I really do not enjoy going to the dentist. When I was little (~10 years old) I was rollerskating down a hill, holding on to a jump rope, when I fell and knocked out one of my permanent front teeth. My mom stuck the tooth back in my mouth (backwards) and drove me to the dentist. The dentist turned the tooth around and I remember going home with a popsicle stick to bite down on to keep the tooth in my mouth. My mom stayed up with me all night and she would wake me up when I stopped biting the stick so my tooth wouldn’t fall out again. Doesn’t that just seem strange to you?

Anyway. Long story short (or at least I’ll try) – I had countless root canals to try and save my tooth and braces for 5 years to fix my overbite. Since I was not wearing my headgear like I was supposed to, the orthodontist suggested I have one of my upper teeth pulled to help move my teeth back faster. The orthodontist took the brace off the tooth he wanted pulled and I went to a dentist I had never seen before (not sure why I went to a new dentist). When I went to have the tooth pulled the dentist looked at my teeth, read the orthodontist’s note and started taking a brace off a different tooth. I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing…plus, he’s the dentist. He should know what tooth to pull. Well he didn’t…he pulled the wrong tooth! That’s not even the worst part. After he realized he had pulled the wrong tooth, he put it back in my mouth and rewired my braces! He said that sometimes teeth will re-attach. Yeah right. The next day I went to another dentist to have it pulled out again. I think I had to be sedated the second time. I also had to have a second tooth pulled another time.

When I had my braces taken off, I had to have my front tooth pulled out because it was dead. By that time my parents found a wonderful dentist – in case you were worried. He recommended an oral surgeon to pull my tooth and give me an implant. The dentist and oral surgeon worked closely together. It took several years and surgeries but I now have “normal” looking front teeth.

So as you can see, I do not enjoy dentists. I get nervous when they are holding x-rays. I think to myself “are they sure they know what they are looking at?” Since the tooth-pulling-mishap, I have had one cavity filled and the dentist must have thought I was crazy when I asked him 100 times which tooth he was going to work on.

When I got married my insurance changed and my family dentist no longer accepted my insurance. I was very sad and scared to try another dentist. My husband suggested we go to his dentist. His family has gone to him for years and have really liked him.

Stay tuned for a post about my experiences with another new dentist.

When my sister, Christene, was in town for Christmas she taught Pumpkin to play fetch and it didn’t take long for Pumpkin to catch on. Joey thought we were crazy when we told him that Pumpkin could play fetch.

Pumpkin likes to fetch her mouse toys. She will bring us one of her mouse toys in the morning when we are sleeping. She will drop the mouse by one of our hands (or head) and if we don’t notice, she will start scratching. It was cute at first but now we’d much rather sleep a couple more hours than play fetch. We usually play fetch before we go to bed to help wear pumpkin out so we can sleep.

Here is a picture of her with a mouse in her mouth:

(Sorry it’s not the greatest picture. It was hard to get a good one. She’d turn away from the camera or drop the mouse before we could take the picture.)

Next week we take her to the Vet to have her spayed and declawed. We will drop her off Wednesday night and pick her up Saturday. It will be hard to leave her that long but it will be nice when she doesn’t have any front claws to scratch everything with! I am also hoping she will calm down a little bit. She can get pretty CRAZY at times.

I recently got an email from Grandpa titled “The Laws of Life” and I wanted to share some of them with you.

Here are the “laws” I liked the best:

• Law of the Probability: the probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.
• Law of the Telephone: If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal.
• Variation Law: if you change lines, the one you were in will start to move faster than the one you are in now.
• Law of the Result: When you try to prove to someone that a machine (i.e., computer) doesn’t work, it will.
• Brown’s Law: If the shoe fits it’s ugly.
• Wilson’s Law: As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

And finally, the “law” I can identify with the most since working with little kids:

• Doctors’ Law: If you don’t feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you’ll feel better. Don’t make an appointment and you’ll stay sick.

How very true.

Tonight Joey and I stopped at the gas station to put gas in the car. It was windy and cold outside so I was very happy that Joey offered to fill the car up. I forgot to push the button that opens the fuel door (a feature on this car that I am not use to) so he tapped on my window. I smiled and pushed the button but nothing happened. I pushed it again and again but the fuel door would not pop open so I got out of the car to try and help him. There was ice all over the ground. It was windy. “This really sucks” I thought to myself.

We tried pushing the fuel door really hard, pushing the button a hundred more times, pushing a key in the side of the door, pushing a key in the side of the door while pushing the button…we tried everything we could think of. We have the scratch marks to prove it too. Joey then suggested we go home and he’d try to get it open. I didn’t really want to go home because what could we do there? I then started thinking about work tomorrow and what I was going to do with hardly any gas and 4 kids to see and before my thoughts took over I said a quick little prayer.

We both got back in the car and started brainstorming how to open the stupid door. I suggested we get hot water and pour it over the door just in case it was frozen shut. We both knew it wasn’t frozen but it was worth a shot, right? So I went into the gas station to ask for hot water. I explained to them my problem and they said “isn’t there a button in the car door that you push?” Do I look like an idiot?

They gave me a cup full of hot/warm water and I dumped it on the fuel door and we started the whole process of trying to open it again. Then someone pulled up next to us and saw what we were doing and asked “is it frozen?” We told him “no” and explained our problem. He then came over and tried to help. After a couple of tries he said “sometimes there is an emergency handle in the trunk to open the fuel door”. We looked in the trunk and sure enough there was a handle that said:

Fuel Filler Door Release – EMERGENCY HANDLE

We pulled it and the fuel door opened. Wow! Who knew? We thanked the kind stranger and I thanked God for sending him to us. I also thought about paying for his gas but before I could say anything he was gone.

I wanted to post this for a couple of reasons:

1. So you’ll know what to do if this ever happens to you
2. So you can share this handy tip with a stranger who seems to be having trouble
3. To show God is good even in the small stuff