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.