Yesterday Melody had her first dentist appointment (looked in her mouth a week or so ago and could see cavities).
Turns out she’s got a gobzillion cavities, and the dentist looks at me and asks, “Has she been brushing twice a day for two minutes each time?” And I felt like saying something totally rude about how he shouldn’t assume everyone has heard those standards, and I’m not an idiot, are you taking a survey over how many people who follow the standards still get cavities?
Maybe I would have felt guilty-er if I hadn’t just had a conversation a week ago with a mom who does hyper-regulate her kids’ teeth hygiene and was crushed that her 8-year-old has cavities despite her efforts.
Anyway, they give me a quote for half her mouth (they schedule one side at a time because they don’t expect a kid to sit through the whole procedure at once) and blow off my questions/distaste for metal fillings. “[Tooth-colored fillings] are more expensive” was all they’d say to me.
The friend who referred me had warned me about the negitive response the workers gave when asked about health issues, so I tried to make it about aesthetics (hey, this should be solid ground, I thought), and still felt invalidated.
I guess I should have taken that story as a reason not to go, but I wanted to get Melody checked and here was somebody known by somebody. Anyway, after looking at the estimate (pushing $2000. For one-half of her mouth. BLEW my mind) I told Jay, “I am totally calling around for prices.”
And I only had the energy to call 3 offices, but that was enough to establish that we visited an expensiver place (annoyed me) and that there are providers that are already rejecting the metal fillings themselves, so I don’t have to but heads with an establishment.
So I have to finish calling around tomorrow; one more place to meet Jay’s request of four new offices, and one call-back to compare oranges with oranges.
I’m totally getting the impression that this isn’t playing by the rules (going to place A then hijacking the x-rays and exam to have the work done elsewhere). If office A hadn’t charged plenty for the initial exam I might feel more compunction about changing, but I’ve given the worker his due.
~ ~ ~
In other news we’ve got
- Three does that did not deliver. I’m going to have to re-visit my breeding practices.
- A potential buyer who rejected my stock because “they don’t have papers.” I looked into what it takes to get papers. The answer: four generations. That’s it. The breeder I got the stock from didn’t even keep records because “they’re too easy to falsify. Paper doesn’t tell you anything about an animal.”
- I expect the papers/parents would have more merit if they’ve been shown, so I’ll eventually look into that. For now I’m just taking a deep breath because it’s more detail-work. And I’m so tired of detail maintenance right now.
- Speaking of which, Melody has lost her phonics book with only a couple lessons left. We both wanted the accomplishment of *finishing* the whole book, but without it surfacing during today’s cleaning sweep I think I’ll just let her start her new book tomorrow.
- My big praise for the day: Temp warmed up to zero today. That meant I could catch up on laundry. We *so* needed that, and doing laundry when it was colder than -30° (last year) resulted in frozen pipes and overflow on the carpet in the bathroom.
- Yes, we have carpet in the bathroom. No we didn’t put it there.
- Did I say Jay installed our new wood stove? And he screwed a couple fans to the ceiling to keep the warm air moving to the back of the house.
- This has resulted in a rash of hard-of-hearing: someone is always next to a fan and we don’t talk loud enough (especially at the ends of the day) to be heard over the white noise.
- Kids keep asking when “someone” can come over and I’ve been more anxious about our messy home than in our old place. I think it probably has to do with it being smaller. I’m having a hard time working up the enthusiasm for doubling the number of kids here if I’m not sure they’ll keep the energy contained (there aren’t a lot of other places to send them so I can maintain my quiet space).
- I played my guitar “in public” for the first time Saturday– accompanying me and a friend at bridal/baby shower. It was so inspiring to succeed. Has sparked another surge in practice/involvement in music just as Advent arrives (generally my “active” season for music).
- All this busyness has made it hard to produce words for my NaNo. I have the same number of hours (about 1.5- 2 per night) but I want to consume rather than produce: collecting music or reading theory are hard to beat off to get the 1k I’m fighting for each night.
- I’m about 3300 behind par, but if I get two strong (that would be ~3000words) sessions I should catch up and stay solid.
- And Thanksgiving will be at my sister’s again. I’m so thankful for her generosity with her home. My kids have been counting down the days like it’s Christmas coming.
Why do you think the does didn’t deliver?
The only thing I can come up with is they were bred shortly after moving into the warm house. I’ve read being too hot can render the buck sterile for a time. Shortly after moving inside the rabbits all dropped a bunch of fur (the stuff that had kept them warm outside as the temps dropped toward winter), so, clearly they were too hot for the space. I just can’t know if it was too hot for bunny-making.
At least I have a theory instead of making myself nuts wondering.
[…] but not nearly as draining), and with that understanding I was able to tell Jay, in the case of Melody’s teeth issue, “I’m worn out dealing with detail-gathering [S & P demanding stuff], can I please […]