How was your day?

We fulfil our debt to the Air Force in a little over a year. So we have lots of important decisions to make in the next few months. We always thought we'd go into private practice so we'd have at least a small chance of ever paying off our student loans. Then they raised dental officer's pay and the economy imploded so we are re-thinking our original plan. Being raised in the military-it's all I've ever known and I'm really not sure if I can live in one spot the rest of my life. However, it might be better for the kids and we could always just change houses every few years. So I told Scott it's really his decision and I want him to decide if he'd be happier in the military or in private practice. While every job has it's downside, the endless bureaucracy of the Air Force drives him bonkers. I can tell what kind of day he had a work, by what he does as soon as he gets home:


Great Day-plays Wii w/ the kids
Good Day-Sport's Center downstairs
Average Day-Sport's Center/power nap upstairs
Below Average-nap upstairs
Bad Dad-checks Perio.org want-ads the second he gets home and then takes a nap
Really Bad Day-calls me from work to tell me about an ad he read on perio.org
Reallly Really Bad Day-calls me from work asking what I think about joining a practice in Dillingham, AK

Common Luxuries

My good friend blogged about "common luxuries"-those things that we grew up thinking were luxuries, but we enjoy now and would never give up. Here's my list
-Grated cheese-when Scott graduated from Dental School, I informed him that since we were now we were getting a paycheck every month, I was done grating cheese
-Boneless Skinless Meat-because who wants to be reminded that dinner used to be an animal
-Staying in hotels-growing up we traveled all over the greater part of 3 continents. Somehow we never stayed in hotels. We either camped or stayed w/ friends and relatives. My kid's think going on a trip involves going to a hotel w/ a pool and free breakfast.
-Not packing a lunch-when we took road trips as a kid, we'd always pack a big cooler and pulled over at some rest area to eat. Included in the cooler was always a wet wash cloth in a baggie that we could all use to clean up afterwards. These days we stop at McDonalds. So much less work.
-ziploc bags-no more of the sad fold-over kind for this girl
-Ben and Jerry's-I'm not a big ice cream fan. I prefer baked goods any day, but if I'm going to eat ice cream it has to be a premium brand
-My down comforter and sheets with a high thread count-I literally can't sleep w/out them.
-cable tv, high speed Internet, & cell phones
scrap booking supplies/fabric-I don't even want to know the amount of $ that I've spent on that stuff

We've held off getting a dvr because we know once we start, we'll never go back.

Growing Pains

Where did my little girl go?

So last night Riley and I attended the “Davis Middle School Transition Dinner”. Despite my youthful appearance-I’m apparently old enough to have a kid in middle school. That thought alone freaks me out.
We got there and were fed hot dogs and hamburgers. I guess some people thought it was all about the free food and brought their entire families (weird?). After we ate the principal (who looks like Millie Vanilli) got up and made some announcements and invited all the students to leave (I guess they took a tour of the school, got introduce to all the clubs, played games etc.). Then this lady got up and gave a great talk about adolescence for a little over an hour. It was informative, funny, and downright horrifying. Up until now, talks about kids and drugs, sex, bullying etc. were more or less only theoretical. This time, that lady was talking about the dangers that my actual child will be exposed to and I’m freaked out. I think I’m most worried about the bullying part. Girls can be downright evil to one another and I hate to see her at either end of the “mean girl” garbage.
The lady gave lots of good info and tips. For example, our brains aren’t fully formed until 24 and so teenagers decision making skills are lacking. Interesting. She also gave lots of good tips on communication and setting limits that I will be implementing.
I hope that Riley will always feel comfortable talking to me. She is the second most private person I know (Scott’s the first) and I worry she might not tell me things. On the way home, I was telling her how important it is for her to confide in me. I told her I would be disappointed in her if she ever made wrong choices but I would love her no matter what and I would want her to come to me, before she got in over her head. She told me, “If I ever took drugs-I’d be mad at myself”. Here’s for hoping that all of her choices will stay so black and white.

Blogworthy

So we haven't had too many blogworthy happenings around the Gruwell household. This morning all 3 of my kids slept until 7:17. I'm not sure if this has ever happened before-maybe everyone will be in a good mood today. Eddie feel asleep at 6:00 last night. Let me tell you how much I'd love it, if he slept like that every night.

Yesterday, Scott was in the middle of surgery, when fully armed MP's came in and told him to evacuate. So he stuffed the guy's mouth full of gauze and headed out to the parking lot. Some crazy called in a bomb threat to the clinic. One poor guy was completely sedated and they had to wheel him out in a wheel chair. It took about 1 1/2 hours to have them decide there were no bombs. Now that's a bad day at the dentist.

Eddietainment

So Scott woke up in excruciating back pain at 4:00am on Sunday. He had some left over pain meds and took some, but it didn't do the trick and we thought he needed a muscle relaxer. So we dropped off all 3 kids and Scott's sister at my very nice friend's house (because who's not sitting around wishing that you had 4 more people to be in charge of on Sunday morning) and headed to the ER. We were worried that we'd be there all day. However, lucky us, the girl in the next room came in w/ a toothache (who goes to the ER w/ a toothache?) and Scott admitted to being a dentist, ask if he could take a look, and diagnosed her problem. This moved him from hypochondriac or "guy looking for drugs" status to favorite patient status. They did all kinds of tests just to be sure, but in the end gave him a prescription for some better pain meds and some muscle relaxers. Warning: The Shoppers outside Andrews is one scary grocery story. There was a lady screaming about who knows what and I was worried that someone was going to pull out a gun to get her to shut her up. And we got hit up for money from people lingering outside. If you ever area driving home, looking for a place to fill a prescription-keep on driving.

But I digress, the point was Eddie was at a friend's house and got to go to a B-day party w/ said friend's daughter. Eddie had a great time-who doesn't love going to a B-day party-and came home very excited to tell us all about it. He told us it was a party for a girl, but it was a dinosaur party and she got Bakugan. He was confused and he told us, "Maybe she's just a pretend girl, but then he remembered that she did get some "Polly in the Pocket". So then he decided she must be an actual girl.

As I was writing this, I heard a blood-curdling scream from the backyard, where the boy's were playing. I thought Eddie was hurt, but it turns out he just suddenly realized he was really cold. I feel the same way when I'm cold.