I've been quiet because life has been BUSY. But mostly in a good way.

First, for the stressful stuff. A lot of my friend's kids have had cavities very young, and this is very odd to me. I cam attribute all of my cavities in life to braces and pregnancy (maybe?). LOL. I had one rather recently, and I blame pregnancy. Hehe. But it can hurt your oral health - all the hormones.

Cavities as a kid? No. I have very good oral genes in that sense. I had braces for a million years and many surgeries, so got some bad genes there, but cavities overall never had been a problem.

So I turned to dh rather recently and griped about why so many little kids got so many cavities. When he admitted he had them too as a child.

I just didn't know that it was so common. That their enamel is so thin.

Anyway, so we went to the dentist Friday and BM had his first x-rays. My dentist hasn't really wanted to take him on, but he LOVES the dentist and did quite well. They really could have done x-rays on visit one. Wish they had...

This was his third visit and they finally braved x-rays.

& the poor kid has a plethora of cavities.

At first I was just very concerned for him. BUT I am also a little stressed financially, about it.

Of course they are talking to us about eating sugar and all that.

What sugar?

Our kids just eat so well.

I blame dh's genes. LOL.

It gets better. The dentist starts going on how we should really get insurance. I had really concluded we should just self insure. Even though I know my kids will need lots of work, since they have obviously inherited my mouth.

So any input on where to get good insurance is welcome. I haven't found anything useful, nothing offered through my job or professional organizations, etc. Something through my health plan but it is mostly more expensive than it is worth. Maybe we could add the kids on a trial basis. I do admit I thought in terms of an adult before. The kids might need a lot more work. See if we come out ahead at all...

Anyway, I think he was exaggerating a bit though, PHEW. BEcause as we walked out they mentioned we really needed panoramic x-rays, and handed me an estimate. They just blindly assumed we couldn't afford it Friday (my HUGE PET PEEVE).

How much is a panoramic x-ray? $90.

Could I have swung $180 on Friday? Um, yeah!!!

But they handed it to me all apologetically, like they knew we could never afford it. ???

It made me feel a little better when he was trying to freak me out about insurance. I think he was exaggerating a bit. I do realize orthodontia is far more expensive, but I also realize you end up paying a chunk out of pocket either way.

Anyway, of course he didn't want to touch any of that with a 10-foot pole. (The cavities). I have mostly pushed taking BM there because I TRUST him. But we have found a good/reasonable pediatric dentist here in the area (LM needed one). So I feel a sigh of relief I have somewhere else to take him. He recommended we get him over there since they may want to get started on preventive things, etc. He has a lot of overcrowding as did moi, as a child.

The financial stress is I thought I had a few more years to save up for this stuff. But it is coming on rapidly. !!

Our dentist did tell us to start flossing because he had over crowding and it is just something that fell by the wayside. I feel terrible now. We had the warning, he said all his cavities could have been avoided with flossing. All between the teeth! So I learned something new. & feel terrible if we had taken it all more seriously, this could have been avoided.

I am not sure how much longer he will LOVE the dentist. But I know the pediatric place is excellent with kids, and he will probably be just fine.

& it's nice we still have our dentist for the second opinion. I think we will need it much in coming years.

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Yesterday I met up with some old friends. One I have kept in touch with regularly but maybe have grown apart from a but the last few years. The other one was a wild child I had not seen since high school.

It was a VERY interesting meetup. Had a great time. It struck me how much the one I hadn't seen in 14 years had grown and matured. She actually married right out of school and was for almost a decade. She got divorced and decided to turn her life around and go to med school. So as I remembered her as a very wild child, and was rather cautious to meet up with her, I was actually very surprised how much she had changed over the years.

Even my "best friend" who I felt had been going down a very different road, seems to have grown up a bit the last few years. I am hoping we can get together more. Since we have moved to Sacramento, it has just been so much more difficult. The public transport between here and San Francisco just sucks. & the drive is even worse. So when we moved here though I felt we weren't much farther away, we really are. When we moved here is when we REALLY lost touch.

Anyway, it was interesting because my sister has followed much the same path of my wild child friend. We talked about her a bit and she just said, "Your sister is young. She'll outgrow it." I guess she speaks from experience. So it was rather enlightening.

I told my mom that my friends were growing up. & probably me too. She noted that there was a HUGE difference between her 10 and 20-year high school reunion. I guess there is a certain amount of maturity that comes from graduating from your 20s.

Anyway, I went to a high school with about 1000 in the graduating class. (Yes, one thousand!) Likewise, no one is about to take on a reunion on such a large scale. Which I have always found rather disappointing.

I guess with the likes of MySpace and Facebook I get a taste of reunion that I would probably never get otherwise.

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We ate way too much food and spent way too much money. Dh hung out with his friend and had a sit down dinner, as did I with my friends. & all the gas and everything. But yeah, we also had dinner with my folks yesterday. They paid, but I am sure I gained 5 pounds yesterday. !!

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Because we spent too much and ate too much, dh decided not to do Garlic Festival this year.

Phew.

He had been wanting to go, and since it is rare he chooses something like that, I was fine with it. BUT not looking forward to the heat. & also realized it was hard to justify financially.

So I am relieved he decided against it. It is last July of every year so we just decided we had to set our next dental appointment for that weekend. Could become a tradition. Get our teeth cleaned and go to the Garlic Festival.

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The rest of the weekend was mostly spent in MIL's pool. Had a swim "party" with the cousins and ate pizza. & we went swimming twice yesterday at MIL's insistence that we use the pool. (Since it never really gets used any more).

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It was the most marvelous weekend because we didn't have to pack a caravan, and because they kids were so easy. We have never had such a simple trip. They are getting MUCH easier with age. Bed time was a breeze and we went diaperless for the trip. No one woke up freaked out in the middle of the night (in a "strange" place). Yay yay and yay!

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Today we probably will take BM down to the pool to practice more swimming.

I should probably go to the gym.

Oh well, I don't think we have much to do today. Just, recover from a busy week. Phew!

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I need to do some Craigslist listings.

The one stroller I had hope would sell well, was taken by dh's sister. Oh well. Still glad to be rid of it!

BM told me he had wanted to sell something of his (no doubt watching our habits very carefully. We have been selling MUCH in recent weeks). I mentioned he should ask his brother if he wanted it first. He was not happy about it. I told him we totally knew how he felt, but it was the nice thing to do. Might as well get used to it...

BUT reminds me, since he is 5, we are starting the chore and allowance thing, as of today. He is VERY excited about this.

& yes, that is a glimpse of busy busy here...