many mundane moments

The dentist is always painful

We finally made it in today and the visit was no exception. We had back to back appointments and Matt went first. They were running behind, so we had lots of time to kill. Destructo-Howie tried to tear apart the reception area while we waited. The toys we had brought along just wouldn't do- not even the Thomas catalog that is usually so captivating. When he tired of alternately emptying the magazine rack and brochure holders (Invisalign needs to work on theirs, by the way, I wasn't remotely convinced that I needed the product. To their credit, that could be because my teeth are straight), he did find something that caught his attention. He walked around the room trying to stick our keys any place he could. That ended when he dropped them in the magazine rack, which was solid wood, and fastened to the wall. The slots had solid bottoms and were only wide enough for a few magazines. The keys were stuck well out of reach.

As I sat trying to fish them out with a pen, he decided he liked me again and kept trying to sit on my lap. "Howie, you stink," I said. "Do poop," he responded. Under normal circumstances, this would be no big deal. Even though we use cloth at home, we generally put a disposable on him for extended outings. Today I was feeling guilty about some of our more expensive cloth diapers just sitting on a shelf, so I put him in one of those. I also forgot to grab a plastic bag to transport dirty diapers. I might have been tempted to toss one of our everyday cloth diapers, but he was essentially wearing $20 worth of cloth on his butt (FB + wonderfull for my crunchy friends).

The patient bathroom lacked a changing table or any counter space. Again, usually not a huge deal. I thought I was quite good at just putting my back against a wall and crouching down to use my legs as a flat surface. I hadn't had to do this in a few months, and he's gotten a little better at fighting to get away. He kept squirming, I kept sliding down and before it was done I was able to examine toddler poop more closely than I'd ever expected I'd have the opportunity. I got further acquainted when I tried to salvage the diaper by scraping it off into the toilet with a wipe.

Do you see the problem there? If you do, you're quicker than I am. Wipes don't flush. I think that was stored somewhere in my brain, but I still tried to get them to go down three times. Normally, I probably would have walked away, but this is the office where my sister works. I couldn't be the one who clogged their toilet. I steeled my nerves and made a face (helps almost as much as swearing) and moved them to the trash as quickly as I could. Luckily they float right on top and minimal use of my fingertips was necessary. Looking back, I should have used the pen I had attempted to retrieve the keys with or asked for one of their thousands of rubber gloves. Matt was still in the exam chair for another 20 minutes and I spent a good portion of that scrubbing my hands while trying to keep Howie out of the toilet with my leg.

If that wasn't a bad enough trip the the dentist office, then I had to get my teeth cleaned. Torture at its finest. How did Matt's turn with Howie go? I was done in 40 minutes and they played at the Toys R Us around the corner for most of it. That is so very unfair.

A quick note to Mountain View Dental- you may want to include a small play area and a changing table in the fancy new office suite you are having built. Oh, and the phone in the waiting room is unplugged. You might want to move it a little higher.

This concludes the whining whininess and we now return to regularly scheduled random crap.

posted by Valarie @ 4:44 PM