Teeth, and the Last Day of School

I really love to brush my teeth.  It feels good.  Leaves my mouth fresh.  Satisfies that obsessive part of my brain that is into patterns and repetition and order.  That’s not to say that I brush my teeth as often as I should.  I’m pretty good about brushing in the morning, unless it’s a weekend and my day starts off in a slower, more lazy way.  

I’m very hit-or-miss about nighttime brushing.  And it seems to me that nighttime brushing is even more important than morning brushing in terms of overall mouth health.  I mean, at night there’s no saliva flowing, no movement of the inside-the-mouth parts, and whether we sleep with our mouths open or closed, if there is food residue in there while we’re sleeping, we’re just setting up a wonderland playground for the little germs that live in there and eat our teeth when we’re not looking.   But skipping the nighttime brushing is so much easier perhaps because there is no social stigma.  I mean, skipping the morning brushing leaves you breathing horror into the faces of anyone you talk to, while skipping the nighttime brushing offends only you, or perhaps the person that shares your bed and suffers your open-mouthed breathing in his or her face.  

Still, I do a fairly good job of both morning and nighttime brushing when I’m on a set schedule.  When I am regularly required to do certain things at a certain time and/or place.  

I am about to be cut loose from most such constraints for eleven weeks because today is the last day of the school year.  After today, our only regularly scheduled stop will be Thursday storytime at the library, that and the need to generally get the children food and sleep at approximately the same times each day.  

Before you assume that I’ll be sleeping in and eating bon-bons all day, let me reassure you that laundry and dishes and cooking and entertainment and vetting of media and discipline and mediation and education and legos and the carving out of time to have adult conversation with Partner and squeeze in some personal intellectual development and the enaction of my own dreams and goals and aspirations—not to mention a birthday party for an eight-year-old— will all still occur.  I’ll just be able to do it without having to get up at the crack of dawn or go to bed before midnight.  

I’m just not sure I’ll remember to brush my teeth.  

Runner?

Recently queried about when I’d start running again, first I stammered, “Uh—.”  Then I whined about how hot it is here right now.  Not hot, so much as humid.  Ok, hot and humid.  

Check out the Wiki article on humidity.  As they point out in the article, we’re usually referring to “relative humidity” when we use that term.  The relative part refers to the different moisture capacity of the air at different temperatures.  The higher the temperatures, the higher the moisture capacity.  So 90% humidity at 75 degrees is much less water than 90% humidity at 80.6F/26C (our current conditions, down from 90F earlier—no, no rain).  Through some magical voodoo one can arrive at a heat index of 87F/30C for that data.  In other words, because there is 90% relative humidity right now, it *feels* like 87, even though it’s only 80.  Go figure.  

This is the kind of weather where I can walk very slowly out the door and begin dripping sweat before the door shuts behind me.  The kind of weather where I “dry off” after a shower, but I’m never really dry, just sort of less damp at some point several hours later.  

So, you can probably understand why the thought of physical exertion out there leads me to whine.  I find it hard to continue to whine, however, after my previous post, in which I extolled the bravery and fortitude of my middle child.  

I haven’t actually done any kind of running for a long time.  I generally refer to April—the Month of Endless Demon Virus—as my excuse for slacking off in the running.  But I haven’t actually run regularly since just after my race back at the beginning of March.  Since I only ran for a smidge over two months, and have NOT run for almost three months, I’m not sure it’s honest or fair to call myself a runner over there in the left-hand margin.  

I can honestly call myself most of those other things, knitter especially.  There has been a decent amount of knitting and knit-planning.  A fair amount of legoing.  Not so much writing.  That one I can blame on the running, but that is for another post.  

I’m disappointed in the lack of running.  I really liked the running.  My brain felt good.  My body felt good.  Ok, you know, not in the moments immediately after the running, but in the times in between the running, when I was sleeping better, feeling stronger, and generally having more energy and enthusiasm for things in general.  

So, what I should be doing right now is promising to me that I will start running again.

Tomorrow.  

When I think that though, at least a dozen excuses pop into my brain, most having to do with wet air and knitting.  

Valor

Somehow I managed to miss Sonar X5’s four year immunizations.  Not sure how, but considering how many childhood immunizations there are nowadays, and the certainty of springtime illnesses around here, I suppose it isn’t too surprising.  He must have them to enter kindergarten in the fall, so off we went to get him up to date.  

I believe in letting the kids prepare themselves for hard stuff such as this, so last night we were talking about shots, talking about what he would take with him to help him feel brave, answering his questions, and giving him detailed lessons in immunology.  

X5: Will I get them in the arm or the leg?  

Me:  You’re a big kid now.  Arm for sure. 

X5:  How many shots will there be?

Me:  (feeling uninformed) I can’t remember.  Not more than four.  Probably two or three. 

X5:  Shots hurt, but then it will be over with and I won’t have to think about it again for a while.

Me:  Right.

This morning he chose to bring along a small stuffed elephant, just right for squeezing one hand around the middle in a moment of pain or panic.  He was his usual self in preparation, except that he wanted to sit in my lap in the waiting room, much to Sonar X3’s chagrin.  

When we asked the doc how many shots there’d be, and she cheerfully answered Four at Four, I mentally kicked myself.  Sonar X5 shrugged nervously, wrinkled his nose and asked if they’d do two on each side.  :)  The doc left (aren’t they just cowards) and the nurse returned with the four syringes and Sonar X5 squeezed his elephant and rolled up his sleeves.  Even Sonar X3, who had been climbing and bouncing all over the waiting chair seemed to recognize the gravity of the situation and sat completely still, watching in silent horror as the nurse spread the implements of torture and four banana yellow bandaids around Sonar X5 on the table.  

I asked if he wanted to hold my hand (no), cautioned that he needed to be still, and joked that he shouldn’t kick or hit the nurse (she didn’t laugh).  She told him that if he moved and the needle came out, she’d have to poke him again.  He tersely nodded his understanding.  

With the first poke, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, maybe a small tear leaked out at the corner.  With the second poke, he took a deep breath, squeezing the elephant within an inch of its life.  Now the nurse was impressed.  She lavished praise for his bravery as she applied the banana yellow bandaids to the injection sites.  Pokes three and four followed in similar fashion.  Not a squeak.  Not a yelp or a twitch.  

He faced down each injection with a fierce kind of bravery, and when it was over, blew out a long slow breath, accepted with a tiny smile all of our praise and adoration and hugs and hair ruffling.  

The nurse wished that all kids were as good and brave as he was (we hoped the same for her), and that she was sure he would be her best patient all day.  

Both Sonars got stickers.  We popped into the grocery store for fresh bubble solution, luscious smelling strawberries (that were on sale!), a small watermelon, and  sherbet for a milkshake.  

We should all face our trials with such conviction, confidence, and fortitude.  Maybe it would help if we got bubbles and ice cream every time we had to do something hard.  :)

Transitions

The bloglessness of Alert the Pizza can be blamed on this Sexy New Beast—I mean, computer (SNB, for short).  It is the biggest, shiniest, fastest computer I have ever had.  It is also my first Mac.  A great deal of attention has been paid to figuring out where things are, how things are set up, how many music cd’s I can rip during one afternoon, and just how many scribbles the Sonars can cram into one KidPix screen.  

Already it has changed our lives.  We may give away the tv.  

We are still poking along on a dial-up connection, but tomorrow we will add a smokin’-fast internet connection worthy of the SNB.

In other news, seven pounds of very small tomatoes are currently undergoing transition into canned tomato sauce.  The whole house smells like a ketchup factory.  Heyyyyyy, speaking of ketchup.  That’s what I’ll have to do with the next seven pounds.  And yes, there are at least seven pounds of tomatoes out there.  Quite likely a lot more than that actually. 

Seven quarts of tomatoes went into today’s sauce (funny how it’s about a pound per quart).  They will result in seven pints of finished sauce.  One pint of edible-looking tiny tomatoes is going for at least $3 at our local grocery right now.  That makes today’s seven quarts worth at least $42.   (Does that seem crazy to anyone else?)  We paid just a few dollars for the six tomato plants that produced this seven pounds and at least ten other pounds earlier, and a good many many many pounds to come.

Of course, I could buy seven cans of tomato sauce for a dollar a pop.  So, $42 of fresh food can be turned into $7 worth of canned food.  (Does that seem crazy to anyone else?)

Gryffindor

Scarlet, KnitPicks Essentials
Gold, Bernat Sox

US Size 2 dpns
My basic sock recipe, worked over 56 stitches, with ribbed cuff and foot-top
Made for Sonar X7 for no reason except that he had no homemade socks that fit him anymore.