that's probably a story for another day...)



Then I noticed this petunia growing in a pot that had once housed what I think was a beautiful African yellow daisy that I couldn't resist back in early May. Again, I'm not sure where this new plant came from, but I'm happy that this pot has a pretty occupant again.








It's not just flowers that are making their way into my garden uninvited. Mr. Crackers was weeding his roses about a month ago when he noticed another new plant. This cherry tomato plant seems to have found a home amongst the roses. It makes for a tricky harvest, but I'm not complaining. Free tomatoes (and no we didn't plant any cherry tomatoes this year either).








We have since found two other tomato plants growing around the yard. They haven't produced any tomatoes yet, but I'm pretty sure these are cherry tomato plants too. This one found a nice home next to the fountain and I've been making sure he's been getting plenty of water.








This little guy is growing right next to the play set, which is definitely not a prime location for vegetable habitation. I cut the plant back & even ran it over with the lawn mower, but it just keeps coming back.




I'm not sure what this all means, but I'm not complaining about it. Heck, I hope it continues. Maybe next spring I won't even have to go to the nursery to buy any plants. Maybe the garden will just take of itself. Wouldn't that be lovely? Maybe I could train them to help clean the house too. A girl can dream right?

P.S. Anyone need any cherry tomatoes? I have a feeling we'll have a bumper crop soon.