Today, of all days!

If I could figure out how to post video, then I would show you the video Lars took of Petra after her surgery. Needless to say, she made it through safely and came out of the anesthesia very groggy and saying all sort of uncharacteristically goofy things (you know, for being such a vewy sewious child). At lunch, I ran home to check on her and to feed Little Tovita. When I arrived home she had just finished barfing and was still very dazed, dried blood covered her mouth and little sutures were popping through the very large (newly large) gap between her two front teeth. I nearly vomited myself.
To be quite frank with you, you'd think that after sewing up torn up vaginas all day long I could handle sawed-in-half mouth bones and oral sutures. I just suppose that you can't control some of life's mysteries. Birth canals win, hands down.
Anyway, she was fairly confused and sedated still so I jetted back to work. At the end of my day, I flew home to find a new and improved Petra. Except for the mouth bit which just rattled me more and more.
By dinner, which was soft food made to accommodate Practically Perfect Petra, the sight of her mouth was beyond revolting to me. Every time she started to talk I would feel my insides shiver. I tried just looking at her eye balls when she was talking, but I have a very active imagination and I got carried away. Before I knew it little tiny pukes were coming into my mouth. Then I tried to look at her through narrowed eyes, I mean for crap's sake I'm her mother. What kind of mother can't even look at her poor suffering child? Puke or no puke, I was gonna look her in the face with eyes wide open.
But, holy cow, her mouth! It looked agonizing with a big crack in her jaw right between her two front teeth. Oh Lord help me, if that little bitsy puke didn't rush into my mouth. I swallowed hard and turned to Lars, ignoring Petra who was yabbering on and on with her mouth wide open, and I tried to engage my fabulously toothed husband in some piece of conversation. All the while my chi felt tingly and raw and shivery and I felt like the worstest mother on this whole godforsaken planet. What the heck was wrong with me?
I decided the best way to keep her mouth shut was to get something in it. Fortunately, yesterday I went to the city's crappiest and junkiest grocery store to buy Petra all manner of frozen treats. I rushed her to the freezer where she happily selected rootbeer float ice cream. I plopped huge scoops into a bowl for her and gently-roughly pushed the bowl under her chin. Whew. Whew, whew, whew.
Please meditate for me tonight. Help me to find the strength to be a good mother? Show me the way! Please! And then, after that, say a little prayer that this is the last surgery any Viking child will ever have to undergo cause I'm just about positive that I would keel over at the sight of a lobectomy or appendectomy or ingrown toenail-ectomy. Keel over!

Post-operative Petra, fresh out of the shower. Mouth closed, TYVM.

The rest of the rest. . .

And just when you thought it wasn't possible to get any cuter, she did.

As promised, Lars in a suit on the day of the big interview. No news yet. No news is good news.

Fat Tova, who crawled off my bed today and did a naked dive on to the floor, subsequently bonking her head on our hard floor. For comfort she nursed and then slept for 2-hours. Lars just woke her up to feed her dhal and quinoa with bananas. Guess it'll be a late night.

Soren is away. I miss him terribly. I remember all the good about him. He's with his Gramma and Bubba on a golf and tennis vacation. He's precious and sweet and never naughty. Never.

That's the news from Viking Village, where all the women are wimpy and all the 8-year olds have fractured mouths.

Impacted

Petra is darling. Everyone knows it.

Since the time of her first dental visit, we have known that Petra has an extra tooth.

The extra tooth is between her top two front teeth.

I'm not much of a waiter, but we waited for it to come down. We were told that it would come down around the time that her regular two front teeth would come down. That it would just fall out because nothing is holding it in. It would be simple and wouldn't impact anything.

Now she's 8-years old. She lost her two front teeth last September. Neither of her 2-front teeth is fully down yet because of the extra tooth. The extra tooth is making such cramped quaters in there that, in fact, none of her front four teeth has had the opportunity to do what they need to do.

Our dentist tried everything to get it out. She couldn't do it. Plus, she has a close relationship with Petra and can't stand the idea of causing her any pain.

That led us to the events of several weeks ago. We went to an oral surgeon. He had rude office staff and wanted us to pay out-of-pocket even though we have excellent insurance. Plus, it was determined that the tooth is fully impacted into her upper jaw and requires an extensive out-patient surgical procedure to extract. Hence the general anesthesia.

Bad feelings. Surgery cancelled. Second opinion. Two orthodontist visits.

Tomorrow, Petra has out-patient surgery scheduled. She will be going under general anesthesia. The tooth is coming out. Then it's popsicles and smoothies for a week (or 12-hours, anyway). I can't believe all this for a tooth.

Anyway, no out-of-pocket expenses. Unless you consider the orthodontia, which goes on in early September after the spacer and brackets are on.

Have I ever mentioned that I have 4-kids?

Sadly, we will not be taking the kids to Disney World this October as planned. Happily, Petra's beautiful smile will be back.

Before Dental Work Begins

Quickie

1) We cancelled Petra's out-patient but under general anesthesia procedure. We're getting a 2nd opinion. She's 8-years old and only weighs 50-lbs, all of which is sheer muscle (pics of 6-pack to come). There is no reason to do general anesthesia to remove a tooth, unless of course you are an oral surgeon and you really like power tools. Dr 2nd Opinion has loosely pledged to us that she will work with our dentist to try and get it out with just laughing gas. Otherwise they're sending her to another oral surgeon who said he would do it with IV sedation. Either way, her horrendously crooked front teeth are on their way to getting fixed up -- courtesy of our recently upgraded dental plan and less out of pocket expenses.
2) This is my last week of crrrrrrrazy working. After that it gets more manageable. We can start eating dinners at home again and maybe I'll vacum and put the dishes away. Then again, maybe not. . .
3) We are done mourning for Flippy the Fish. He is but a pleasant memory.
4) Did I ever tell you Petra got moved up another level in gymnastics? Yeah, she did. She's sooooo amazing.
5) The check engine light on one of our three cars mysteriously turned off. We're not pursuing it.
6) We have three cars because we basically have three adult family members, including Hope, our nanny. We're sooooooooo snooty.
7) We're getting rid of our cute little VW Golf before August 22 (when we would have to renew licensing and registration). It only fits 50% of our family and smells like barfed-up chocolate.
8) We're not replacing the Golf. We'll be your average, over-consuming American family with too many children for the Earth to sustain with two cars. But, both of them will have all the appropriate peace sign, U-M, and vegetarianism bumper stickers on it so that people on the road will have plenty of reason to believe that we're doing everything right.
9) Soren is in 3-soccer games this weekend. He debuts as goalie at approximately 2:30pm. Grandparents will be there to revel in the joy that is my little man.
10) Lars had a job interview on Tuesday. He wore a pinstripe suit, red tie, and he got his haircut and then spiked it (pics to follow). He looked very charming and handsome. I believe the interview was an excellent exercise in putting-oneself-out-there in a struggling economy. We shall have more news next week. In the meantime, Pfarma has our back . . . until a major acquistion goes though in the fall; then we'll be toast.

Love to you and yours!
Kelly the Viking Ship Captain

PS - Tovita and Annabeaner are well.

Fidelity to the Law

I am not, in fact, referring to the most recent Supreme Court nomination.

Fidelity to the most predictable and most true of all the laws of nature, that's what I'm referring to here.

Some of you have already heard via my Facebook post, it's sad but true. We lost little Flippy this weekend.

Flippy the Fish. You know, Patty the Fair Fish's adopted brother?

He fought hard, but in the end, fidelity to that most inevitable law of nature won out. Flippy was flushed down that holy well of goldfish light, on a Sunday no less. (That's the goldfish Sabbath.)

Flippy was Soren's fish. Soren was having a good day, a great day rather. He was selling fresh lemonade on the end of our driveway with his sisters and the neighbor girls. We didn't want to burden him with that information just yet. Taylor, neighbor girl, came through the house on her way out to pick some more lemons off the tree when she noticed me peering into the fish tank.

Poor TayTay. She was the first little guy to see Flippy in the throes of death. Not the kind of peaceful goldfish death when you just happen to wake up one morning and find 'em dead. Floating serenely. No sirree. Full on death throes.

Finally, it was over. Lars flushed him off to meet his maker. That was the end of it.

Petra, most observant child, noticed Flippy's absence.

Holy Hell ensued. She screamed and wailed and cried at the top of her ever-loving lungs. She cried to the mountain tops.

"Ohhhh, Flippy's dead."

Flippy can't be dead, she stated calmly. She began to search. More and more frantically as the moments past. Flippy? Where are you Flippy?

She turned to me. She turned to Daddy. She turned to Patty and Andrea. She begged us all for answers. Who would do this, she implored. Who did this?

She blamed PetCo for selling us a "bad fish."

She blamed the guy "who makes babies and fish get born."

She got mad. Really, really mad. She stomped her feet. She threw herself onto the ground and banged her little fists on the floor until they were red. She said bad words like "hate" and "stupid."

Then she got forlorn. She sighed over and over again. She wailed because Flippy was gone and "it huwts so badly." She began to mutter under her breath about "poow, poow Flippy . . . he didn't get much time here . . . now he won't get a sunken treasure ship to play in . . . all those poow childwen in Iwaq and Afghanistan who have no school and have to covew theiw faces . . . I lost my dwess at the beach . . . Maggie's gonna die too . . . Mommy's gonna die . . . Meme died . . . Gwandma Peg died . . . evewybody dies . . . ow, they don't get to go to school and have to covew theiw pwetty faces . . . then they die."

Lars tried to focus her. They sat on the rug, commonly referred to in our house as Tova's Rug, and Lars said to her, "let's just talk about Flippy Petra."

"Tell me what you liked about Flippy."

"I loooooooooved uh uh uh heeeeeee Flippy. I loved him so much."

"And what else?" She's brings up the"twoops in Iwaq" and he refocuses her.

"Flippy was so cute. He looked like a cow, eh-cept he wasn't, he was weally just a fish."

On it went.

Finally, finally, she took a deep breath, "he's just dead now, isn't he?"

Shoulders hunched over, eyes to the ground, she slipped off to her bedroom.

It was like the Kubler-Ross stages of grief compressed on fast-forward. Wiped Lars and me out, had us in tears with all her pain and agony.

And that was how it went last night. Of course, if you're a neighbor of ours then you heard the whole darn thing.

Oh the Places I've Been

It's been awhile. I want to tell you all the funny stories (15-year old pregnant girl story coming soon), but there hasn't been an opportunity. Here's the deal:

Petra is having out-patient surgery next week under general anesthesia. Insurance pays for 80% of the procedure, none of the anesthiologists fees. We have to pay those out of pocket the day of the surgery. $600 the first hour, $100 each additional 15-minute that he spends with my out-cold daughter. I want to vomitit, vomit, vomit.

I've been trying to acclimate at New Job with Mr Doctor OB and the three other physicians there. While Mr Doctor and Dr Favorite are great, Dr Boss is a little gruff to say the least but seems to like me and want good things for me. I go with the flow because she's . . . well, she's the boss and I'm new and not very doctor-y. Then, on the other end, there is Dr Hates Kelly's Guts. Very stressful. I do my best not to let it get me down. When she barks at me I try to kill her with kindness, big smiles, lavish thanks on her for "showing me the way," and all that yadda-yadda hoo-hoo. On the days that we're both in the office together it's pretty stressful for me, on the days that I'm there and she's not I'm left to read the notes she leaves me -- they always end with little smiley faces that I'm near 'bout positive have darts coming out of their eyes.

As if all that weren't enough, I'm still getting my donkey kicked by Old Job. Lately, I've been working over 40/hours a week. Drama happened at Old Job (where I'm happy, and comfortable, treated collegially and most importantly loved by ALL). One midwife had a heart attack, one had a bowel obstruction that required major abdominal surgery, one finally retired at the age of 78-years old. All within one week. We went from being a well oiled machine to GM before Chapter 11. Then, one week later, one of our midwives broker her arm. You just can't do it with a broken arm. Doesn't work that way. When the meconium hits the fan then I'm the crunchy granola hippy who is breastfeeding an infant every 2-hours with four kids and a second job that they call in to pick up all the pieces. I'm sure it goes something like this, Midwife Boss and Midwife Scheduler, "We're four midwives down." "What are we going to do?" "I know, lets call our least available midwife and make her come in. No big deal that after she pays taxes and childcare for 4-kids she make approximately $0.30 cents."

I'm a sucker. I'm also a team player. I love my preggos in the barrios and I love their babies. That is why I've been spending more time with them (and the cougars at New Job) than I have been with my own kids.

Lars is considering leaving Pfarma. A new position has been applied for at a start-up with BIG scientific names. Celebreties in the scientific world. He told me they are the Michael Jordans and Larry Birds of his line of work. He told them his price point. He told me last night that he can't manage with me working so much, that it scares him that I make more than him, that he's right about ready to end this salary competition here and now, and that if he gets New Position with Big Names then I will have the opportunity to cut back at Old Job when I'm done taking it for the team. He wants me to spend more time making New Job with Ms Onry Butt/Dr Hates Kelly's Guts a bigger and better venture. And he wants me spend less time working (and kicking his donkey on the earnings end).

I want a long vacation, flat abs, perky boobs, great highlights, and 3-cars that do NOT presently have the CHECK YOUR FRICKIN' ENGINE light on.

And two more babies.

And a box of custard filled donuts.