I'm not normal

Yeah, I know. Understatement o' the week.

So, I have this pesky filling. Or had it. Multiple times.

The original filling was put in "preventatively" according to my dentist in December 2008. It fell out in March. Okay, put back in. Part of it fell out in August. Okay, put back in. And then on the weekend, it falls out again. Seriously. What is wrong here.

It wasn't bothering me other than every bite of food I ate was instantly wedged in the filling hole. (And thus, driving me around the bend).

I call the travel benefits people to find out if we have dental coverage while we're here and we do. So I find a lovely office that takes me with very little notice, 'because Chris is leaving for a work trip in a few hours and I reeeeeally need to get this done before he goes, because a week with holey tooth will make me go crazy'.

They were a wonderful bunch. He heard my tale of the ever-falling out filling and I think decided to do the best damn filling he could, so he would be known as the "Filling King Extraordinaire" forever in my mind.

He polishes up the tooth and lo and behold! there's a cavity in behind where my lovely 'preventative' filling had been. (Are you as grossed out as I am by the idea of "tooth decay"?)

Now, let me say that I really like my dentist back in Ottawa, but clearly something went wrong with this process. So, what was a proactive drilling on her part last December, became a angry cavity by September.

Okay. Breathe. It's fine.

'Yes' I say to the dentist, 'go ahead with the freezing and fix'er up'. This was my first proper freezing and drilling and it's not the most fun I've ever had, but it was fine, you know? Like, so many things are much worse.

The dentist finishes and declares that he 'wouldn't have done a better job for his own wife' and says that filling will be there for a very long time. I do hope so.

The freezing is very intense and I'm all puffy and swollen and frozen right up to my eyeball and I keep thinking 'is there gum in my mouth?' and then I realize it's my tongue. The freezing lasts 4 hours +, which is quite long I think and I'm starting to get a sore feeling underneath this frozen sensation.

We drive Chris to the airport, where he flies off to LA for the week to interview some important movie dude. I try to eat dinner and can't chew properly or even taste the food.

I'm asking Chris "is this normal" which is useless since he's rarely had any freezing himself. I call my sister and my mom and ask the same thing. "Hard to say"...

Well, all this to say that it wasn't normal. By the time I went to bed I couldn't touch the side of my face without pain. Sleeping was a bit of a challenge.

By morning I'm still swollen, more sore (with no freezing to modify the pain) and have a lovely bruise blossoming. Yeah. ON MY FACE.

Lovely.

I don't really know why this happened except that I was diagnosed with this in the last year, and maybe it has something to do with it.

So, of course, now it's 3 days later and I'm only slightly sore but the bruise is still bruisey. I keep forgetting it's there, but then I see people looking at me kind of funny and have to do the whole "Oh! Yeah, that's from the dentist" line.

It's hard to capture a bruise effectively on camera, but you get the idea.

Any way, all's well and all that.

Okay, where was I?

Oh yeah, BOYS!

Okay. Say it with me: "Sam is a boy! Sam is a boy! The baby time is gone! Sam is a boy!"

Our extra groovy mid-century fireplace and sunken living room. Oh, you know I've been renovation and decorating this house in mind...

From the Children's Museum a couple weeks ago. This is the mega-awesome digging pit where one digs for hidden dinosaur bones. Charley always says "Mamma, we must be brave" while we're walking up to it.

Having visited the face painting station, Sir Kitty gets back to digging.

That's today's tale. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Oh, wait. I know. Chris comes home. Yay!