THE TOOTH FAIRY COMETH

Friday, December 12, 2008

Becca is 6 and three-quarters. She has been watching her friends lose teeth for at least a year.

When Sarah was littler, I worried when she didn't hit the usual milestones. I would wonder... is there something I am doing to cause this delay? Can bad parenting cause a kid to retain their baby teeth somehow? Actually the answer is yes - malnutrition can cause a kid to retain baby teeth. And Becca is about as big as a minute and a half and likes brownies a whole lot. I should feel the tremendous weight of guilt right about now.

But Becca is #2. That means I have come to an understanding that she is who she is. I can barely even help her, I just have to hang out and sort of be her life goalie. Of course this is an exaggeration. I can do lots of things including make her take a bath, teach her how much a quarter is worth, and prevent her from using the toaster.

So really, Becca was alone in her worries about losing teeth. She has been obsessed for awhile with wiggly teeth. She knows if each and every one of her friends has one, and where it's located.

Over fall vacation, she insisted one of her teeth was wiggly. It felt pretty battened down to me. But I went with it.

Then on Tuesday, we were having a relatively quiet evening. It was a night that I had managed to make it home before 8 p.m., the dogs were crashed, Sarah was reading, I was working (um yeah. well at least I was home), and Don was watching some TV.

Becca said, "Wow, my toot is willy wiggwy" (hard to say "th" and "l" and "r" when you have your whole hand in your mouth).

And out of the blue she just yanked it outta there. Sarah sprung to her feet yelling TOOTH EMERGENCY! TOOTH EMERGENCY! The dogs sprung to their feet, barking, certain this meant we were being robbed by German militia and they were failing to secure the border. Don turned some shades of pale. He doesn't like blood.

Oh yeah and she was wearing her Supergirl costume during all this. Random.

THIS IS SEWIOUS

Are you embarrassed as I am about Blogo trying to sell Barack's Senate seat? I mean, what the hell was he thinking? Well, I did not vote for him.

Are you shocked that we are thinking of bailing out the automakers - despite the fact they are lumbering dinosaurs that aren't doing anything to get us ahead in the world marketplace?

Can you believe that over Thanksgiving, my grown niece did not know that Sarah Palin was the governor of Alaska? (actually that's a 2-parter. She did not know that Sarah Palin was from Alaska, nor did she know that the head of state in a state is called a governor.)

Can you believe the tooth fairy still drops off a buck? Times are tough - you would think she would negotiate a hardship reduction.

There's only one thing to say about all that.

BUT I SAVED SO MUCH MONEY

Sunday, December 07, 2008

OK so I spent a whole pile of money on holiday gifts. But considering Don actually was able to FIX the dishwasher - for $125 worth of parts - it's all a wash - because I didn't have to buy a new $1300 dishwasher.

Stuff karma.

BAH HUMBERG

Being Jewish, it is always so fascinating to me that I feel the same holiday rush as everyone else. Oh sure, I have my share of Hanukkah presents to buy. And some years - unlike this year - Hanukkah is retardedly early and I have to start the whole holiday thing in November.

But this year I couldn't even bring myself think about it. I couldn't even make a list and check it twice. Or even read last year's list.

This is - and I am going to use the most overused word from CNBC - unprecedented. If there's anything that always, even on my last nerve with no sleep, I am able to do, it's make a list. At one time, I even had a master list of all the lists. (that was in the relocation phase...)

Eventually, panic set in. I was foreign to myself. Why was I having a list block? This is an intellectual and organizational disaster. Would it bleed over into other areas of my life and prevent listmaking at work? And how was the holiday shopping going to get done with NO LIST? I can't even go to the grocery store on a "10 items or less" day with no list.

I went to Bunco on Thursday and lamented my fate with the girls. Of our 12, 4 of us had not done anything yet - list making or otherwise. Of course, as usual, I was the only one thinking I was losing my mind. Everyone else was in the "oh well. It somehow always gets done" mode.

So I made like Nike and Just Did It. Listless. (or should I say, list free.) Don subbed in for me and froze his ass at the Ice Arena while I power shopped. I did it Southern California style - I "felt" the gifts. I channeled my nephew... who was he and what would he like? I meditated over the journals... which one is right for Vica? I meditated so hard that I didn't even notice my friend Val staring at me in the aisle. This is something, considering she's a 6 foot tall, shockingly blond woman and she was making faces at me so I would notice her.

There was buying. Then buying more online. Then wrapping. Then running out of tape and taking a break. More wrapping. Boxing. Shipping. And after a hectic weekend, funny enough, it's somehow going to get done. The Bunco girls were right. I'm tapeless, sleepless, and spent a whole pile of money. But it's done.

The real question that remains is: why wasn't I able to make the list? I think it's inability to accept that the holidays are really here. After all, it's still 68 degrees outside. And I have worked enough 70 hour weeks in a row that I'm not sure what day it is. And I have been working on 2009 planning for so long that I am already writing 2009 as the date. I think it's safe to say I am temporally misplaced.

Gotta go. Making a list of posts I owe you people...