Dental misadventures

The last few nights I have had a pain in my tooth bad enough to keep me from sleeping. I figured it's not going to get better on its own, so I decided to make a few calls yesterday morning.

I don't have a dentist in this area. You may remember my post from March or thereabout detailing my painful dental cleaning which was the first in seven years. We only went to that dentist because our insurance at the time would cover him. Well, we no longer have that dental insurance, so I called some dentists based on friends' recommendations. The first one I called only works MWF, the days I don't have anyone to watch the boys, so she was out. The second one I called wanted $172 for an initial patient visit, and that didn't even include a cleaning! My knees went a little weak when I heard that number and the rest of the prices were a little blury in my mind, but a cleaning was about $68 and required x-rays were about $105. Cha-ching! Wow. Dentists are expensive. So I called Wielechowski, the dentist who made national news for getting arrested for fighting in a hotel on his wedding night, because I figured maybe he didn't have much business! No one picked up the phone. Finally I tried Aspen Dental at Pittsburgh Mills and they made me an appointment for 9:00 am Thursday (today). I was to have a free initial patient visit and free x-rays. Seemed like a pretty good deal.

When Dan got home and we were talking about what we had to do tomorrow, he reminded me that I had lessons in the morning. Oh no! I double booked myself. So I was planning on calling in the morning to reschedule my appt.

Well, Isaiah woke up several times last night and felt like he had a low grade fever, so I decided to keep him home from school, cancel my piano lessons, and reschedule my dentist appt.

Oh well. You just never know how a day will turn out!

Small group

I got home late last Tuesday because I was teaching lessons. So I sat down at the table to eat dinner at about 7:15. Isaiah, my mom, and Dan all sat down with me, just to talk. Isaiah brought his kid bible to the table and announced that we were going to have small group. He looked around the table and noticed that no one else had a book. He said in a teacher-ish way, "Does everyone have their books?" We all about lost it! He went up to his room (quietly, because Sam was already sleeping...) and got some other kid bibles for the rest of us. We read some bible stories, and I guess we had small group that night!

Good talk

Have you ever had this happen to you? You're having a conversation with someone, and you're thinking at that moment, "I am going to blog about this." Well, two weeks ago, during parent conferences, a fellow teacher who has been at Eden for quite a while, came across the hall to my room and noticed that I wasn't having a conference at the moment. She had to take a year off probably four years ago because she had breast cancer. She is an incredibly strong, wise woman. So she saw that I was reading a book and asked about it. I was reading the book Parenting is Heart Work by Turansky/Miller. I just told her that I was reading the book because sometimes Isaiah is difficult to handle, and this book talks about molding and forming a child's heart instead of just taking the behavior modification approach to parenting.

I told her that he is so energetic and talkative that some days it just about drives me crazy. Her advice to me was that God has already put a particular bent in Isaiah, and that I should try to see what that might be. She said maybe he'll be a lawyer, because he likes to ask questions, or a pastor, because he likes to talk.

I rarely think of what Isaiah will be like as an adult. I usually just try to get through the day-to-day. But she had a good point, that I should try to think more long term and help Isaiah realize his God-given potential.

Recovery

I feel like I'm so far behind in my blogging that I don't know where to begin! I'll just give you the infamous (that means more than famous!) update...

• Since Tuesday, when I posted last, my life has been so crazy! On Wednesday I loaded the boys in the car and headed up to Clearfield to see some friends from college. The boys were great in the car, both ways. I don't know what we'd do without the dvd player! And what a great time we had with Jess and her daughter, Hannah, and Jennie and Fran and their kids Isaac and Grace! The kids all played so well together, so we all got a chance to talk and catch up. Of course we're all on facebook now, so it's much easier to keep track of each other than it used to be! I got to see Jess and her husband Nate's new house that they just bought a few months ago. Sometimes I wish I could go back and relive just one day of college. I just made the best friends who I consider, in my own biased opinion, to be the nicest group of people on the planet!
• On Thursday, I taught a bunch of piano lessons and went to a baby shower for a little cutie named Alexis.
• The weekend wasn't too eventful, I guess. Isaiah has been asking us since December when the train museum is going to open again. It finally opened on Saturday, so we went over there for a few hours. He was so excited. And even Sam seemed to like it. It's only open for a few weeks leading up to Christmas, so we might try to go again this season.
• I have to say that Dan watched four hours of Anne of Green Gables - the Sequel with me on Friday night. What a guy! He was getting pretty into it too. He threw a pillow at one point, when it looked like Anne and Gil weren't going to get together! It is a great, clean, relaxing movie. Now we're just waiting for The Continuing Story, which I've never seen, to come from netflix.
• There has been some other craziness going on with school etc, but I don't want to list all the mundane details of my life!!! But now that it's Sunday night, I feel like I've recovered from the week that was! =)

Weird day

Today was one long, weird, crazy day. I dropped Isaiah off at preschool at 8:30 this morning. Then I hung around Eden to practice with two elementary chorus classes, because I'm accompanying them in their Christmas concert.

When I was done with those classes, it was about 10:15, so I had just over an hour before I had to pick Isaiah up. I went to the grocery store to get some stuff for lunch, and then I went to the cutest little store in Wexford called Sweet Peas. It's a little pricey, but has some very unique gifts, all handmade by local artists. I also stopped by Once Upon a Child, and found a few things for the boys. Then I picked Isaiah up and dropped him off at home. I helped my mom make the boys' sandwiches, then headed off to pick up a saxophone player for the Lighthouse's golden age luncheon. She and I got there just in time to set up and warm up. We helped serve the food, ate our own lunches, then played a few Thanksgiving songs for the folks to sing along with. I left just in time to drop the sax player off at her house and make it to school in time to teach band. After school I taught four piano lessons, and arrived home around 7:15 tonight. Yoy.

Now I have to gear up to load the kids in the car in the morning and head off to see some friends of mine in Clearfield tomorrow. It's about a two or two-and-a-half hour drive each way. Am I crazy? Yes. I just hope the car doesn't break down and that the boys aren't too fussy.