Not practicing

This is Dutch, in the closet, with a small portion of her Stuff. She ONLY wears dresses and tights now, and won't even wear pajamas, only nightgowns.

Yes, it's a bull.

One of the Things Dutch recently really really wanted (and bought, for $6 at the thrift store) was a bull stick toy.*



















She loves it. She gallops it around the apartment, and tends to it lovingly when it gets sick. (It gets sick a lot.) It's a "girl bull" and her name is Alice.**

*Apparently that's what it's called, though when you google that, you get some really unpleasant results.

** Incidentally, AZ, this is YOUR fault for sending her $4 for her birthday. Please come visit soon, so you can spend hours helping her tend to the sick bull.

Also, too much NPR

Portland is trying to decide right now whether to give a giant heap of cash to finance a sports stadium. The lovely ironic twist to this is that the guy who wants the stadium (for a major league soccer team) is actually Henry Paulson's son. This makes for lots of jokes about father and son asking for taxpayer money.

But the whole thing drives me nuts. I keep thinking that the data on this issue is pretty obvious - public financing for sports facilities is a Bad Idea - and it keeps coming back. Rich people always get what they want, seems like, even when it's obviously a Bad Idea. If you're not rich, you have to pay for your mistakes, but if you're rich, you can screw up whenever you like, and walk away with a big old cash payout.

This morning I was listening (of course) to NPR, and heard a story about nonprofits struggling for money right now. The need for social services is skyrocketing, and the public and private capacity available to help those in need is plummeting. They highlighted a shelter in DC for abused families that's scrambling for financing. Then they moved on to a story about the impact of the economic collapse on PROFESSIONAL SPORTS. Apparently, GM is not going to sponsor Tiger Woods anymore.

Poor Tiger. Poor professional athletes everywhere.

The Springiest Guy in Spain.

Obviously I'm reading the New York Times too much these days, but this article is just awesome.

Ugh

Okay, this article is driving me nuts. Go read it, or at least look at the picture and the caption, and then come back.

So what do you think? Is McKenna lucky to have a mommy who forgoes her designer jeans to give her what looks to me like hundreds of dollars worth of toys?

These are the things that annoy me about this article:

1. Kids are part of the family.

“I want her to be able to look back,” Ms. Hunt declared, "and say, ‘Even though they were tough times, my mom was still able to give me stuff.’ "

Lots of stuff. I know I'm a miserly and misanthropic Luddite, but sheesh. Cutting back on Stuff for yourself so you can give them (excessive) piles of unnecessary Stuff is silly. I'm not talking about parents giving their children all of the 14 corn kernels they have managed to forage to eat that day, which is seriously not silly. I'm talking about making your kids part of your family experience. Giving your kids tons of useless Stuff when the whole family budget is reduced is silly. Making your kid believe she is the center of the world, not a part of a family and a society, is silly.*

2. Designer jeans are silly.

3. It is NOT A BAD THING TO NOT SPEND MONEY!!!!!!!! It is a GOOD IDEA!!!!!!!!

4. Shopping kills people.


* I'm not sure I practice what I preach. Dutch definitely thinks she's the center of the universe. Dutch is a tremendously lucky kid, with wonderfully generous family and friends, and she has a ridiculously large amount of Stuff. But she knows we can't afford most of what she wants (or we want), and she knows that if she wants something, she can buy it with her allowance... we'll see if she turns out a miser or a spendthrift.

Ambivalence

When we were expecting Dutch (not that we were really expecting HER, exactly), everyone around us was delighted and supportive.* I quit my job to be home with her fulltime, and Cook was working at a fulltime job with benefits. While we were on a pretty tight budget, at least we had some stability. This time around, we have a much tighter budget, no stability, no benefits, and not exactly terrific financial prospects. Plus, we're older, and have been living in a post-collegiate, starting-up-a-career limbo state for 11 years, so we're starting to look like the irresponsible, never-grows-up characters in a family drama, not the go-getter young family. Not to mention that the whole economy is blowing away like a sand dune. So the responses we get to the statement "We're having a baby!" are less effusive, and frequently fall into the category of "On purpose?!"

This is probably also affected by the way we present it. While this is (really) a planned pregnancy, both Cook and I were taken aback when the "plan" actually came to fruition, before we'd really thought it through carefully. It was a pretty reckless decision. There are two issues here - whether to have a second kid at all, and if so, when to have it. There are actually pretty good reasons to have a second kid now rather than later (aging eggs, flexible schedule, availability of cheap and excellent childcare, etc.), but there aren't really any good reasons for us to have a second kid, except that Dutch will need help hunting and gathering enough food and bartering materials to support her aging parents in the post-apocalyptic world we're anticipating. Our philosophy on this can be more or less summed up as "what the heck - why not?" but we're definitely feeling a lot more ambivalent than with Dutch.

Anyway, yes, we are thrilled about the impending arrival of our offspring. It's going to be a pain in the ass, and I don't have a clue how our future will pan out. But having a kid is an investment in the future, and while that's a scary thing to invest in right now, it feels like the right thing to do. Plus, I really can't wait to meet our new person.

However, anything you can do over the next year or so to fix the economy and create new jobs for planners and cartographers would be greatly appreciated.

* Though I was a mere 28 years old when Dutch was born, which is more or less the equivalancy of a teen pregnancy in my peer group, so many people were surprised.

Daddy was a history major.

The scene: Dutch and I are riding a bus, as usual.

Me: Good thinking, Lincoln!*
Dutch: Lincoln, like the Lincoln sisters!
Me: Well, there was a famous president named Lincoln.
Dutch: Yes. Boof killed him.
Me: What?
Dutch: Boof killed him!
Me: Yeeesss... how did you know that?
Dutch: Daddy told me!
Me: Oh.
Dutch: Also, Lincoln made there be no more slaves anymore.
Me: Uh, yes. Sort of.
Dutch: What show was Lincoln going to see when Boof killed him?
Me: The limits of my historical knowledge have been reached.


* Something my parents always said to me. I have no idea where it comes from.

It's a...

???

The fetus kept its legs demurely crossed for the ultrasound, making it impossible to see if I should be investing in pink lacy wraps or plain navy-colored ones. The tech and the doctor both leaned toward girl, but cautioned me not to "invest any emotional or financial resources" in its femininity. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and all that.

So it could be a girl, could be a boy, could be... something in between! Fortunately, even Dutch doesn't have a preference, though we would have liked to know. Also, we don't mind dressing a boy baby in pink. Most importantly, s/he appears to have all the important body parts, and is exactly the right size. And hey, look, isn't s/he adorable?

What a kid.

Today was kind of a marathon. First, there was Dutch's last circus class, which included a 10-minute "performance" at the end for parents to watch. Dutch, in a sparkly leotard,* with her hair in pigtails, like a small, very very unathletic Nadia Comaneci, followed all the directions scrupulously, beaming. Other kids tumbled around chaotically, or were distracted by their parents in the audience, but not my girl. She had a fantastic time, and she worked really hard. I was pretty proud of her.

Then she and I went to the library, the bakery, and the grocery store. Then we went home, ate a quick lunch, and went to a birthday party. Then we went straight downtown, where I handed the kid over to Cook so they could go to a play together. I came home, made dinner, and am now sitting down for what feels like the first time all day. I rode seven buses and waited an hour and half at bus stops. Which brings me to my second point of pride. That kid can WAIT. Due to some combination of personality and 4-years-and-one-week of waiting for buses, she's really great about waiting. She plays weird games (today she was, among other things, a robot, Velvet Brown, and a kid in desperate need of surgery [as would you be, if your liver was IN YOUR HEAD]) and she sings tuneless songs that surely drive the other waiters nuts. I don't mean that she's terribly well-behaved or that she's always so patient; she often whines and complains and demands attention. But if you've got to wait in the rain for half an hour for a bus with any 4-year-old in the world, I think this one's a great candidate.


































And, wait! There's more! There was a pinata at the party, and Dutch whaled the bejeezus out of that thing! I was so proud! The other kids her age tentatively tapped the thing, but not my girl. Screw ballet lessons; this kid is ready for baseball!













Anyway, she's a great kid. That's all I wanted to say.


* We inherited a box of gymnastics and ballet clothes from a classmate of mine who has three daughters, and Dutch loves them. They make for a hilarious contrast between Dutch's appearance of competence and her ACTUAL competence.

Exhausting company.

At Dutch's party, we were reminded of how ruthlessly forthright 4-year-olds are. I was in Dutch's room with one of the girls, and she turned to me and said accusingly "you guys don't have very many toys." A while later, another kid said something pointless (as 4-year-olds also do) and I said something like "that sounds nice," and she looked at me witheringly and said "I wasn't talking to you."

It's kind of refreshing, for a little while, but it only took about half an hour of five 4-year-olds in my apartment before I got to wishing for some nice adult white lies.

REM

This morning Dutch told me, for the first time ever, about a dream she had had. She dreamed that she went to watch Cook play frisbee, and the "coach"* told her that the police were looking for her, because she had gone to the game without her parents. Then she ran away and hid from the police. Age four seems like a good time to launch a life of hiding from the police.**


*There is no coach in pickup ultimate frisbee. It would dampen the free spirits and merry companionship.

** Actually, this whole dream was probably prompted by a weird experience she had a week ago. She and Cook were sitting on a log by a trail in the wildlife refuge, eating crackers and drawing pictures of leaves, when two police officers approached them and said something along the lines of "We have a call in for you." Cook says his blood ran cold, in spite of his completely square and legal lifestyle. The officers said they were looking for a man and a missing child. Cook explained that this was not, in fact, a missing child. The officers called their dispatcher, and determined that what they were looking for was a man in his early twenties in the company of an 8-year-old boy wearing a white sweater, not a man in his early thirties in the company of a 3-year-old girl wearing a blue dress. Close, though.

A day of thrills and candles

The Birthday is winding down. Dutch was up at 6:30 for her birthday breakfast and lots of presents:

































































Then we regrouped in time for the Party, which consisted of five little girls in party dresses, teacups from the thrift store, bubbly juice, lunch, cake, and the spontaneous invention of a game involving all five kids hiding under Dutch's comforter at once.














Dutch blew out another set of candles.



















Now I'm supposed to be writing a paper.

O happy day!

It's a gorgeous sunny day today, our apartment is remarkably tidy, and I just put on a new pair of comfortable but not horribly frumpy maternity jeans* I bought last week at the thrift store, and found FIVE dollars in the back pocket! I did pay a whopping $10 for the jeans, so they didn't pay for themselves, but still. An excellent beginning to the day.

Dutch is in agonies of anticipation of her birthday tomorrow (she's having her birthday party on her actual birthDAY, so all her festivities will be crammed into a scant 13 hours). She gets a birthday breakfast (at which she gets to open all the tantalizing packages that have arrived recently) with muffins and JUICE (a rare and precious treat), and then a birthday party at lunchtime, with four friends and a teaparty. Then we will spend the afternoon recovering. This is our first Real Birthday Party, with guests chosen only by the birthday girl, and we have to provide all the accoutrements, like favors** and child-pleasing-but-not-terribly-unhealthy food for lunch, a cake, a clean apartment, refreshments for parents, and so on.

Dutch also appears to have some very strong ideas of what birthdays should include. I found out yesterday about her expectation of confetti (which should apparently be tossed festively in the air after the Eating of the Cake), so she and I cut up some magazines last night, but I am anticipating some tempests of disappointment tomorrow when all the other expectations about which she hasn't told us are not fulfilled. Like a clown, and a pony.


*Yesterday I had to unbutton my regular pants every time I sat down, so I figured it's time, though I'm dreading the experience of having to wear the same six items of clothing every day for the next five and a half months, and had been hoping to postpone it a little longer. Also, my tiny parasite appears to be displeased by tight waistbands and spends lots of time poking grouchily and feebly at my pants.

** Favors seem to have gotten more elaborate since my childhood. We've walked away from parties with stuff that cost more than the gift we brought to the party.

oh, it gets worse.

I just finished my consumption post, and tried to work on my paper. (I think Cook's asleep in Dutch's room. Friday night! Wooohooo!) But then I got distracted by endless internets full of baby stuff, and now I can see that what I REALLY need in order to become a fabulous parent is THIS!!!*

*Why leopard print? Because Dutch looooves leopard print stuff. And hey, why not?

thoughts of consumption dance through my head

I am not a big fan of pregnancy. The waiting drives me nuts, the physical discomforts drive me nuts, and the knowledge that it'll all get much worse before it gets better drives me really nuts. My only solace (besides, hm... the fact that there'll be a new kid!) is the fact that I get to think about acquiring baby stuff again.* Especially baby carriers. I love baby stuff (it's so little! so cuddly!) but I really love baby carriers. I hate strollers, which make me feel like I'm just the engine behind the baby rather than a human being, disconnect me from the baby, don't allow for nursing-while-walking, AND are cumbersome on public transit. With Dutch, we used a couple of slings and then the fabulous Ergo, but I wasn't thrilled with the slings, and I'd like to improve on them this time around (we've still got the Ergo, thank goodness). And our recent visit to the Baby resold me on the many kinds of carriers that I'd coveted when Dutch was wee. So now I have a new consumption goal: the purchase of a wrap.** I'm pretty sure, as I am with every new baby product, that it will make parenting easier and more delightful. Actually, the fabulous Ergo*** did do that, but so far no other parenting product has met my expectations.

Anyway, send me your baby clothes! Your used, stained, tattered baby clothes in random colors and patterns!**** While I feel as sad about the economy as the next person, I see no point in stimulating it by buying new clothes for babies, who don't care what they wear and grow out of things in about 3 days, and I certainly can't afford to buy any. I need to save up my money to buy wraps.

* We saved only a few things from Dutch's infancy - big ticket things like a carseat and stroller, and a few beloved items of (mostly striped) clothing. Having so little space and no plan to create a sibling until Dutch was at least out of diapers, we figured it was for the best.
** Plus world peace.
*** If you're shopping around for an expensive baby gift to give your pregnant friends (other than me), I highly recommend an Ergo.
**** But not the kind with lots of snaps all up and down the legs, because those make Cook cry, especially at 2 AM. Apparently, he's not alone in feeling this way.

The kind of things you push to the back of your mind every day so that you can make it through the day

When we went in to get an initial ultrasound (which showed no "gross abnormalities" and indicated that I'm going to give birth to a tiny ghost with a big chin), Cook and I, on our way out to the bus stop, waited for a very slow elevator in the hallway between the perinatal clinic wing and the children's hospital wing of the medical complex. I looked over into the hospital hallway as a procession moved by at a funereal pace. There were four medical-type people pushing a gurney, and two blank-faced regular people walking behind. On the gurney, which was dressed in colorful cartoon-print linens, was a baby, maybe around a year old, its face turned toward me, asleep, wired up to a bunch of scary machines. I watched the procession go by and I thought I hope they're all going to be okay... and then I thought I am so lucky... and then I thought so far... and then I decided not to think about it.

Your questions, answered

Yes, I am fat, and I am also pregnant.

No, I'm not glowing.

It's due in April.

We do not yet know the gender.

We told Dutch several weeks ago, and she is Very Excited.

Yes, we're excited, too. Also, scared.

No, we have not decided on names.

No, we're not going to move.

No, I have no idea how we're going to fit another person into this apartment. Got any suggestions? We're considering a hammock-type sleeping system, old-school-British-Navy-style (less the floggings and rum, probably).

That's the news.

Remembrance Day

Ninety-one years old, and, regrettably, still so relevant.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

-Wilfred Owen, 1893-1918

Tooth stars and other nice words

Fillings are in. I escorted Dutch into the room, saw her installed on the chair and doped up with laughing gas, and then I left. I left my daughter to get her first fillings all by herself. The dentist said I was welcome to stay, but that they felt it was usually better for parents to go away, and I can see why that's the case, since I was kind of stressed out. Dutch thought it would be fine. She really likes her dentist. I sat in the waiting room reading O magazine and crying over stories about brave women with breast cancer, and finally Dutch and the dentist emerged together. "Mama!" yelled Dutch, "I got TWO tooth stars!"* and she showed me her fillings and then she showed the fish in the fish tank her fillings. Under interrogation, she allowed as how it did feel weird when they put the teeth stars in, but overall it seems to have been an entirely positive experience. I deduce this from the fact that she declared that she'd like to have tooth stars in ALL her teeth.

We had a nice morning, actually. Cook and I both have the holiday off from work and school, and Dutch is off daycare. I took her out all morning so he could get some homework done, and we did some grocery shopping, hung out at a coffee shop, wandered around... we talked about how saying nice things to people makes them feel good, and we practiced saying nice things to each other. On the bus on our way home, I leaned over and smooched her on the cheek, and she said "Mommy! Guess what you gave me with your kiss! Happiness!" I said "Do you want another kiss?" and she said giddily, "MORE happiness?!"

Aww. She did throw some whiny fits that made me feel substantially less warm and fuzzy, of course. Life isn't ALL about tooth stars.


*There are all sorts of weird euphemisms in the world of pediatric dentistry. My online reading suggests that the standard term for local anaesthetic is "sleepy juice."

Miscellany

Since the Obama-holding-babies website is bound to slow down now, here's another website for your enjoyment.

And hey, guess how I'm going to be celebrating Veterans Day? By holding Dutch's hand while she gets a bunch of cavities filled at 8 AM. And then if that goes well, I think I'm going to take her on an outing and buy her this, breaking my policy of never getting her any gifts beyond the parameters of birthday and holiday, because:

1. cavities suck and I always feel like I should get a reward when I have a filling,
2. she has just discovered the wonders of Playmobil,
3. cavities really suck, and
   
4. she's totally stressed out about the whole thing - poor kid.

Anyway, Playmobil. The new obsession. She was given a Playmobil gift on Saturday, and now she wants to buy every single Playmobil item IN THE WORLD. I took her to a toystore yesterday with her $6.07 in saved-up spending money, and she got pretty wild-eyed. What with all the Playmobil stuff, the baby dolls with pacifiers, and the little model horses, she almost passed out. This did, however, lead to the sort of Model Parenting conversation about Budgeting that I never expected to actually have, in which we discussed how Cook and I have to make decisions like this,* and it's just really hard. At one point she semi-wailed "Mommy, I can't afford ANYTHING I want!!!!!!!" and I said something sensible and gentle, and I didn't say "Welcome to life, honey!" which I think was very good of me. And she didn't freak out, which I think was very good of her.


* Which to buy? The baby bottle with disappearing "milk"? The fairy princess Playmobil kit? The doctor-with-premature-baby Playmobil kit? Don't you struggle with things like this everyday?

If wishes were horses

A few weeks ago, Dutch asked Cook, of the blue, "Daddy, what do you wish for?" He told her that he wishes for stability. She mulled this over for a few moments, and said "Well, I wish I was a fairy princess."

My legacy

Dutch just told me this: "My favorite thing in the whole world has cheese with it! My favorite thing in the whole world would be unspicy, not healthy, and have cheese on it. Because that's what I like."

Me too. Except I like a little bit of spicy.

Symbolism, somewhere in here.

I'm moving furniture and cleaning up in preparation for Dutch's party next weekend, and it's at that awful stage where things have been moved, stuff has been picked up off the floor, and the mess is just bigger than ever. Our apartment is so small that any mess is a big mess. Cook just went off to buy groceries, and he looked kind of relieved to be leaving (even for the 2-hour odyssey of shopping without a car).

So... I guess I should be cleaning.

My marriage

So my marriage is pretty good, I think. There are some bad parts, and it's a lot more work than I'd ever expected. But you know what would make it way better? If anybody who wanted to get married could get married. That would be super-nice. I'm taking an economics class this term, and some very helpful terms I've learned recently (while desperately cramming for a midterm) are "nonrival good" and "nonexcludable good." These are "goods" that you can use without reducing the amount available to other people and without preventing anybody else from using them. Like breathing air, or watching TV, or ... hmm... getting married. Marriage is, in my opinion, a nonrival, nonexcludable public good. And hey, isn't it better to have more love in circulation? Isn't marriage terrific for our economy? Couldn't the economy use a little help?

So I'm kind of mystified by the "defense of marriage" line of reasoning. If your marriage is vulnerable enough to be shaken by the marriages of two people of the same gender, I think you should go see a marriage counselor (and it would be good for the economy, too!). I don't think you should waste my time with your vicious, stupid, economically inefficient ballot initiatives.

Dangerous, but happy!

I can hear people cheering and setting off fireworks in my neighborhood.

Wow, this feels good.

I am so relieved. I know Obama isn't going to be my favorite president ever, and I know he's going to disappoint me and piss me off over and over and over. I don't care. I just want the last eight years to be over, and I want somebody responsible to take care of the mess.

Also, yay for us, for electing the first nonwhite president. I feel... proud of my country.*

Anyway, in spite of my compulsion to follow election results, I did make dinner, and it was nutritious. But right now, Dutch is sitting in the bath (with a bellyful of chard) playing yet another weird game, and she's been there for half an hour. I suppose I should put her to bed or something. But then I wouldn't be able to refresh 15 web pages every three minutes...


*Hey, did you notice I've linked to Fox twice tonight? I must be infused with the spirit of bipartisanship and whatnot.

The guilt.

Every day I wave to Dutch when I leave her daycare. She stands at the window, and I stand on the corner outside and wave to her. Half the time, she stands at the window but is clearly too engrossed with something going on inside the room to remember to wave, but I ALWAYS wave. Except today. Today I forgot.

I came to pick her up, and stopped in the classroom to round up her stuff before going out to the playground to summon her. In her cubby were two pieces of paper. One read (in big caps, written by a teacher: " Mama when I wave at you I want you to wave at me." The other was an indecipherable drawing. When I fetched the girl herself I apologized for forgetting to wave. She showed me the drawing and said "This is me. These are my tears..."

Apparently there is a God.

Ha! Take THAT, Elizabeth Dole!!!

Think Hoosier.

I should be cooking dinner right now. Dutch is in her room playing some weird game. Cook is at school, taking some weird exam. I am wandering the internets while listening to NPR, pretending that if I position my feet just so and concentrate VERRRRY hard on Indiana, it'll make some kind of difference. I know it's pointless, but I can't stop.

addenda

1. The dentist told me that Dutch has very large salivary glands. We're very proud.
2. Just outside our apartment building last night, we noticed a stretch of bare, rocky earth (a sad example of a neglected parking strip) that was fringed all around the edges with earthworms, their bodies extended nearly all the way out of their burrows. I'd never seen that before. We watched them for a while as they stretched out and poked around for food. (Dutch tried to feed them whole leaves, undaunted by their disinterest.) Seriously, I have earned a biology degree, taught (sort of) sustainable agriculture, composted with worms, and researched and answered eight billion questions from a small child, and I had NO IDEA that earthworms come to the surface at night for snacks. I guess it's appropriate to be reminded on Halloween, the night when the separation between death and life dissolves,* that I actually know almost nothing. Also, it was neat to see so very many earthworms going about their enormously valuable** business even in such an unlikely place. I like to imagine billions of earthworms tunneling around under the paving of Portland.***

*At least, that's what Wikipedia says.

** To EVERYBODY!

*** Not to mention the potential for a terrific Kevin Bacon moment, should the worms become enormous and try to eat us.

Ted, we'll miss you* and your sour face.

*I hope.

Early Birthday

Dutch got a sleeping bag. She really likes it.

Halloween!

Last night we went trick-or-treating! It was Dutch's first time ever, and Cook's and my first time as parents. We had a good time - I'd forgotten how charming Halloween is, with its license to knock on strangers' doors and be welcomed. Dutch was kind of nonplussed by the whole thing, and could NOT remember to say "trick or treat" when people opened their doors, so she'd just stare up at them silently. I think she was pretty overwhelmed by the asking-strangers-for-stuff element. But she enjoyed herself, and really liked all the decorations (though she did nearly jump out of her skin when this animatronic spider started flashing and twitching on somebody's porch). Just as Cook and I were starting to speculate about how soon we could wrap up the event, she announced firmly "when we get to the end of the block, I will be done trick-or-treating."

She dressed as a princess. She was very low-key about this - wore a "fancy" dress and tights that are part of her regular wardrobe (she's been wearing dresses and tights every day lately, in emulation of her favorite classmate), plus some random accessories and new sparkly shoes that arrived just in time, courtesy of the Shoe Fairy. That's my kind of costume - requiring no expenditure and virtually no effort. And she thought she looked fantastic, so I think we can count the evening a roaring success.

Putting pinkeye in perspective, or the cost of failing to floss

Forget pinkeye. Dutch has cavities. Dutch has FOUR cavities. FOUR!!!!!!!!! The dentist says that her diet and brushing are clearly good. The problem is that we don't floss her teeth (because we're lazy, and I never had a cavity until I was in my 20s, so I thought why bother with these trial teeth...), and her teeth are all crowded together like... super-crowded teeth. I'm being noble and not blaming Cook, who had to have several teeth pulled because they were too crowded.

So... $600 for this round of dental treatments, and the expectation of the same again in six months. I wonder how much we saved on floss in the course of failing to prevent these cavities.

Also, she will have to have braces in the future,* and they're going to have to be the serious, long-term, massively expensive, adolescence-ruining kind of braces.

*because SOMEBODY gave her those crowded teeth genes!